“It’s in how we do the wood chips,” says John Yeo with a wink, the master butcher from Westridge Meats in Toowoomba, Queensland.
He’s not giving away too much on how he’s produced the winning hams in Australian Pork Ltd’s national awards.
John and his wife Lyn took out the best boneless ham and overall winner during Ham Week – their second Pork Ltd honour. “The first secret is we source it from the Jones family’s Pilton Valley pork, which is sow stall free. The second secret is after the [German-style] cure, when we smoke them, the special variety of wood chips, but I don’t want to give too much away.’’
Victoria’s Bertocchi Brothers triple smoked leg ham was voted the best nationally available ham, and marketing manager Tony Rapone says the methods of curing the hams has not changed since the company started 1972. “The quality is never compromised”.
The winning NSW bone-in leg ham was made by Campbell’s Superior Meats of West Pymble, Sydney.
John Ellicott
journalist and author
journalist and author
