Grilling Ham - Step by Step

Taking your Ham out to the grill is a great way to put some extra flavor in natures nearly perfect food while freeing up the oven for something better, like a loaf of bread for all those sandwiches that will be coming tomorrow. The trick is to keep the heat low and indirect and to heat the ham through without overcooking it or drying it out. Now I prefer to put a whole ham on the rotisserie because it roasts the surface so nicely, but this can be a challenge even with the most forgiving hams. Running a rotisserie skewer through a bone in ham takes a delicate touch and a lot of patience (followed by a lot of counterbalancing). If you've picked up a spiral cut ham then the job becomes almost impossible and if you do manage to get the whole thing on the rod and spinning on the grill chances are that slices will start dropping out as soon as the chill is off the meat. Since more hams seem to be falling off the assembly line these days than coming out of smokehouses your chances of finding an uncut ham that doesn't cost and arm and a leg are dropping. So for this "how to" I'm going mass market and cooking up a bone in, ready to eat, spiral cut ham from one of the big stores.

Since the rotisserie idea is going to tax even the patience of Job we are putting this ham straight on the grill to slow roast over an indirect fire, but first we need to examine our ham. Choose a ham with a seasoning packet and not one already rubbed down with sugar and spice. This way we can control the flavor and get the ham nice and hot without burning up the surface. Once you have the ham unpacked make sure that the slices are all stacked up nice and the ham is nicely compact. Cut off any hanging pieces but do little else to it (that includes excessive sampling).