I made lard, but...

[rbruno]

I bought a half a pig last week from a great farm in the area. This was my first experiment with getting a half of pig and cutting it up for meat/roast/sausage/ etc. I asked to have the leaf lard left in the pig so I could render it for lard. I had done some reading on it and how to render it down. It is supposed to be very neutral and people love it for pie crust. So, the fat cooked for a good while in my crock pot while I started to process the pig. In the end,I have two jars of snow white lard for cooking. I had read that the snow white color means it turned out right. But, it still has a "fatty" smell to it. I know it is made from fat, but when I read that it was a neutral lard, I didn't think it would have a smell to it. Does all rendered fat have a smell to it?

 

[Latestarter]

Ummmmm @misfitmorgan @mysunwolf @farmerjan @Mini Horses @Baymule Hopefully one of these fine folks will be able to address this for you. I've used store bought lard before and it did have a mild "smell" to it, but it never transferred to what I was cooking with it...

Grats on your 1/2 hog! Enjoy that meat!

 

[Mini Horses]

Yes, there is a slight pork smell in most. You know it isn't Crisco. It is animal fat, melted.

I actually cooked chicken in some of my rendered lard tonight. There was a very, very slight smell to the lard in the jar, not any "off" smell but, I is not totally "nothing" if you sniff it.

This is part of an animal. Is the pork meat totally void of any smell? No. Trust me, if it goes rancid you will know! I keep mine in a frig and have never had an issue. My chicken was great, by the way.

 

[Baymule]

What she said.

 

[farmerjan]

Agree. Lard is an animal fat. It will have some smell to it. Rancid is beyond "smell" but any animal fat has an "odor" even if very slight. Beef fat "tallow" also has an odor. If you are used to Crisco or any other vegetable "fat" then you will naturally notice the lard smelling different. Nothing you did wrong.

Word to the wise..... pie crust made from lard has a different taste and for some it takes some getting used to. Not bad, just different. It is flakier than any other fat I have used, but it does taste different.
You can use part lard and part crisco, to sort of ease into it..... make sure you blend it well.

 

[misfitmorgan]

The two snow white jars....means you did it right. As everyone else mentioned, it is an animal product. All animal products have a smell of some sort. I use lard or crisco depending what i have on hand for everything. I even use a mix for deep frying. I think being able to taste a difference depends on the person, some people ask why it is so good, some ask why it is different, some prefer butter pie crusts. Most everyone ive cooked for prefers food deep fried in lard though. Once the food is cooked i've never noticed a huge difference in taste for lard vs crisco.

Maybe you could post a how-to for rendering leaf lard....i've not heard of this crockpot method but it sounds a lot easily then the old school way.

 

[rbruno]

Hello All. Thanks for the responses. I plan to do some cooking with it this week or certainly by the weekend. I did use a very little bit in my cast iron frying pan and made scrambled eggs last night. I didn't notice any flavor in the eggs. I guess when I had read so much that it was the most neutral of the fats, it would not have any smell. It is only a very slight fatty smell and I will be curious to see if it has an effect on the food. Sounds like it won't have much.

As far as how I cooked it, it couldn't be easier. I cut it up into cubes along with a little bit of the back fat. Not much back fat at all. I put a very little bit of water in the bottom of the crook pot and turned in on low. I let it set most of the afternoon. I started cutting up my pig around 1 or 2 pm and I think I dipped the lard into the jars around 8 pm. It was the last thing I did that day. It just sat there and bubbled while I worked on the pig. I probably could have had another small jar if I strained it better. I was just tired at that point and wanted to get the most I could. We did strain it but it could have sat in the strainer and dripped for a while.

Misfitmorgan, what is the old school way of rendering the lard? Have you used all the fat from the pig, back fat, belly fat, and the leaf lard? Or just the leaf lard?

 

[misfitmorgan]

Hello All. Thanks for the responses. I plan to do some cooking with it this week or certainly by the weekend. I did use a very little bit in my cast iron frying pan and made scrambled eggs last night. I didn't notice any flavor in the eggs. I guess when I had read so much that it was the most neutral of the fats, it would not have any smell. It is only a very slight fatty smell and I will be curious to see if it has an effect on the food. Sounds like it won't have much.

As far as how I cooked it, it couldn't be easier. I cut it up into cubes along with a little bit of the back fat. Not much back fat at all. I put a very little bit of water in the bottom of the crook pot and turned in on low. I let it set most of the afternoon. I started cutting up my pig around 1 or 2 pm and I think I dipped the lard into the jars around 8 pm. It was the last thing I did that day. It just sat there and bubbled while I worked on the pig. I probably could have had another small jar if I strained it better. I was just tired at that point and wanted to get the most I could. We did strain it but it could have sat in the strainer and dripped for a while.

Misfitmorgan, what is the old school way of rendering the lard? Have you used all the fat from the pig, back fat, belly fat, and the leaf lard? Or just the leaf lard?

When we have rendered lard before we used leaf and back fats but in two separate batches. Back fat is better for frying and leaf is better for pastry. I do know if your fat is any darker then snow white it will have more "pig" flavor to it so if it doesnt come out snow white we use it for frying or sauteing.

The old school way was to boil the lard outside over a large fire for several hours unil it was melted down and the "not fat" sunk, then the rendered lard was ladled off. Depending on how much water was used it was either cooked off by the time the lard was ready or lard was ladled off the top until the pot was nearly empty them strained. The problem with the boiling method is first it takes longer, it smells pretty bad and it is really just a pain in the butt. Your crockpot way sounds way way easier.

 

[rbruno]

I might do mine outside next time. It kind of made the kitchen smell a little bad...... I will also separate the types of fat and try that too. I do have a lot of back fat in the freezer I was saving if I needed. I have bought a pork shoulder from the butcher for sausage, but it never has enough fat in it. I saved some from this pig for smaller batches of sausage in the future. I might just put that all in a pot outside and boil it down too.

 

[misfitmorgan]

Sounds like a good plan to me!