# Does this lard look right to you?



## journey11 (Sep 1, 2019)

We bought half of a hog off of a friend the other day and I asked the butcher to save the leaf lard for me. First time I've done it. I was expecting it to be harder than this, just taken out of the fridge. It was a bit squishy and stuck to the bag. And after rendering and cooling overnight it's still liquid, like oil. I'm just wondering if they gave me the right stuff? I wanted to use it for soap making. It will make a difference on my recipe calculations depending what kind it is. DH ate the cracklings. Didn't make any difference to him, lol.


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## Baymule (Sep 1, 2019)

Leaf lard is softer. Maybe for soap making you should have gotten the outer fat, under  the skin,  it is harder. 

Been missing you on TEG. Good to see you.


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## journey11 (Sep 4, 2019)

Baymule said:


> Leaf lard is softer. Maybe for soap making you should have gotten the outer fat, under  the skin,  it is harder.
> 
> Been missing you on TEG. Good to see you.



Yeah, it turned out gross, smells meaty. I've rendered back fat from deer before and it was pure white, solid and odorless. We're hoping to raise our own pigs before long. I have a farm now, inherited my dads. It needs lots of work before we get to that point though. 

Wow, I never realized BYH was such a busy place. I need to check in over at TEG. Almost time to report on the beans I grew for Russ. Life has been kicking me in the butt here lately. I only had 2 little raised beds for a garden this year and those went in very late.


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## sfgwife (Sep 11, 2019)

journey11 said:


> Yeah, it turned out gross, smells meaty. I've rendered back fat from deer before and it was pure white, solid and odorless. We're hoping to raise our own pigs before long. I have a farm now, inherited my dads. It needs lots of work before we get to that point though.
> 
> Wow, I never realized BYH was such a busy place. I need to check in over at TEG. Almost time to report on the beans I grew for Russ. Life has been kicking me in the butt here lately. I only had 2 little raised beds for a garden this year and those went in very late.



If it smells it may have just “cooked” a lil too long. I did that one time and it was like that.  But even when i do lard from ours it is much softer than store bought lard at room temp. I just keep mine in the fridge and only do a few qts at a time since it is easy to make.


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## Ron Bequeath (Sep 11, 2019)

I guess I'm a little discussed after the weekend, I picked up a 3 year old mini boar in good shape and a 10 month old mini pot belly gilt. I went to get the gilt first  and then the boar, both intact, because I wanted to raise the Asian Heritage Breed hog for a pig that produced not an overly abundant amount of meat but enough to get through the season, and lard to cook with, make soap, and grease my boots for the winter. I ask the guy how much the gilt weighed over the phone and the answer was 75 lbs. the second time i talked to him I asked him again and he said probably 85 to 90. I still wasn't sure after seeing the picture on craigslist, but went for her anyway. When I got there i saw the saddest sight, there in a corner was a pig that I knew weighed way over 90 lbs., feeling sorry for her I brought her home and immediately string weight her, she weighted 237 and yes she didn't move around very much. When asked how much they fed the girl they said 2 or three scoops a day, that totaled to 3/4s of a gallon and they had put 23 pounds a month in fat on that poor animal. Yes i did put her on a diet and yes she's not liking it but i honestly think shes kind of appreciating it, she actually walked around her pen this morning, for ten or 12 minutes, dragging her belly on the floor eating leafy greens,  roots, and selected weeds and really didn't eat much of her 1 cup for breakfast and 3/4 cup for supper, pot belly mix from the feed store. Once i can get her belly off the ground to a point where she won't get hurt going outside we'll move to walks in the yard. Please tell people you know, if they're going to get a pig for a "pet", please read up on it extensively. It is inhumane to do to an animal what these people did to this, what was, a cute pig.


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