Making Lard

I promise I'll do a bee update but with tons of pictures and videos it's a long story. However the girls are safely transported and enjoying their new digs.

Mom and I ordered a half-a-hog from Rocky Ridge Ranch. In a quest to use more of the hog than most people I asked for all the organ meat and all the fat to process into lard.  I know Lard, right? Ewww! Ok, but as fat's go it is the most like our own and so easily processed by our bodies. I have been thinking about trying to get the least processed and most gas efficient fats as possible. Turning fat into lard is really easy it turns out.

I got two of these bags of fat weighing roughly 4.5 lb.
















I cubed it and put the fat into a stock pot along with 1/2 c. of water. The water will evaporate and helps the fat not burn and stick to the bottom of the pot.

Left side hasn't been heated yet, the right side is about 15 minutes into melting.

Close up uncooked.

Close up 25 minutes into cooking. See how it just melts.

Almost done. The floaties are called crackles you can eat them, they are like crunchy skin and fat. At this stage they make a crackling sound, hence the name. A word of warning, don't leave the pot because it needs to be stirred frequently.  I thought they tasted similar to bacon but they are really greasy (go figure). I think they might be better with some salt? But I am not desperate for fats so maybe I'll give them to the dog....

I don't have a picture of the straining process since I was by myself, but I lined a wire mesh strainer with several layers of cheese cloth and poured the whole pot through it.  Then ended up with jars that looked like this.

I did have a fiasco with one jar breaking and spilling hot melted lard all over the counter and the floor, after much cursing I got it cleaned up. Ugh!

After about 4-5 hours of cooling it looks like this.

One of the pots I under cooked so the the crackles were a very light brown. The other I cooked until the crackles were a golden brown. The two different pots yielded different smelling lard. The undercooked crackles smells cleaner less like bacon and just like fat or butter. The other smells of bacon or meat maybe, in any case it has a smell. The bacon one I'll use for cooking everyday things, the clean smelling one I'll use in pie's and such (not that I make many pies, but still).

From the one bag of 4.5 lbs of fat I got roughly 3.5 pints of lard. I left expansion space because I wasn't sure if it needed it ( better to be safe than sorry) then I stuck them in the freezer. It should keep for a year+ in there.

I also intend to use the lard for soap making if I can get access to more of it.