ham production

For the production of ham the re are two methods, the oldest one is to cut the piece of the animal and to squeeze until all the blood is out, for this,  a lot of weigh is placed on them and they are left laying on a clean and hard surface some days in order to loose humidity.

Later this pieces are taken to the salt room, where hams are placed one next to others adding salt until they are covered, another line of hams is placed and they return to cover with salt, they leave them during a period that is always less than 14 days, they change the pieces that were up, down and  the pieces that were down, up adding more salt if they are not covered.

 Salty room of ham

The whole process, is intimately guided by the ham master, who is in charge of controlling the duration of the different stages for which the ham passes for the correct production.

Once the ham is ready goes to a postsalting  process, because when ham is taken out of salt this is on the superficial part of the ham and not inside. In this post salting process salt of the ham is equalized, this process should last between 45 and 90 days. Later,  salt is eliminated with a warm water wash, and they rubbed with brushes to eliminate the remains. In this period, ham must have a relative humidity between 80 and 90 % and  temperature between 3ºC and 6ºC.

After this phase,  ham goes on to the cure rooms, in drying sheds of the province of Teruel with an average altitude of more than 800 meters. During the cure period, ham, will develop the aroma and flavour of the high quality hams. The ham from Teruel,  is in the dried room a minimum period of six months with a total mature time of 14 months from the beginning of the process. During the whole process  ham from Teruel is submitted to a minimum of two analytical process, analyzing salinity and humidity.

Cure room of ham, in this room parmesan ham from Teruel will be a minimum of six moths