How to Smoke a Gammon Joint on the BBQ (Honey & Mustard Glaze)

This recipe walks you through smoking a raw gammon joint on a BBQ or charcoal smoker, finished with a honey and mustard glaze. It's the slow-cook method on the smoker, not an oven recipe and not a way to reheat a pre-cooked ham.

A quick note on what "smoked gammon" actually means. If you've bought a joint labelled "smoked" from the supermarket or butcher, that means it's been smoke-cured before sale. It still needs cooking. Most people cook those in the oven or by boiling. This recipe is different. It's for cooking either a smoked or unsmoked raw gammon joint properly on the smoker, low and slow, to bring out a deeper smoky flavour than curing alone gives you.

I've smoked this one dozens of times on my Weber kettle, including for Christmas dinner and Boxing Day leftovers. It works just as well in summer when the BBQ is out anyway, and the cold leftovers make better sandwiches than anything you'll buy pre-sliced.

👨‍🍳 Introduction to BBQ gammon

Cooking a BBQ smoked gammon can be a really rewarding meal but the key is the preparation. It is really easy to grab a gammon off the shelf and pop in the oven as per the label. But with a little effort, it can be so much more.

When you learn to BBQ a ham then you are learning some great skills on how to use your smoker. These are more than basic BBQ skills but actually techniques which can then be applied to other dishes such as a full chicken on the smoker or a pork loin joint for Sunday dinner.

📋 Preparing a gammon for the BBQ smoker

Gammon is sometimes a very underrated dish. It is often thought of as that dish with EITHER pineapple or egg which you get from a carvery. How wrong you can be! With a bit of preparation you can make it your own with this BBQ smoked gammon recipe.

Soaking gammon in water

To get the best out of a gammon I recommend giving the meat a 24 hour soak in cold water. This removes some of the salt from the joint and takes away that thirst you will normally get after eating it.

Other pork recipes do not necessarily require soaking such as this pork loin recipe. However gammon is worth doing so to help reduce the saltiness.

Monitoring the temperature

You can check how your BBQ meat is cooking by using a probe to alert you when it's at temperature. My favourite is the Inkbird IBT-4XS Probe which links to my phone and alerts me when the cooking is done.

The probe connects via Bluetooth to my iPhone and so I do not have to be next to the barbecue all the time when doing a smoke.

The app shows you the thermometer current temperature. It also allows you to set an alarm and alert when a cooking temperature threshold is reached.

🥘 Ingredients for a smoked Gammon and glaze

There are few ingredients when it comes to gammon on the BBQ. Aside from the meat there is a glaze which needs to be made to coat the outer skin. This gives it a tasty coating but also a protective layer.

• Gammon joint - The piece of ham you choose should be decided by size varies depending on numbers for serving. Cooking or smoking time for a 3kg gammon will be less than a cooking time for a 4kg ham. I recommend cooking to temperature rather than time though as ambient conditions and smoker temperatures all have a part to play.
  
• Mustard Powder - This comes in a tin or a jar and can be found in the herbs and spices aisle in the supermarket. I prefer to use the original and best (in my opinion) Colman's mustard powder which comes in a distinctive yellow tin.
  
• Onion granules - These again can be found in the herbs and spices section of the supermarket. They come in useful for making curries and adding a little flavour to a dry meat rub. They are an alternative to adding onion and are a bit more concentrated but work really well.
  
• Brown sugar - Sugar plays a key part to a glaze when it comes to smoking meats. The sugar caramelises as the heat comes in and changes texture throughout the cook. With this sugar and the honey, BBQ gammon takes on a really nice and delicate sweet but smoky flavour.
  
• All spice berries - These berries are synonymous with Christmas along with the next ingredient of cloves too. The berries play a significant part in preparing the water which soaks the gammon before the cook.
  
• Cloves - The clove is a powerful flavour for the meat along with giving a distinct look to a cooked gammon too. Whether you are doing a gammon on the bone recipe or a slow cooked gammon, the finishing touch is always the clove detail placed beautifully across the joint.
  
• Honey or glaze - The glaze can be a brown sugar and water mix or a honey and sugar mix. You could even opt for maple syrup as a BBQ gammon glaze. Whatever you choose needs to be sweet and sticky enough to coat the entire joint of meat to give it the distinctive shine.

Take a look at the recipe card further down the post for quantities of ingredients.

Use a runny honey, not a set one. Set honey is harder to spread evenly across the joint and can clump when it hits the glaze ingredients. If your honey has crystallised, warm the jar in a bowl of hot water for ten minutes and it'll loosen up. A standard supermarket clear honey works fine, no need to spend big on artisan options here, the smoke will be the dominant flavour.

⏲️ BBQ setup and cooking times for gammon

Cooking time depends on the weight of the joint and how steadily your smoker holds temperature. The table below covers the common sizes, with the snake method setup explained underneath so you can set up your smoker before cooking.

How long to smoke a gammon joint by weight

These times are guidance only. Smoker temperature, outdoor weather, wind, and how often you open the lid all affect the cook. Always cook to internal temperature rather than time. UK Food Standards Agency guidance for pork is 70°C minimum, and the joint will continue to climb two or three degrees while resting, so pulling at 70°C and resting covered for 20 minutes will land you safely.

If you're cooking on a kettle style BBQ with the snake method, expect to be at the lower end of these times. If you're running a Weber Smokey Mountain or a dedicated bullet smoker, expect the upper end because they hold a steadier but slightly cooler temperature.

What is the snake method?

The snake method is a way of arranging unlit charcoal in a C-shape around the inside edge of a kettle BBQ, with a few lit coals at one end. As those lit coals slowly ignite the next briquettes along the snake, you get a steady low temperature for several hours without needing to refuel mid-cook. It's the standard low and slow setup for a Weber kettle and most charcoal smokers.

For a gammon joint at 140°C, a single layer snake of two-by-two briquettes will usually run for around four hours. Add a second row on top if you're cooking a larger joint. Place wood chunks every six to eight briquettes along the snake for a steady draw of smoke through the cook. There's a full walkthrough in my BBQ basics guide.

Getting the smoke right is a key part to this dish. Make sure to choose a selection of smoking wood chips which are suitable for the type of meat you are cooking. For gammon I suggest a gentle fruit based wood chunk such as these Weber Apple smoking wood chips. Alternatively try another fruit tree wood like cherry or pear.

🔪 How to smoke a gammon on the BBQ

Once your gammon has been soaking over night, dry it with kitchen roll and set aside.

1. Step 1: In your pestle and mortar take the mustard powder, onion granules, sugar and all spice berries. Grind them up until you have a smooth powder ready to rub in.

2. Step 2: Cover the gammon joint in honey or the glaze. You can then wrap in cling film for a little while (at least 30 minutes) to allow some of the flavour to penetrate.
   For a glaze, you can try Jack Daniels BBQ glazes which offer smoky flavour even before being cooked.

3. Step 3: Set up the smoker for a steady 140°C and pin the cloves into the joint. The aim is an internal temperature of 70 to 72°C, which usually takes around 2 to 2.5 hours for a 1kg joint.

4. Step 4: Always allow the meat to rest after cooking before carving. This will allow juices to settle and the flavour will be far greater than carving straight away.

🍖 Variations of gammon and pork recipes

BBQ pulled ham - Giving the cook a bit longer at low temperature lets the meat reach 90°C internal, at which point the connective tissue breaks down and the joint pulls apart easily with a fork or some meat shredding bear claws.

BBQ ham sandwich recipe - Use a nice crispy baguette to make up a BBQ ham sandwich which can be eaten hot or cold.

BBQ Gammon on the bone - This is a variation of the cut of meat that can be smoked. The same recipe applies as above. However, when probing for the meat temperature with a meat thermometer, make sure to measure at the thickest part of the gammon rather than near the bone. Taking the meat temperature near the bone will give an inaccurate reading.

BBQ pulled gammon slow cooker recipe - This is a dish which can be done in the slow cooker too. Use around 200ml water in the bottom of the slow cooker and set on low for 8 hours for a 2kg ham.

Air Fried Gammon - If you are looking for a way to do this recipe in the air fryer then take a look at my air fried gammon recipe.

Frequently Asked Questions

🥗 Suggested Sides to accompany BBQ gammon

If you have some leftover honey you could always take a look at making a loaf of bread with my Honey & Oat Rye loaf. This would compliment and leftovers of this BBQ gammon in a tasty sandwich for the days after.