{"id":7580,"date":"2020-10-04T18:37:44","date_gmt":"2020-10-04T22:37:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chuckzumbrun.net\/?p=7580"},"modified":"2020-10-04T19:07:00","modified_gmt":"2020-10-04T23:07:00","slug":"well-aged","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chuckzumbrun.net\/?p=7580","title":{"rendered":"Well Aged"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>When we last butchered pigs, early in 2019, I took one of the hams, cured it, and left it to hang in my garage.  That&#8217;s right, no typos there, the ham has been hanging in my garage at ambient temperatures since early 2019, almost 2 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Until today.  On a lazy Sunday I thought it was time to see how it was doing.  I hang hams from the rafters in a cloth bag.  I took this one down and turned it out of the bag.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1022\" height=\"662\" src=\"http:\/\/chuckzumbrun.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/ham-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-7588\" srcset=\"https:\/\/chuckzumbrun.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/ham-1.jpg 1022w, https:\/\/chuckzumbrun.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/ham-1-300x194.jpg 300w, https:\/\/chuckzumbrun.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/ham-1-768x497.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1022px) 100vw, 1022px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>That&#8217;s a ham?  Eww, that looks pretty nasty.  But I wasn&#8217;t daunted, I&#8217;ve cured hams before and they never look good right out of the bag.   After a good scrubbing with a bristly brush it looked better. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"768\" src=\"http:\/\/chuckzumbrun.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/ham-clean-1024x768.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-7584\" srcset=\"https:\/\/chuckzumbrun.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/ham-clean.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/chuckzumbrun.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/ham-clean-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/chuckzumbrun.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/ham-clean-768x576.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Looks pretty good!  But you never know until you cut into the ham.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"768\" src=\"http:\/\/chuckzumbrun.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/ham-cut-2-1024x768.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-7586\" srcset=\"https:\/\/chuckzumbrun.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/ham-cut-2.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/chuckzumbrun.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/ham-cut-2-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/chuckzumbrun.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/ham-cut-2-768x576.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Ohh, look at that!  Perfect!  Cured all the way through to an even rosy hue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"768\" src=\"http:\/\/chuckzumbrun.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/ham-slice-1024x768.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-7585\" srcset=\"https:\/\/chuckzumbrun.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/ham-slice-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/chuckzumbrun.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/ham-slice-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/chuckzumbrun.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/ham-slice-768x576.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Well of course this is one of the best slices I cut.  Long and so thin you can see my fingers through it. I have plenty of hacked up little pieces and pieces thick as a shingle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>While a picture is worth a thousand words, it&#8217;s not worth a single bite.  I thought after hanging that long the ham would be even more dry and salty than a home cured ham usually is.  But it&#8217;s not, it&#8217;s mellow and mild, succulent and salty.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I think the next ham may have to hang for 3 years!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When we last butchered pigs, early in 2019, I took [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7580","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-skunk-hill"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chuckzumbrun.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7580","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chuckzumbrun.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chuckzumbrun.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chuckzumbrun.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chuckzumbrun.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7580"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chuckzumbrun.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7580\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chuckzumbrun.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7580"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chuckzumbrun.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7580"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chuckzumbrun.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7580"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}