We bought a whole pig! It’s amazing and I highly recommend finding a great local farmer and buying pasture raised pork. New challenge: I have pork fat! So I’m going to learn how to render it because animal fat is best and I can’t wait to cook with it. This first round didn’t go exactly as we’d like, but the rendered fat is still good and I’m using it. There’ll be another post next time and hopefully it will turn out more as expected. For now, here’s how this first try went.

The lard from the farmer.

I had no idea how to render lard. I did some research and turns out, its VERY good for you. Mommypotamus has a great recipe and walked me though how to do it, but she also has great sources on just how great it is for us. Check her out at

https://www.mommypotamus.com/render-lard-crock-pot/

I followed her instructions and mine didn’t turn out just like hers and here are two reasons I think it didn’t. First, I used regular fat and I think she used leaf fat. I have leaf fat, but it’s supposed to be great for pie crust and other pastries because it has less “pork” taste and it’s whiter. Therefore, I’m saving my leaf fat until I’m sure I know how to render it properly. This time I used regular fat which will be somewhat darker by nature.

Second, I think I cooked mine too long! In other words, I almost burnt it! yikes. I just kept thinking it was not completely melted yet.

I cut it up into cubes and took out the pinkest parts. There were also very hard places that were unexpected, but I took them out too. One resource said I didn’t have to be perfect in this pink removal, so I got the big parts and didn’t trim every little bit.

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Put it all in the crock pot, added 1/2 cup water, placed the lid, and turned it on low.

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I opened it every 30-60 minutes and stirred to be sure it wasn’t sticking to the bottom or burning. It never was, but it did get too dark. I probably should have stopped an hour or so earlier than I did. I wasn’t expecting the left over solids (cracklings) to remain so large and intact.

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I strained it through cheesecloth into a large measuring pitcher.

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I didn’t do the bonus “cracklings” part of her recipe, but I hope to next time!

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So it’s darker than I expected and not as firm after complete cooling. Oh, but, it is so good for cooking!! I made these spelt biscuits and served to our sons with butter and local honey. They ate and ate those biscuits!! They even ate just biscuit with no toppings. I’ve made these biscuits before using butter instead of lard (because I didn’t have lard!) and they didn’t go over near as well. This was a big hit!!

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“Mama! Can you make these every day?”