Learning how to render lard at home is an easy skill that makes you feel like a super homesteader.

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If you raise your own pigs, buy whole or half pigs from a farmer or know someone who does you have probably come across unrendered pork fat. When you butcher your own pigs you realize just how much of the weight of the pig is fat. If you don’t render the fat into lard you are wasted valuable pig product.

Fat is one of the most important things when it comes to cooking, but it can be challenging to produce on the homestead. Lard is easy to produce if you have some pigs. If you don’t raise pigs, ask around to your friends who raise pigs or buy them by the whole or half and they might have some pork fat that is just taking up space in their freezer.

Ideally this fat will be from pigs that are raise on pasture and are eating non-GMO feed. However, even if they are not raised ideally unless you are blessed with enough resources to buy ideal fat I would still render it and use it. It will still be better for you than seed oils and is potentially free.

Do I Need To Grind The Pork Fat First?

No. I just chop the fat most of the time, unless I happen to have the meat grinder out at the time.

What is The Difference Between Leaf Lard and Regular Lard?

Leaf lard is the rendered pork fat from in-between the organs and in the organ cavity. It has a very distinct texture. When cold and you are working with it the facia that is in it almost feels like plastic. Regular lard is the fat cap on the pig. This can come off the hide (we get a half gallon or more from scraping each hide at butchering time) or from trimming various cuts of meat as you cut up the pig.

Some butchers don’t separate out the two types of lard or will only give you the leaf lard. If you can separate out the two kinds of lard as leaf lard is usually better for baking when you don’t want a “porky” flavor. If they end of mixed together don’t worry about it, it will all be okay.

How To Render Lard

Prep your fat

First you need your pork fat. This can be leaf lard or regular lard. I render the lard from the hide first before we even cut up the pigs so that it is done with and out of the way. Once you have gathered your fat you need to either chop it up into 1″ or smaller pieces or put it through the grinder. Be careful to get as little meat or blood in the fat as possible.

Place fat in pan with water

Once you have your fat ground or chopped, place 1″ of water in the bottom of a heavy bottom pan. I use a huge stock pot, but if you are only rendering a small amount of lard us a smaller pan. Place your fat in the pan and turn it onto medium heat for 15 minutes with the lid on. This gets the fat warmed up and starts the melting process. After 15 minutes turn the pan down to low but keep the lid on. The goal is to achieve a heat where the fat is steaming and melting but not sticking to the bottom of the pan. You can add more water if necessary.

Render lard while stirring occasionally

Once you have the temperature correct stir every 30 minutes or so. This is far from exact you just don’t want the fat sticking, and you want it to melt evenly. this could take many hours depending on how much fat you are trying to render.

Strain the lard off

Once the majority of the lard has been melted down, use a metal ladle to ladle out the melted lard into a fine mesh sieve into another smaller pan. Leave the remainder of the lard in the pan to continue rendering down.

Prep your jars

We are going to “can” this lard meaning that we will use heat to draw a vacuum to seal the jars of lard as they cool down, but we will not be placing them into a canner. The most important thing for this to work is dry, clean, sterilized jars that are heated and nice clean, clear lard. First inspect all of your jars for any imperfections or nicks and cracks. To prep your jars get them really clean and then place them on baking sheet. Place sheet in the oven @200 for 15 minutes or longer if not completely dry.

This can be an opportunity to reuse salsa and pasta sauce jars. The same process applies but you need to make sure the jars have lids that can seal and still have a good amount of the sealing compound rubber on the lids. You will have a higher fail rate when reusing jars but this can be a way to save money. If you have a jar that fails to seal after 6 hours, simply place in the refrigerator or use immediately.

Heat the lard

Once you have prepped your jars place the strained lard it into a clean heavy bottom pan and heat up. The goal is to evaporate any water that is left in the lard. If you see any steam coming off, let it continue to heat for awhile. Otherwise, heat until the lard is 250 or until the lard starts to shimmer in the pan.

Can the lard

It is very important to be careful while doing this part. You are dealing with very hot fat so long sleeves are a good idea.

Place your prepped jar on the counter next to your pan of heated lard. Your jar should be on a wooden cutting board or towel unless you have butcher block counters. Place a metal canning funnel in the jar and place folded cheese cloth inside of it to further strain the lard. Fill the jars. Fill until they are just shy of the rim (1/8″) headspace.

Once the first jar is filled place the funnel into the next one. Carefully wipe the rim of the first jar with a paper towel or rag dipped into vinegar to remove any lard. Place lid and ring on jar and tighten. Using a jar lifter place jar on counter on a towel. Do not disturb jar for 12 hours as it cools.

Continue to fill, wipe and lid jars until all the lard is processed. Within a hour you should hopefully start to hear the beautiful noise of the jars sealing.

Wash and store jars

After the jars have sat for 12 hours check to see if they all sealed. Since you are canning fat there is a higher-than-normal failure rate for seals. Place any unsealed jars in the refrigerator or freezer. Remove rings and wash with soap and lukewarm water. Store in a cool, dark place for up to two years (though I have used canned lard older than that and it was just fine).

If any of your jars have some brown sediment on the bottom or have air bubbles in them use them first.

Enjoy

As with any food make sure to use your senses. If the lard has any mold on it upon opening or smells weird don’t eat it. This means something went wrong. Otherwise enjoy using it to fry with and to make tortillas, pie crust, pasties and biscuits.

How To Render Lard

Materials

Pork Fat

Tools

Heavy Bottom Stock Pot
Canning Jars
Canning Lids
Metal Canning Funnel
Fine Metal Sieve
Cheese Cloth
Baking Sheet

Instructions

Prep your pork fat, either by grinding or chopping.
Place prepped fat in in water in a heavy bottom pan on the stove.
Render lard while stirring occasionally this can take several hours depending on how much lard you are rendering.
Strain the lard off.
Prep your jars, sterilize and heat your jars in the oven @ 200 for 15 minutes.
Can your lard, strain the lard using a metal canning funnel and cheese cloth. Fill to 1/8" head space. Wipe off the rim of jar with a rag in vinegar and place lids on. Let jars sit for 12 hours and then check seals.
Wash and store jars of lard.