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I’m one of those crazy people that has to just learn as I go.  I can read and watch and be told and will not absorb an ounce of it until I have done it myself.  It’s both a blessing and a curse, because I get to learn by the trials and many errors.  But one thing I’ve always succeeded with is rendering animal fats.  In a world that has vilified these beautiful, natural fats, you’ll find me running away from the hEaRt HeAlThY and straight into the loving arms of lard and butter.

Rendering your own lard is super easy!  But first, you need to know how to either find it on an animal you are processing or how to ask the butcher for it.  For use in baking and pie crust and such, you will want the purest fat you will find on a hog, also known as the leaf fat.  This fat is found around the kidneys, bulbous and rope-like in appearance, triangular-ish in shape, and there will be 2 hunks, one on each side of the hogs along the back.  They have round, lumpy looking pieces to them.  Once you’ve seen leaf fat, you’ll be able to pick it out of a pile of scraps all day long!

Leaf Lard vs Rendered Pork Fat

I’m going to tell you what I call these different rendered fats for the sake of this post.  Is it correct?  Probably not, but I aim to make things easy for my brain and easy for me to tell you and understand.  So that’s what we’re doing.  Cool?

Leaf Fat

Asking a local butcher for the leaf fat, either from a hog you’re having processed that you raised, or for them to save some to sell you from their own, will get you the purest form of fat on the hog, which means the purest lard.  It’s not connected to any meat cuts and surrounds the kidneys, so it renders beautifully and doesn’t smell porky when you’re done.  This is fabulous for making pie crust and biscuits as it imparts no extra flavor.  I don’t use this fat for soapmaking because I save it all for cooking… soap can use the dirty stuff… which brings me to the next one.

Fat Trimmings

Asking the butcher to save all fat trimmings will get you a bag of scraps trimmed off of chops and cuts and keep it separate from the leaf fat. If you don’t ask for it, you don’t get it normally. It’s usually just tossed which hurts my soul.  This fat was attached to muscle which will in turn get a bit of the meat flavor because most trimmings do, in fact, have a bit of meat attached.  IT STINKS when it’s rendering.  I won’t lie to you.  BUT.  These stinky rendered fat trimmings make the most beautiful soap without using your precious pure leaf fat.  Animal fat in soap is soooo luxurious.  I add some essential oils to my soap, but it will still have a bit of a pork flavor that mellows as the soap cures, but that does not transfer to your body when bathing.  At least nobody has told me I smell like pig grease…. yet!  LOL.

Also, bacon grease is not pure lard, but you can keep that, too.  I consider bacon fat part of the fat trimmings, but will occasionally use it in things like tortillas, refried beans, and savory biscuits.  I don’t strain my bacon grease, but prefer to leave those bacon bits in, so I store mine in the fridge indefinitely.

TL;DR:  

Leaf fat = pure & odorless = pie

Fat trimmings = stinky = soap

Sourcing Pork Fat

I gratefully am able to raise our own hogs, but if you can’t, try and purchase a custom half or whole pork from local farmers.  That’s the best way to do it and the most bang for your buck along with knowing exactly how that hog was raised and fed to align with what you want.  If that’s not an option, call a local butcher and see if you can purchase some pork leaf fat from them.  Many will do it and it’s really not that expensive to buy, you just don’t know a whole lot about the animal it came from, but it’s better than store bought.  Some people will get in a bunch and only want pasture-raised pork and that’s entirely up to you and your preferences.  I’m not going to slam grain fed pork because corn is grass, too.  I do know a few farmers that raise pasture pork and the pastured breeds, like kune kune and IPPs, and they’re all fat and a little meat.  So if you’re looking for a lifetime supply of lard, find one of them!

Storing Lard

As long as the lard is properly rendered, meaning you strain out the solids well and have rendered out all of the water, lard has a shelf life at room temperature for many, many years.  The rendering process is not hard, so don’t ruin your lard by not going long enough or leaving solids in it that will eventually mold or go rancid.  A common myth that I hear a lot on my social medias, especially when I share my cast iron pans seasoning wax with tallow/lard in it, is that animal fats go rancid really quickly and that couldn’t be further from the truth.  I have actually never had an animal fat go rancid, but I have had an olive oil and a vegetable oil/canola oil do so.  I’m not entirely sure where this myth is coming from or if anyone actually has any genuine experience with it other than parroting what someone told them.

I store my lard in sterilized mason jars.  I choose to sterilize my jars in the oven at 225 degrees F for 20 minutes prior to filling them with the hot, liquid lard.  Sterilizing the jars just adds another measure to give something I put a lot of time into to store for the longest amount of time.  I add a hot lid, also warmed in the oven (I don’t boil or steam the jars to sterilize because I don’t want to introduce liquid…. hello mold), secure that hot lid with a band, and set it aside to cool and seal.  If you’re confident your jars are clean, simply fill the jars and then vacuum seal the lid on once it’s cool enough to handle.  Either way works.  And if none of those tickle ya, store the rendered lard in the fridge or freeze it.  I’m not taking up precious fridge or freezer space with animal fats when I know I can store them on the shelf, and you can too as long as you follow my instructions!

Another great way to store lard is to fill butter stick molds that have the tablespoon marks on them to easily measure out lard for baking.  I will occasionally melt down a jar and fill some molds this way so I can easily measure out for pie crusts.  It’s really only if I’m feeling super ambitious, because most of the time I just slap room temperature lard in my homemade pie crusts and refrigerate it after I cut it in.  It works FIIIIIIINE and my pies always win :D  Flaky pie crusts always start with good lard and good lard comes from homegrown pork and leaf fat rendered yourself!  

​Methods of Rendering

You will see some folks using a slow cooker, including myself, and others using a roaster pan, including myself, and then others using a cast iron dutch oven or stainless steel stock pot on the oven, including me.  It’s really whatever tickles my fancy that day.  If I am busy and have somewhere to go, I’ll get the lard started and heated in the crockpot with the lid on, then cock the lid so steam can escape, turn it to low, and walk away.  If I’m already working in the kitchen, it’s pretty easy to chop up the fat, toss it in a stock pot, and simmer it for a couple hours.  Lard goes really fast this way.  Another way is to use a big roaster pan if you have a ton of fat, which is normally what I do when rendering tallow and not lard, since one hog has significantly less fat than a whole steer.

There’s also two ways to render once you’ve chosen your vessel: wet rendering and dry rendering.  I do what’s called wet rendering, meaning I add water to the fat at the start of rendering.  Others will dry render and that’s totally fine.  I choose to wet render because I have found that the addition of water at the beginning not only helps prevent sticking and burning, but gets the render heated and going faster and also lends to a more pure and clean rendered fat at the end.  It’s definitely not hard to tell when you’ve got all the water cooked off either; once the fat is not longer releasing steam, it’s dry.  Time to jar up that beautiful pure fat!

Use the method that works best for you!

Cracklins

The solids left after rendering leaf fat are known as cracklins.  They are a little chewy but oh so crispy and sprinkled generously with salt, are better than potato chips.  If you disagree, you’re wrong.  Get outta here.  Go on, gitttt.  Strain the rendered liquid lard with a fine strainer or coffee filter, then place these on a paper towel to dry out further and sprinkle with salt or a seasoning blend and then try not to eat them all.  The last time I rendered leaf lard a few weeks ago, I was cooking dinner and mindlessly mowed through and entire hogs worth of cracklins off the leaf fat and then realized I wasn’t hungry anymore.  Huh.  They.  Are.  So.  Good.

Let’s boil some pig fat and render us the very best lard!

Equipment You Might Want:

• Stainless Steel Stock Pot or Cast Iron Dutch Oven
• Jars & Lids
• Sharp Knife
• Cutting Board

Ingredients:

• Leaf lard
• Water

I’m going to go step-by-step using my preferred method for lard, stovetop in cast iron.  This is a super easy process!

Step 1: Prep

Chop up the leaf fat or run it through a meat grinder.  The smaller the pieces, the faster it renders. 

I’ve even been so lazy as to throw the entire leaf fat piece in whole with a small amount water and let it go in the slow cooker.  It worked, but took over 24 hours which is nuts for lard, so don’t be like me.

Finely diced fat, as good as your knife can do, is perfect.  If the fat is partially frozen, that’s the best because it can be slick and rubbery at room temperature.

Step 2: Heat

Add the pieces of fat to a dutch oven or stainless steel stock pot.  I prefer to only use stainless or cast iron because lard can take on the impurities in other things, such as aluminum and take on a flavor.

Add in a splash of water, just enough to barely cover the bottom of the pan and no more than a cup of water.

Place over medium high heat and cover with a lid to get things heated up and going a bit faster.

Step 3:  Render

Once the fat is simmering, remove the lid and allow it to gently simmer, stirring every time you think of it to prevent burning.

Once the solids are a deep golden brown (no further or you’ll have burnt tasting lard-skim them out of they’re getting dark with a slotted spoon if need be), check to see if steam is still coming off of the fat by stooping down to eye level of your pan.  Don’t touch your eyeballs to the pan because it’s hot and that won’t feel good.  It’s pretty easy to see.  If steam is still coming off, let it continue to simmer until the steam stops.  Once steam is no longer coming off the pot, I considered my lard to be “dry” as in no extra water remains and as long as the cracklins are brown and crisp, the lard is completely rendered and ready to pour into glass jars.

Step 4: Strain

Ladle the melted lard through a fine-mesh sieve, fine mesh strainer, coffee filter, or several layers of cheesecloth into jars.

While warm and liquid, your jar of lard with appear golden amber in color.  Once it cools after several hours it will turn into the white lard you were looking for.

Step 5: Storage

Seal the lid with a vacuum sealer or by using the open kettle canning method (hot jars, hot lids, hot lard – do not heat in water… you don’t want moisture in your lard… moisture=mold). If you’re emotionally sensitive, don’t read the next part because I’m yelling in all caps.

YOU DO NOT NEED TO PRESSURE CAN LARD.

I WILL REPEAT, YOU DO NOT NEED TO PRESSURE CAN LARD.

LARD THAT IS PROPERLY RENDERED DOES NOT NEED ANY FURTHER PROCESSING AND I WILL DIE ON THIS HILL.

IF ONE MORE PERSON TELLS ME THAT I NEED TO PRESSURE CAN IT I MIGHT RIP MY CLOTHES OFF AND RUN OFF INTO THE WILD NEVER TO BE SEEN AGAIN.

PROPERLY RENDERED ANIMAL FATS ARE SHELF STABLE WITH NO FURTHER PROCESSING AS LONG AS YOU BOIL OUT ALL OF THE WATER AND REMOVE THE SOLIDS.

Repeat that back to me so I know you got it.

I’m sorry for yelling, but if you read the comments of my posts you would understand why I felt the need to type it in all caps, be aggressive about it, and make sure you understand that what the boobs think they know, they don’t actually know.  Love ya!

Happy rendering!

Step by Step Guide To Homemade Rendered Pork Lard

Print Pin Rate

Prep Time: 15 minutes minutes

Cook Time: 2 hours hours

Total Time: 2 hours hours 15 minutes minutes

Author: Ruby – Red Feather Farm

Equipment

• Stainless Steel Stock Pot or Cast Iron Dutch Oven
• Jars & Lids
• Sharp Knife
• Cutting Board

Ingredients

• Leaf lard
• Water

Cook ModePrevent your screen from going dark

Instructions

• Chop up the leaf fat or run it through a meat grinder.  The smaller the pieces, the faster it renders. 
• Add the pieces of fat to a dutch oven or stainless steel stock pot. Add in a splash of water, just enough to barely cover the bottom of the pan and no more than a cup of water.
• Place over medium high heat and cover with a lid to get things heated up and going a bit faster.
• Once the fat is simmering, remove the lid and allow it to gently simmer, stirring every time you think of it to prevent burning.
• Once the solids are a deep golden brown (no further or you'll have burnt tasting lard-skim them out of they're getting dark with a slotted spoon if need be), check to see if steam is still coming off of the fat by stooping down to eye level of your pan.  If steam is still coming off, let it continue to simmer until the steam stops.
• Once steam is no longer coming off the pot, I considered my lard to be "dry" as in no extra water remains and as long as the cracklins are brown and crisp, the lard is completely rendered and ready to pour into glass jars.
• Ladle the melted lard through a fine-mesh sieve, fine mesh strainer, coffee filter, or several layers of cheesecloth into jars.
• Seal the lid with a vacuum sealer or by using the open kettle canning method (hot jars, hot lids, hot lard – do not heat in water… you don't want moisture in your lard… moisture=mold).

Notes

Properly rendered fat (meaning no water remains and all solids are strainer out) is shelf stable at room temperature and needs no further processing.  You DO NOT need to pressure can rendered fats.