Rendering Lard

I went to learn soapmaking on Sunday. But because soapmaking is a time consuming (weeks) process, I have not finished learning the entire thing. So I will post over the next few months as things progress.

So this is Part 1 about rendering the lard.

The equipment:

• Large pots
• Long handle spoon
• Thermometer
• Buttercloth for straining
• Large bowl for straining
• Large flat pan for hardening
• Vacuum sealer and bags or ziplock bags

The idea, last November, was to multi-task. While my husband was cold smoking his bacon, we would use 2 cast iron kettles I got on BuyNothing on top of his little wood stove to melt the lard.

We decided to grind the fat in a hand meat grinder because there wasn’t an awful lot of it and it would render faster in smaller pieces. But we quickly discovered that it was very hard to do by hand even cut into 1” – 2” pieces.

So we hauled out the #32 motorized grinder and it could only handle 2 -3 pieces at a time. We knew that sending it through a grinder would make tiny cracklings, but we were after the lard this time around.

We put the ground fat in the kettles to ¾ full with a small amount of water (½ cup) to just cover the bottom of the pot to prevent scorching before it really got melted. The water would boil off as soon as the fat melted. We also put in ½ teaspoon of baking soda in the small kettle and 1 teaspoon in the large one to whiten the lard. It will darken the cracklings though.

The first problem was the big kettle had a mended crack in the bottom, and it leaked when heated (we’d tested it cold with water….). So it was down to the small kettle for the job.

The next problem was it wouldn’t melt. Because he was doing a cold smoking, he kept the fire low. You want a low temperature just high enough to melt the fat but not scorch it. It wasn’t enough to melt the lard or render it. So we had to think of Plan B.

I had just received on BuyNothing this induction cooktop. I had never used one, but had attended a workshop where one was demonstrated. So we gave it a try. The outside temperatures were in the 50’s, and unusual for us, no wind.

We set-up on the picnic table and set the temperature between Low – Medium until the water was boiled off then set it slightly higher. We had to keep stirring most of the time as the cracklings would cook to the bottom

It took about 45 minutes to reach a 212F temperature and at 1 hour it had reached 250F. At that point we turned the temperature down to medium. The temperature should never exceed 255F. We kept a sharp eye on the temperature.

Some of the cracklings would float and we’d skim them off.

Once all the fat had rendered out of the cracklings, we strained it through buttercloth to remove sediment. The lard appears golden in the photo but it actually looked as clear as water to the eye.

We poured it into my oversize (12½” x 18”) roasting pans to harden.

Because I thought I’d be making soap in May 2018, I put the hardened lard in ziplock bags. But the soapmaking with my materials didn’t happen this spring and probably won’t until the autumn. I would have vacuum sealed it to preserve it from freezer scents for long term storage. I got 21 lbs for soapmaking.

Next up, rendering the suet to tallow before autumn….