Rendering lard
 

I bought my self an inexpensive sausage grinder after Christmas and am just now using it. A friend who raises and sells hogs has a ton of fat back and leaf lard and offered me half if I'd render it. Huh - HECK YEAH! She marked it down to $.50lb and still couldn't sell it. Insane. :hrm:

So I tried to pass the fat back through this hand crank grinder and about did myself in. I cut the fat off and now I have a few nice hunks of - I guess - skin.

What can I do with it? I am sure there has to be a great use - not to mention a tasty one. I guess I could toss it in the food processor if I have to and render it down that way. I was kind of hoping this is what you use to make pork rinds like you buy at the c store on a road trip ! :happy:

The first couple of hogs we did here a local farmer that had a butcher shop on his farm drove over with a loader tractor, shot the hog, stuck it to drain and we together each time rolled the hog into the bucket. After he butchered it and hung it for a while he would call and I would go over and watch while he cut it up. That is the way he did it so I would be right there to say how thick to cut the chops. Right on the side of his band saw there was a powered meat grinder. He ground all of the fat for me. He did not smoke the hams or bacon so I had to take them elsewhere. After then I started taking them alive farther to a place that would butcher, cut, wrap, freeze, smoke the goodies, and make the sausage. It would be all done up like I bought it at a store. Everything labled as coming from me and prosessed by them. Every label also had the weight on it. I usually wanted the fat but to get it you have to tell them up front. I am glad I asked. They ground it for me too.
At both places the skin got ground with the fat and in rendering the lard those are the tasty Cracklings. Eat a few then use them for flavoring.

Didn't you get a meat grinder with that mixer deal you got recently?
Several years ago where I was working the manager still is a good friend.
I mentioned to him I wanted to get a Kitchen Aid mixer and a meat grinder for it. He told me to go upstairs and look on the shelf against the South wall. He told me to take the new one and on the other end of the upstairs where all the boxes are stored there is the box it came in with the manual and accessories.
I got a free mixer.
Amazon sold me the grinder and sausage stuffer.

Yep, that is what they make pork rinds from, cut it into small squares and cook it down with the fat. Us old-timers use to call them cracklins, mom used to put them in cornbread, yummy.

Just who are you 65284?
I just ate a large bowl of peach cobbler with ice cream but you are driving me NUTS with cracklins in cornbread.

Everything these days is plastic. :( The meat grinder that goes with my Kitchen Aid included. This one was a cheap=o and just now as I was cleaning I realized there is a plastic piece glued inside that is already broken. So much for cheap.

Good to know. I'm headed to fry up the skins now. Thanks!

Why are you grinding it prior to rendering it? Render the Fatback in one pot or crock pot and the leaf fat in another, just cut them into chunks and render away, no need for grinding them up!!

At home on the farm when it was desired to render the lard, the layer of fat was cut into chunks maybe 2 inches square. These chunks were put into a large iron pot and heated. The fat would leave the meat. While the fat was hot and liquid, the remaining pieces of fat meat were strained out, and could be use in cracklin cornbread. Never did care for it myself, but that's just a matter of taste. The still liquid fat was put in glass jars and the lid sealed. I don't think any more heating was required. The fat would cool off and solidify. For use in cooking, a spoonful of the solid lard was taken out of the jar and used for the same purposes cooking spray is used for today. Biscuits cooked in an iron pan which had been greased with lard before cooking were very tasty. The lard was also used in place of present day cooking oil, like in green beans.

COWS

Because I needed an excuse to use my new grinder. :) I don't plan to grind the leaf lard- I was hoping the grinder would handle the tough skin better than it did. And the instructions I found said having the fat ground by a butcher would make it easier - clearly I am no butcher as all I did was just make things harder. No surprise there.

When I was a kid my Granny cubed the back fat into two inch squares and rendered it in a large iron pot, grinding the skin into the fat makes no sense!

A glass of buttermilk with that crackling cornbread and you've got a meal.

I grind my lard but it is skinless. It cooks down quicker because the pieces are smaller.

It does if you have no idea what you are doing !!! ;)
I don't like the taste of the skin fried. I like the cracklins though. Wonder if the skin will taste better ground up in the cracklins?

I'm no help to your question, but thanks for bringing up some tasty memories of my youth. ;) I was too small to be able to tell you anything useful from watching mom.

Paul

Well, what ever ain't lard ends up fried cracklins....so you'll end up with little crackling crumbs, and little meat skins. Cracklins go well with baked sweet pertators, or just on their lonesome.

You don't want to grind up that scraped hog skin.
There are a few businesses around that take dead livestock, waste from a slaughter factory, remains from Islamic mass goat butcherings, cooking lard from fast food restaurants, etc. They grind it all up, like a giant food processor. The results are used in various products, like lipstick. They do not accept the hide of any animal, because it is too difficult to grind up.
For more information google Render Livestock

Fat doesn't have much of any connective tissue and so doesn't grind well. If it's frozen it will grind until it starts to warm up. However to fit it (frozen bits of fat) into a grinder (except for the really big grinders like professional butchers use) you have to cube it into sizes small enough to render in an iron pot without having a grinder to clean afterward.

About the only time that it's worth grinding fat is if you have ground a really really lean piece of meat and want to add fat to it. When you are doing that it works best to mix them as you grind rather than in batches of each.

That was my Job cooking down the Fat that we had cut into pieces and skim the Cracklins off. We would cure most all the Hog because of no Freezer. Sausage we would take fry it put it in Crock and cover with Lard.

Most Wild Game like Deer and Rabbit just gut, wash out with Salt Brine and leave hang.

Most people would freak now days the way we took care of stuff.

big rockpile

Pork Rinds--boil it in lard to get the fat off. Cut it in pieces. Dehydrate it, fry it up. It will be fluffy and crunchy.
http://baconsheir.com/porkrindmaking.html

I hope that helps.
When I render lard or tallow, I just cook it and strain it into jars. If you add salt and water to it when you boil it, it takes out more impurities.

I guess I will keep the two or three old cast iron ones I have downstairs.
I was thinking they would end up going through the foundry when I get it built. I will try to remember to look around at stores to see what they are selling for meat grinders now.

I needed a new stuffing tube for my old grinder....$32.....Found a fine one at the thrift store....grinder and xtra long tube....$12

Thank you ! I did add water but didn't add salt because I figured it would make the lard salty. Since I'm giving back 1/2 I didn't want to ruin her share.

How about you sell one to me instead of melting it down ??? ;)

It will be fine either way.
If you filter it, I used a coffee filter in strainer, it needs to be warm so it doesn't resolidify in there.

If you do it with salt and water, you let it cool, scoop off the lard from the top, it will be solid, the water carries the salt away.

We butcher a couple hogs every year. I render the lard and sell it at market.

I have never attempted to run it through a meat grinder though.

Heat it and start rendering.

I usually cut it into strips, then when they are hot [and the fat inside is liquid] I run it through a mill. My Dw calls it a 'ricer'. I always thought of our mill as being a fruit juicer.

The 'skin' will fall apart quickly either way. Then you strain it.

It would take too much time and effort to dig it out of the pile all of them are in right now. I did some looking on amazon and there are some good iron ones there so I really don't care if I save these or not. It will probably be two years before I see one of them.

I melt my lard in a small turkey roasting pan, scrap of the top, add water and let cool over night, and repeat 2-3 x's. Then the lard is clean, for soap making

Im going to disagree with that. I have a middle of the road LEM grinder my son gave me for Christmas last year.

The last lard I rendered, I took the slabs of lard out of the refrigerator and sliced it into strip 6 to 8 inches long and about an inch and a half wide.

It went thru the grinder just fine, not choke ups, no problems of any kind.

I put it in my 16" Dutch oven, put that on the long griddle burner on my stove and turn the fire down very low.

After the oil starts cooking out some, I turn it up just a tad.

After cooking it down, I strain it thru layers of cheese cloth and let it cool. After cooling, it goes in the freezer except for one jar that stays in the fridge for daily use.

Its all we use.

say, bobbyb
do you have to pre-heat your canning jars before pouring in the molten lard?

We used to put the fat and leaf lard in a big cast iron pot we called the "cannibal pot" because the cartoons used to show cannibals cooking missionaries in them back in the pre-PC days.

When it got so hot it started to smoke just a bit from the wood fire we built under it, somebody would toss in slabs of pork tenderloin for sandwitches, and they would deep fat fry in the lard. Slapped on thick slices of homemade bread on a frosty morning when I had been working for a couple of hours with no breakfast, that food became almost a religious experience.

Well, crap! Now, I'm going to bed hungry!.....Joe

Never have, so I guess it isnt necessary

This is a cracklin pot:

http://cenla.craigslist.org/grd/4270225627.html

As you can tell by the price, we cherish them deeply.

Fat is cut up into cubes with the skin attached and rendered in the pots, using either a wood fire or a propane burner. We bottle lard in 1 gallon jars.

And thanks to BR for the memory...my grandpa used to put up link sausage just as you described...been years since I had some like that...you'd pull up what you needed, cut it off and shove the link back under the lard.

you get a A+ for always tackling a job and being a doer as best you can.

:thumb::thumb::thumb::thumb::thumb::thumb:

p.s.chilled fat grinds easier