Sorry I haven't been able to post lately!  We have been super busy!  We are in the process of taking down, moving and putting up my new....GREENHOUSE!!!!  As you can tell I am so excited :)  We hope to have it up and the wood stove in by the end of the weekend (expect a post all about this soon!) 

I said in the last post that I would be posting about our BIG process of rendering lard soon and to everyone's delight today is the day!!!  Try to contain your excitement!  Alot of people don't understand the purpose behind this but I find it to be very rewarding!  I will mainly use it to make my goat's milk soap.  But I also use it for curing my cast iron pots and skillets.  The only skillet I use is my cast iron one so I keep a tub of lard in my refridgerator just for that.  Although I have not cooked with lard as of yet, I have been told and have read that you can use it in anything that calls for shortening.  I use shortening in all of my pie crusts and biscuits so I am anxious to try this.  Alot of people frown upon the use of cooking with lard because they say it is bad for you...however have you looked at all the chemically processing that goes on in a tub of shortening or a jug of oil???  There is nothing hydrogenated in my lard :)

Now for the process of rendering the lard...hopefully with pictures...go ahead and poke fun but I really do not understand computers, just know that I am trying!  We started with two tubs of this size of pig fat and skin from 12 hogs.  We had to cut all of this up into smaller more manageable pieces as shown above.

We then put them in a 25 gallon cast iron kettle.  The kettle set on top of a 55 gallon barrel with a propane burner under it.  We probably put enough fat in it to fill it a quarter of the way full.  Then you just have to stir and stir and probably stir some more until it cooks down and all rinds and cracklins are golden brown and float to the top.  As shown.

Next we covered a metal collander with a Merkley Hot Dog sack, cheesecloth would work as well.  The hot dog sack was just the perfect size to slip the collander into and not have to worry about it slipping.  We used a metal quart size pot to dip all the cracklins and lard out of the kettle to run through the collander.  Next we put the the cracklins into a lard press/sausage stuffer and squeezed all the lard we could from them.  This step is not necessary.  As the night wore on and we became more tired we skipped this step.  After we had strained the cracklins from the lard we put the lard in large stock pots to cool.  We did the same for the cracklins.

We then waited for the lard to cool a bit.  This probably took about an hour to an hour and a half to cool to the point when we could transfer it to plastic containers.  Once it was transferred to the plastic containers we let it sit overnight and harden.  The lard will turn white and any of the small bits of cracklins that made it past the hot dog sack and collander will settle to the bottom.  We then froze all the containers.  As for the cracklins, once they have cooled enough to handle we bagged them in gallon size freezer bags.  From there you can do whatever you like.  My husband's uncle helped us that day  and he loved the cracklins.  We sent him home with 2 bags!!  As for our family we are not big fans of them but our dogs sure love them!!! 

We had to repeat this process several times and it took us about 4 1/2 to 5 hours to get all of our lard rendered.  Well worth the time and effort considering I was able to freeze 110 pounds of fresh lard!!