rendering lard

Butchering is always a busy time, so we often just grind the fat and freeze it, meaning to get it rendered sooner rather than later. Good intentions. So here we are in early January, traditionally the time for butchering the 'neighborhood' hogs -- the half-dozen or so animals we raise in concert with three other local farm families -- to find that there are about fifteen pounds of ground pork fat, and several pounds of suet/tallow, taking up space in the freezers.

This is half the lard, over low heat in a heavy-bottomed, four gallon stock pot. When the cracklins are reduced to small brown crumbs, we'll sieve this and pour it into quart mason jars. Cooled, it will keep just fine in the basement until we need it. The tallow renders more quickly; melted, it is poured into loaf pans to cool and set up. The beef cracklins go to the chickens as part of their meat ration, as none of us cares for beef cracklins. The tallow will be used in soap making.