Ingredients:
1 Bone-In Ham Shank (un cut. Mine are usually about 9 lbs)
2 TB mustard
Dry Rub:
2 1/2 TBS brown sugar
1/4 tsp ground red pepper
3/4 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ginger
1/2 tsp allspice
1/4 cloves
Glaze:
3/4 C brown sugar
3/4 tsp ground cloves
grated zest of 1 orange
3 TBS fresh orange juice
1 1/2 TBS dijon mustard
1 1/2 TBS apple cider vinegar
Additional Ingredients:
2-3 C Apple Juice
Preheat your oven to 300.
Rinse your ham with cool water and pat dry with paper towels. Score ham as directed in recipe and then place in a roasting pan.
Pour 2-3 C water (or apple juice) in pan. The exact amount is not as important as the water reaching 1/4-1/2" up the sides of the pan. Heavy duty foil is helpful here. Cover pan tightly with foil.
Roast until internal temperature reaches 200-205 degrees. My 7lb shank was absolutely falling apart at 6 hours. I'd say 5-7 hours is a good target range for how long this will take depending on the size of your ham. If you have the time, let your ham sit, covered, for about 20 minutes out of the oven before you shred.
Increase oven temperature 375.
Remove meat onto a cutting board, discard fat, bones (or save bones for soup). I also discard the pan drippings because they tend to be salty, but you can taste yours and decide if you want to keep any to drizzle over your meat.
Place your shredded meat in a 13x9 pan. Or if you have a particularly large ham and a smaller roasting pan, you can put them back in your clean roasting pan.
At this point the ham is great as is! You could set some aside, or pile it on buns with bbq sauce.
If you'd like to make orange brown sugar version, whisk together all glaze ingredients and drizzle over meat. This will not create a traditionally stick glaze, it will simply add flavor. Toss together, cover pan with foil, and pop back in the oven for 15-20 minutes.
For Smoker:
Preheat your smoker to 225.
Lightly rinse your ham with cool water to remove extra salty residue from the juices its often packed in, and pat dry with paper towels. I like to place my ham on a foil-lined baking sheet for easy transfer at this point.
Use a knife to score your ham in a criss-cross patter across all sides.
Rub ham on all sides with mustard. A 9-ish pound shank usually uses about 2 TBS.
Combine all spice rub ingredients in a small bowl and mix well. Sprinkle rub on all sides of ham.
Place ham in your smoker at 225. Place some apple juice in a clean spray bottle reserved for food purposes and spritz ham every 2-3 hours.
Continue to smoke until internal temperature reaches 155-165. (This generally takes about 6 hours).
While ham is smoking, whisk together the glaze.
Reserve 2 TBS glaze in a small container and set aside. The remaining glaze is what you will use in the following step.
Transfer ham to a roasting pan. Add 1 1/2 C apple juice (or water) to pan. Use a silicone brush to brush perpared glze onto all sides of ham. Cover tightly with foil and roast in oven, or back on your smoker, at 350 until ham reaches an internal temperature between 200-205. This step usually takes an additional 3 hours. The thermometer should slide in and out very easily and you should be able to pull a piece of ham off and have it shred nicely. At this point, remove ham from oven, keep it covered, and rest for 20-30 minutes before shredding.
Remove ham from roasting pan and transfer to cutting board. (Avoid shredding your ham in the pan juices because those are often overly salty). If your ham is falling apart and hard to transfer, that's a good thing! Shred ham, discarding extra fat and bones.
Add 1-2 TBS apple or orange juice to the small amount of glaze you reserved. I like to drizzle this over the finished ham and toss it before serving. Go by taste, you may not want to use all of it--its personal preference!
