Posted: 10/13/2021 1:45:25 PM EDT
|
We got our 2021 pig yesterday from the meat processor. One of things I always ask for is the leaf fat. This year I asked for the leaf fat from all of the 7 people that got pigs this year. So now I have the fat from 7 pigs to process. This thread will photo-document the process I use for making lard. Here's the first batch of fat, picked at random. You can see the processing number at the bottom of the pic; I don't know who's pig this came from, other than it wasn't mine. When I can the lard, I'll denote the processing number so if that person wants the lard from their pig, they can get it. This is approximately 20 lbs of fat.  Starting to cut it up; pretty difficult since it's been frozen for a couple weeks.  As much as possible, you want to trim any meat or sinew. Practically, it's impossible to get it all. These make good treats for the dogs.  I use slow cookers/crock pots to render my fat. It's low and slow and the temps are very even and controlled. Most people recommend adding a half or cup of water to prevent scorching during the initial rendering. I don't, because you then just have to boil that water away later in the process: water in lard = reduces it's shelf life. Instead, I use very low heat and a tablespoon or so of Olive Oil. The larger brown crock pot is ours; the lighter smaller one is one I borrowed from our neighbor. She'll get a quart or two as a thank you.   Just waiting for it to melt! When starting out, it take some time to start rendering; the fat is frozen, the pots aren't that hot yet and the heat is on Low. Once you get some liquid built up, you can turn the heat up since the liquid conducts heat so much more efficiently.  Thanks for looking! Stay tuned! |
|
Quoted: Do you then freeze it or is it possible to can it? Thanks for sharing I don't freeze it, but I do put it into the frig until it's fully cooled down. Then it will go to the pantry or to my shop office frig. I don't "can" it perhaps the way you're using the word. I render it into a liquid, boiling all the water out of it, then put it into heated and sterilized mason/canning jars. Lids are put on and then it's allowed to cool. No water bath or your typical "canning" type operation, if that's what you meant. |
|
Quoted: I don't freeze it, but I do put it into the frig until it's fully cooled down. Then it will go to the pantry or to my shop office frig. I don't "can" it perhaps the way you're using the word. I render it into a liquid, boiling all the water out of it, then put it into heated and sterilized mason/canning jars. Lids are put on and then it's allowed to cool. No water bath or your typical "canning" type operation, if that's what you meant. It is and I appreciate you clarifying the process. |
|
Quoted: It is and I appreciate you clarifying the process. Quoted: Quoted: I don't freeze it, but I do put it into the frig until it's fully cooled down. Then it will go to the pantry or to my shop office frig. I don't "can" it perhaps the way you're using the word. I render it into a liquid, boiling all the water out of it, then put it into heated and sterilized mason/canning jars. Lids are put on and then it's allowed to cool. No water bath or your typical "canning" type operation, if that's what you meant. It is and I appreciate you clarifying the process. 
|
|
Started around 11 AM, finished with the first batch right around 9:30 PM. A lot of this was due to using the crock pot on Low setting so as to not scorch or overheat the fat. Pics showing the pour process. The one quart Mason jars were put in the oven around 1 PM to dry and sterilize. There's some controversy of using the oven to sterilize canning jars; some say don't, others recommend it. I use it simply because I'm not doing a boiling water bath (the recommended method). I think that having in the oven at +200 degrees for several hours mitigates if not eliminates most of the objections to the oven method. Stainless steel funnel (hidden by the cheesecloth), two layers of cheese cloth to filter out the small bits and pieces. You can just barely see the cracklin bowl off to the left; I used a SS slotted spoon/ladle to ladle the bigger cracklins out. The rendering wasn't quite complete, so I'll re-render the cracklins tomorrow AM. The glove is to protect my hands from the hot oil and the hot jars (I had to take it off to take pics).  Closeup:  And the yield for this first batch: 5 1/3 quarts. I got 2 1/2 quarts out of my neighbor's "small" crock pot and just under 3 quarts for my "big" crock pot.   Tomorrow morning, these should be bright white creamy lard! Thanks for looking! |
|
Quoted: Prior to about 1980 McDonalds fries were cooked in lard. I thought it was tallow. Either way.... Got done with Batch #2; no pics because some dumbass left his iphone in the RTV and he's too much of a pussy to go get it 'cause he's tired - and a pussy. I won't mention any names - to protect the pussy of course.  Oh numbers: About 4 2/3 quarts. I also have a fairly large cookie sheet of cracklins in the oven drying out. Let them cool with some Himalayan Salt = Yum Yum! |
Yield from the first two batches: 10 quarts. I still have 15-20% of the fat from the first package of fat; plus five more packages after that.  After doing some research and reading, I've decided to change the process slightly. The biggest complaint to making lard is the time required - or at least the time required to babysit it. The hotter you run it or the smaller the fat cubes (or both), the shorter the time required, but the more you have to watch and babysit it. Sounds like a perfect problem for a slow cooker/crock pot! From now on, I'm going to fill the crock pots full of fat around 8PM and set it on "Low" and then let it run all night. This will prevent any scorching, sticking or burning. The vast majority of the time I'm currently spending is simply waiting for the fat to render and liquefy. In the morning, most of the fat will have rendered and all that's needed from there is to boil off any moisture. Should reduce the workday by quite a bit. Which is a pretty big deal since I have ~100 lbs of fat still to process. |
|
Quoted: Yield from the first two batches: 10 quarts. I still have 15-20% of the fat from the first package of fat; plus five more packages after that. https://i.imgur.com/yBaL2A7.jpg?1 https://i.imgur.com/yJE3hIv.jpg After doing some research and reading, I've decided to change the process slightly. The biggest complaint to making lard is the time required - or at least the time required to babysit it. The hotter you run it or the smaller the fat cubes (or both), the shorter the time required, but the more you have to watch and babysit it. Sounds like a perfect problem for a slow cooker/crock pot! From now on, I'm going to fill the crock pots full of fat around 8PM and set it on "Low" and then let it run all night. This will prevent any scorching, sticking or burning. The vast majority of the time I'm currently spending is simply waiting for the fat to render and liquefy. In the morning, most of the fat will have rendered and all that's needed from there is to boil off any moisture. Should reduce the workday by quite a bit. Which is a pretty big deal since I have ~100 lbs of fat still to process. Lard is a hole in my plan. We don't do much frying, but I want to start producing it. My contact that owns a slaughter house said it was a tough time to get leaf fat. Our "county fair" season is February/March. I'm not sure how to source it right now. |
|
Quoted: Lard is a hole in my plan. We don't do much frying, but I want to start producing it. My contact that owns a slaughter house said it was a tough time to get leaf fat. Our "county fair" season is February/March. I'm not sure how to source it right now. Quoted: Quoted: Yield from the first two batches: 10 quarts. I still have 15-20% of the fat from the first package of fat; plus five more packages after that. https://i.imgur.com/yBaL2A7.jpg?1 https://i.imgur.com/yJE3hIv.jpg After doing some research and reading, I've decided to change the process slightly. The biggest complaint to making lard is the time required - or at least the time required to babysit it. The hotter you run it or the smaller the fat cubes (or both), the shorter the time required, but the more you have to watch and babysit it. Sounds like a perfect problem for a slow cooker/crock pot! From now on, I'm going to fill the crock pots full of fat around 8PM and set it on "Low" and then let it run all night. This will prevent any scorching, sticking or burning. The vast majority of the time I'm currently spending is simply waiting for the fat to render and liquefy. In the morning, most of the fat will have rendered and all that's needed from there is to boil off any moisture. Should reduce the workday by quite a bit. Which is a pretty big deal since I have ~100 lbs of fat still to process. Lard is a hole in my plan. We don't do much frying, but I want to start producing it. My contact that owns a slaughter house said it was a tough time to get leaf fat. Our "county fair" season is February/March. I'm not sure how to source it right now. |
|
Quoted: Thats really cool to see. Thank you for posting. Is there much of a difference in use/flavor between lard and tallow? I'm the last person to ask about taste - I can't smell so my taste function is severely compromised. Plus, I haven't beef tallow in decades (McD's french fries from the 70's). |
|
Quoted: Leaf fat same as fat back? From wiki: The highest grade of lard, known as leaf lard, is obtained from the "flare" visceral fat deposit surrounding the kidneys and inside the loin. Leaf lard has little pork flavor, making it ideal for use in baked goods, where it is valued for its ability to produce flaky, moist pie crusts. The next-highest grade is obtained from fatback, the hard subcutaneous fat between the pig's back skin and muscle. |
Got another batch started. Cutting up Pig # Unknown (tag was missing). Note that I got another slow cooker, this time in the 7 quart size; hopefully it will speed up the process: And the yield from this batch. The upper jar is the last of pig #601 that I started with; with the 10 previous quart jars, this makes a total of 11 quarts of lard. This is almost directly in line with the guidelines of 1 lb fat = 1 pint of lard (or 2 lbs = 1 quart); each pig yields ~22 lbs of fat.  Pig # Unknown was rendered in the new 7 qt slow cooker and it yielded 5 1/2 quarts of lard:  Thanks for looking! |
|
Very cool. I'm still trying to get my hands on leaf fat. The local processor that does a lot of game animals and small scale stuff is a spanish dude and he had no idea what I was talking about. I'm going to go to him and show him pictures. The problem is probably just a language barrier. |
|
Quoted: Try grinding it through a meat grinder. It took about 1/2 the time to render out and it seemed like I got more when I rendered some lard out. However, now that you mentioned it: I might try using my meat slicer and see if I can save time and labor on the slicing and dicing. 3rd batch (Pig #604) in the cookers as we speak! |
|
Quoted: Started around 11 AM, finished with the first batch right around 9:30 PM. A lot of this was due to using the crock pot on Low setting so as to not scorch or overheat the fat. Pics showing the pour process. The one quart Mason jars were put in the oven around 1 PM to dry and sterilize. There's some controversy of using the oven to sterilize canning jars; some say don't, others recommend it. I use it simply because I'm not doing a boiling water bath (the recommended method). I think that having in the oven at +200 degrees for several hours mitigates if not eliminates most of the objections to the oven method. Stainless steel funnel (hidden by the cheesecloth), two layers of cheese cloth to filter out the small bits and pieces. You can just barely see the cracklin bowl off to the left; I used a SS slotted spoon/ladle to ladle the bigger cracklins out. The rendering wasn't quite complete, so I'll re-render the cracklins tomorrow AM. The glove is to protect my hands from the hot oil and the hot jars (I had to take it off to take pics). https://i.imgur.com/GE0qDg0.jpg Closeup: https://i.imgur.com/omprnJU.jpg And the yield for this first batch: 5 1/3 quarts. I got 2 1/2 quarts out of my neighbor's "small" crock pot and just under 3 quarts for my "big" crock pot. https://i.imgur.com/o89vT7Q.jpg https://i.imgur.com/HtRvNtx.jpg Tomorrow morning, these should be bright white creamy lard! Thanks for looking! BRILLIANT THREAD OP! Thank you for documenting this. Also, this is an OST.
|
|
Quoted: Yield from the first two batches: 10 quarts. I still have 15-20% of the fat from the first package of fat; plus five more packages after that. https://i.imgur.com/yBaL2A7.jpg?1 https://i.imgur.com/yJE3hIv.jpg After doing some research and reading, I've decided to change the process slightly. The biggest complaint to making lard is the time required - or at least the time required to babysit it. The hotter you run it or the smaller the fat cubes (or both), the shorter the time required, but the more you have to watch and babysit it. Sounds like a perfect problem for a slow cooker/crock pot! From now on, I'm going to fill the crock pots full of fat around 8PM and set it on "Low" and then let it run all night. This will prevent any scorching, sticking or burning. The vast majority of the time I'm currently spending is simply waiting for the fat to render and liquefy. In the morning, most of the fat will have rendered and all that's needed from there is to boil off any moisture. Should reduce the workday by quite a bit. Which is a pretty big deal since I have ~100 lbs of fat still to process. OP, I am not a "gadget" person, but you need an electric knife. This is the PERFECT use for one of those. If I had one stashed, I'd send it to you. |
|
Quoted: Thats really cool to see. Thank you for posting. Is there much of a difference in use/flavor between lard and tallow? Yes. Lard is magic. Bakers want lard. Your great grandmother's pie crusts were cuz...lard.  ETA: Sorry, OP, for the "posts in a row" Y'all are used to me playing ketchup by now but I don't mean to spam. 
|
|
Quoted: I hope you saved those cracklins to put in cornbread. The only conclusion that I can come to is that I'm not rendering out enough of the lard. Which means 10-12 hours on "Low" isn't enough. |
|
Quoted: My cracklns aren't coming out good. I've baked them for an hour at 375 and they are still soft, mushy and greasy; not very palatable and certainly not a snack I'd want to eat. Most recipes call for 20-30 minutes at 350. The only conclusion that I can come to is that I'm not rendering out enough of the lard. Which means 10-12 hours on "Low" isn't enough. I've never tried rendering lard in a crockpot. We always used a bid cast iron stew pot over a gas burner. Do you have a deep fryer? Try deep frying them in some of the lard. |
Your doing this all wrong You leave the pieces of meat on and you fry on a pan on low/medium similar to bacon except you need to add salt. All the fat will come out except you will have awesome cracklings. What’s left of this mornings batch.  No rendering beforehand required throw it straight onto the frying pan. Fat will come out as you cook it. Help it along by pressing down on the meat with a spatula as you cook it. |
|
Quoted: I've never tried rendering lard in a crockpot. We always used a bid cast iron stew pot over a gas burner. Do you have a deep fryer? Try deep frying them in some of the lard. This. Cracklins have to be fried. My folks didn't do cracklins, so I don't have much experience. But friends "fry" the cracklins. That's all I know. |
|
Quoted: Your doing this all wrong You leave the pieces of meat on and you fry on a pan on low/medium similar to bacon except you need to add salt. All the fat will come out except you will have awesome cracklings. What's left of this mornings batch. https://www.ar15.com/media/mediaFiles/476203/A6DDA6CE-05D1-48D2-A631-A84D6EC655DC-2147703.jpg No rendering beforehand required throw it straight onto the frying pan. Fat will come out as you cook it. Help it along by pressing down on the meat with a spatula as you cook it. The reason for removing most of if not all the meat is to reduce the imparting of "pork" flavor to the lard. Not that big of a deal if used for frying; big deal if used for pastries etc. I'll start the next batch next Monday or so. Thanks! |
The last of Pig #604; note the large chunks (more about this later): And the yield: About 4 quarts (there is another quart jar that was half filled):  And I started on Pig #603 this morning - this one is our pig.   And as promised, I used my Cabela's meat slicer to cut it up. Much more easier! Not only is it easier, it's faster and, I believe, safer. Win, win, win. Most cutting with a knife now is limited to cutting large pieces for the slicer or smaller pieces that won't fit. Note the size of some of the chunks; it apparently has made no difference in yield or rendering that I can tell.  Thanks for looking! |
|
Quoted: I am not allowed to render lard in the house... To her at least, it has a certain smell. She puts up with me extremely well. I do all my rendering in the garage. Plus it helps using crock pots since they don't overheat the fat. She still had to open the kitchen window due to the smell from just me going into and out of the garage.  And the yield from our pig #603, just under 9 quarts. This is the first time I've been able to render the fat from one pig all at once.   |
|
Quoted: Can your wife smell ants in the house? My wife can. My wife is extremely sensitive to smells - as opposed to me who can't smell a skunk. I do all my rendering in the garage. Plus it helps using crock pots since they don't overheat the fat. She still had to open the kitchen window due to the smell from just me going into and out of the garage. And the yield from our pig #603, just under 9 quarts. This is the first time I've been able to render the fat from one pig all at once. https://i.imgur.com/Pb8tMQS.jpg?1 https://i.imgur.com/UMTjGDV.jpg I can't smell ants, but i can smell a tiny leak in a pipe under the house (I smell the dampness) and I can smell the tiniest of electrical shorts. I can also hear them if the house is quiet. I've saved a couple of house fires from happening to other people because I was at their house and either smelled or heard a short in a socket or outlet. Electrician came out and said, "yep, that was a fire about to happen." Of course, electricians think everything is a fire about to happen. uxb cannot smell much of anything.  He can clean guns and sleep in the same room. I threatened divorce last time he cleaned a gun in the bedroom. Interesting that your wife can smell ants. Any specific kind? Like...even the tiny ones? |
|
Quoted: Anti-archival post. We use our lard virtually every day. During the Christmas holidays and at least one birthday party since then, my wife has made many pies; all used our lard for the crusts. She won't use anything else now.  Thanks for the bump. Our hog is getting processed early February. |
|
Quoted: Thanks for the bump. Our hog is getting processed early February. Quoted: Quoted: Anti-archival post. We use our lard virtually every day. During the Christmas holidays and at least one birthday party since then, my wife has made many pies; all used our lard for the crusts. She won't use anything else now. Thanks for the bump. Our hog is getting processed early February. Good luck!!! |
| I was really looking forward to trying this process this year. Me and some family members bought, kilt, hung and processed 2 hogs back in November. Between the 2 (275ish pounders) of them, there was so little leaf fat (couldn't have been but 5 or 6 pounds), that we just gave it all to one cousin. Several of the local guys that process their own hogs every year claim that because of the genetics the hogs are a lot leaner than they were "back in the day". |
|
Quoted: I was really looking forward to trying this process this year. Me and some family members bought, kilt, hung and processed 2 hogs back in November. Between the 2 (275ish pounders) of them, there was so little leaf fat (couldn't have been but 5 or 6 pounds), that we just gave it all to one cousin. Several of the local guys that process their own hogs every year claim that because of the genetics the hogs are a lot leaner than they were "back in the day". Our ranch hogs are ordinarily pretty lean. Periodically, we do get a bumper crop of acorns though. Attached File We used to trap, castrate and release bars, but have gotten lazy with age. The dbag in chief has me rethinking a return of the practice. It's time to teach the kids anyway I guess. |
|
Lard is under rated nowadays. It makes the best pie crust and biscuits & eggs seem to fry up better in it. It’s actually a healthier alternative to butter. Lard wiki |
