Making Lard

Last year, when I ordered my side of pig, Farmer Allan asked me if I wanted the fat.  I declined and when Sean and my friend Katherine said "what, you didn't want the fat" I knew I had made a mistake.

This year, I said yes indeed give me the fat.  I thought it was going to come as lard but as Allan told me, it's not cost effective for the butcher to make lard.  So what I got was a bag of frozen fat.  Today I decided to try and make lard. It didn't look hard.  I took the fat out of the freezer a couple of days ago.

Bag o fat

Cut into chunks

Put into Dutch Oven.  Bake at 250 for several hours until mostly melted and bits of fat are brown

Take out all bits of brown fat.  I put them back into a pot and melted again on top of the stove.  Strain out fat again.

Lard - in process.  Needs to cool and solidfy

And the brown fat bits?  Called Cracklings and I can't stop eating them.  Delicious

The final result