Draining the Pork Water

Every few days you have to drain the hams. The salt does it's job slowly absorbing and pulling moisture away from the meat. These guys could lose up to half it's body weight.

It was a wet mess and I do my own photography so you'll just have to imagine the pork water.

As you can see in this close-up this bone used to be even with the meat and now it's about a inch higher than the meat line.

Then they get wrapped up again. I've also bought more ice.

Oh and this happened:

A flesh wound, no blood, didn't even notice at first. I think when I was moving the slate tiles, a scratched myself on a loose slate chip.

Salting the hams

For the first three weeks of their second life these hams will be salted, wrapped, pressed and cooled to a temp of 34-38dgF

Here is my work table



Aluminum pan with a layer of salt with ham on top



A healthy salt massage



Wrapped tightly with saran wrap, which a workout and weighted down with heavy slate tiles