Remember how we were getting our pig? Well, we didn’t get that many creative cuts, but we did get a few. First off, we had one side made into chops and the other into loin roasts – the best of both worlds. Then we had the picnic hams (arms) cut into stew meat and ground pork instead of having yet more fresh ham. Finally, we got not only the feet (details in a minute) but the leaf lard from two whole pigs (close to 20 10 lbs) and the back fat from our pig (also A LOT of lard).
The feet came complete with fuzzy hair as our butcher skins, not scalds. Nothing prepared me for that fact and so there are currently 4 little white feet in our freezer waiting for me to figure out what to do with them 
The leaf lard is also in the freezer in large chunks. Tonight I think I’m going to render down the first of it in preparation for making Risotta and Cranberry Beans with Pancetta on Wed night (my first try from Steve’s book) and pies on Thursday morning.
Wish me luck as I’ve never in my life rendered lard, and really never thought I would. Hopefully I won’t screw this up…
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Update: I realized after I posted that I really didn’t have time to do this tonight as the lard had to thaw first. Stay tuned as it’s thawing in the fridge. I’ll likely be rendering all night Wednesday in hopes to still use it Thursday in pies.
Anyone have a recommendation of doing it in the oven vs. the crockpot vs. on the stove? I’ve now read about all 3 methods and I’m not sure which way to go.
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Awesome!!! How exciting!
Let me know if you should ever find you have too much lard, especially leaf lard … we’ll pay you for it!
Please post more about the leaf lard when you can. What does it look like now? How will you render it? What does it look like as it renders? How long does the process take? How will you store your left-over lard after you render it? I’m fascinated!
Happy Thanksgiving
Luck and congratulations! I have had the best luck keeping my rendered lard in WM quart canning jars in the freezer. I keep one in the fridge for having on hand. The wide mouth is so much easier to clean when you are done with the lard.
Thanks Lauren – I figure if I use it often this might last me the whole year or more. Also, there was a typo above – it seems there was only one bag of leaf lard, not two. Apparently I have A LOT of back fat and half the leaf lard I thought. I dunno, there might be leaf lard mixed in with the back fat too…
Cindy – just for you I will photo document the whole process when I get to it Wed night!
Throwback – I was just trying to decide what size jars to use. I’ve got a bunch of empty quarts, a couple empty pints and some empty 6 oz jelly jars. Are quarts the way to go?
Laura – we rendered on a propane burner last year and it was way too hot and uneven. The wife of the farmer that raises our chicken, pork and beef, gave me a couple of jars that she rendered, slowly, in the oven. It’s really nice and white and smooth. I’d recommend the oven – more even heat, you can keep it at a lower temperature and I think you’ll have less mess.
Hi Laura – I have rendered lard on the stove top in 2 very large cast iron dutch ovens – took many hours on a very low heat but it was WAY worth it. I poured the finished product through cheesecloth into 2 -5 lb. coffee cans and stuck one in the freezer and one in the fridge. That was 2 years ago and they are both still very good. I have a great recipe for pie dough using 1/2 butter and 1/2 lard – extremely fool proof. Let me know if you’d like it.
I think the oven would be too hot, and too hard to keep an eye on. The crockpot sounds interesting, but I’d worry about temperature control. Especially for leaf lard, you want it to stay pristine and white. I find that it helps to cut the un-redendered lard into the smallest pieces you can bear beforehand, and start it out in a good amount of water. (Once it cools and hardens, you can pour the water off.)
I’m spooked about glass in the freezer, mostly because ours is like Fibbar McGee’s closet. I usually chunk it up into pie-crust-recipe sized pieces, freeze the blocks on a tray, and then vacuum-seal them. (If you don’t freeze them first, they can melt under pressure and gum up your sealer; please don’t ask how I know this.)
I’d agree with low heat. I render our back fat on the stove in a cast iron pan and if it gets too hot you get solids precipitating out, which are delicious in sauces but maybe not for pie dough. Marcia’s cheesecloth idea would get around that too. Oooh, you are going to love those pies! Happy turkey day!
I use quarts, but any size would do just fine. It keeps really well if frozen right away and then just a jar transferred to the fridge as needed. Anita LOL, I dropped a jar of lard last week, the jar broke in two perfect pieces and the Kerr logo was perfectly imprinted on my “jar” shaped block of lard.
I melted it and strained it and was surprised there wasn’t one piece of glass.
The leaf lard will should look more like a clump of fat, than a piece of fat that has been trimmed. If they were pretty careful with it, you might be able to tell.
On the rendering, I do prefer the low heat of the oven, and straining into containers. The heat seems less direct than a burner, but there is more than one way to skin a cat…
Great ideas all! In the end I’m rendering it now on the stove in my 9 qt dutch oven. I cut about 2.5 pounds into 1/2″ cubes and started it in about 1/4″ of water. It’s been almost 2 hours, I can see that this may be a LONG process.
Anita, Throwback: How funny, we had a quart jar of diced tomatoes that failed to seal crack in the freezer. Same thing – I pulled the jar pieces off, rinsed the jar shaped ice block to remove any glass shards, and off we went!
I plan to strain it straight into jars and then put most into the freezer.
Hi Laura — I rendered leaf lard for the first time about a month ago, and will be making my first lard and butter pie crusts Thursday. I’m excited to see how they turn out!
A tip that I got from another blogger: after chopping up the lard, toss the chunks in your food processor, and grind them into a paste before rendering on the stove. Lots more surface area that way; the 4 1/2 pounds I had took a little over 2 hours to render (in 2 dutch ovens).