On March 25th I prepared the ham cure brine according to Chuckwagon`s instructions.
I placed the meat into a clean food lug to contain the brine as I administered the brine injections.
The meat weighed a little over 11 1/2 pounds, and I calculated the cure to be injected at 18 1/2 OZ. I was able to locate and use the main artery, but it seemed that too much of the brine was leaking from the two cut edges. I injected about 30% into the artery and the remainder of the brine was distributed around the bone and throughout the meat. The picnic ham was then immersed into a 3 1/2 gal. food service bucket. The ham was not completely under the brine, so I recalculated the brine formula for one quart and added it to the bucket. Now the ham was submerged.
Unfortunately, I didn`t even think to get any pictures of that part of the process. I guess I was just concentrating too much on matter at hand.
This past Sunday I poached the shoulder ham I had been curing.
The ham had been resting for about 12 hours.
Not knowing how much water to start with, I place the cured ham into the pot and added water to cover it. Then I removed the ham and heated the water to boiling. I let it boil for 15 minutes then added cold water to drop the temperature to 174°F. I tried to hold this temperature between 168°F and 174°F, and was surprised that it still took over five hours to reach 150°F. The ham was transferred back to the washed and clean brine bucket where ice and cold water lowered the temperature to 99°F, which took another three hours.
The finished ham was placed on a drying rack overnight in the refrigerator, and wrapped in butcher paper the next morning.
Yes, we did cut some small samples from the large end. It did not taste very salty, but I guess most of the surface salt was washed out during the poaching. I`m counting on the interior salt levels balancing to the outside over the next week.
The taste and texture was wonderful! The color was a light pink, not near as dark as some smoked hams I have had. We are looking forward to tasting it with family. This ham will be Easter dinner for a dozen people, and I am counting on left-over`s!
Thanks for looking!
Jim
So, if you smoke the ham, please get it into a refrigerator as soon afterward as possible until you reheat it for serving. Use plastic gloves to handle it, and make sure the shelves in your smoker are clean too, or simply hang it while smoking. 
