A Wife of Grace: [mis]Adventures in Rendering Lard

On our path to be more natural and healthy, we purchased a half pig and quarter cow from a local farmer. We got the pig already, but we are still waiting on the cow. The animals that we got are raised on a healthy diet, with no hormones or antibiotics, and our cow is mostly grass-fed. That means that the fat of the animals are nutrient full, and we didn’t want the free fat to go to waste, so I decided to render lard.

Rendering is just the process of melting the fat, and straining out anything else. Lard is usually made from one or two different areas of fat on the pig, although pretty much any place with enough fat can be rendered. There is the leaf fat, which is around the kidneys and loin and is the most prized fat. There is also the back fat, which as you can guess comes from the back. There are also two ways to render the fat: wet or dry. Wet adds water when melting the fat and produces a more mild-tasting, higher smoke point lard. Dry is rendered without adding water and produces a more pig-like flavor and has a lower smoking point. After you are done rendering and straining your lard, you are left with little bits of meat, skin, and membrane tissue called cracklings.

Now the lard that I rendered, like I said above, is full of nutrients. The lard that you can buy at the store is nothing like this. “Industrially-produced lard, including much of the lard sold in supermarkets, is rendered from a mixture of high and low quality fat sources from throughout the pig. To improve stability at room temperature, lard is often hydrogenated… Lard is also often treated with bleaching and deodorizing agents, emulsifiers, and antioxidants, such as BHT.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lard) Yeah, there is no way I would eat that either!

Now on to my adventures in lard rendering…

I had done some research before I started this process, since I have never known anyone that renders their own lard (or at least they’ve never mentioned it). I decided on the wet rendering with a crock-pot with the lid on. In my research, some people had mentioned an off-smell when rendering so I waited until we had a nice enough day that I could have a few windows open. The actual rendering of the lard was not to smelly; it was the cooking of the cracklings that did me in, but more on that later. Since this was my first time, I will tell you what I did and what I would change.

Here are my specs:

8 quart crock-pot, lowest heat setting
approximately 7.5 lbs pork fat
½ cup water

The butcher that we went through only gives pig fat in one way: both leaf and back fat mixed together, put through the sausage grinder, and then frozen. If I had a choice, I would have gotten them separate and not grinded. You do want your fat in as little pieces as possible, and easily separated. My mass hunk of fat took a long time to cook down.

I started around 10:30 in the morning, dumped in the fat and water, tried to put the lid on, and turned on the crock-pot. I let it cook for an hour, then I went and broke off what was softened on the mass hunk of fat, and stirred it around, then put the lid back on. I repeated this ever hour until all the fat was melted and most of my cracklings were on the bottom of the crock-pot. It took until 4:15 PM before it was done. From what I have read, people can do this in just a few hours, but since my fat was about as big as a basketball, it was a long process.

I then strained out all the fat (about 3 - 1.5 qt. jars) and put the cracklings on two pans since there was so much. I cooked them at 350° for about twenty minutes. As the cracklings were cooking, the smell filled the entire house. It smelled like dirty, wet pig. By the end of the twenty minutes, I was so nauseated that I turned off the oven, left the cracklings where they were at, and retreated to the only place in the house that didn’t smell like the worst farm you have ever been on. And then I waited for my husband to come home (thanks honey!). I’m guessing that I did something wrong there, but I can’t tell exactly what, since I followed instructions from multiple websites.

The verdict?

I think I would definitely make lard again, as long as it works well in food; we haven’t used it yet. I would never again bake the cracklings, ever. Not happening.

I wish I could have gotten the two fats separated and not ground from the butcher. I would have preferred to render them separately and would have cut it myself, so that I could get out as much of the meat and other bits. Supposedly, this is the stuff that can make your lard taste kind of pig-like.

I also would have strained out the fat as it melted. This does two things: the lard tastes better the less it cooks, and if you burn your lard at some point in the process, you still have what you already strained out. I think I would have also used a coffee filter to strain it out better and smaller jars. I’m going to keep one jar in the refrigerator and the other two in the freezer to ensure that they are safe to consume. Smaller containers would just help in that aspect.

Update: The lard came out perfect! I could even use this in pastries and plan on making a pie crust with this. So even if it doesn't seem like it worked out still try it and it may be good. I am so doing this again next year.

And now to the pictures of the process in case you want to attempt this yourself: