Preparing for Uncertainty and Self Reliance

[C-Mag]

Who uses Lard in cooking ?
I've been sitting on about 60 lbs of Tallow from my beef. I processed a couple pounds last spring and have been using it here and there. In my quest to get further and further away from processed foods, it's time to get busy on rendering it into Lard. I found this interesting article that is pro-lard and includes background of why Canola and other oils are bad for you
https://www.daringgourmet.com/how-to-re ... ld-use-it/

Anyway. First 20 lbs is rendering in my wifes gigantic countertop roaster. Looks like it is going to make around 4 gallons min.

I'm curious to who uses lard and any tips from the team.

Great for pastry. Use half butter and half lard.
Good for deep frying.
Works well for dumplings.
Much cheaper to buy than veg' oils and better for you.

Thanks Team.
First batch rendered out. Started with 19.4 Pounds of Beef Tallow, end yield Was 12.3 Pounds of Lard.
I have no idea if a 37% impurity factor is typical, but it sounds reasonable. I have about 2 more batches to go, so I will have a better idea when they are complete.

[C-Mag]

SF...



The idea of creating a collective and distributing the farm across several yards is a good one.

Seems a little bullshit, though.

Pretty cool, sub farmer is gonna be jealous.

[SuburbanFarmer]

That guy spent some serious money to avoid leaving the suburbs, wow. Very impressive setup though.

[brewster]

Thanks Team.
First batch rendered out. Started with 19.4 Pounds of Beef Tallow, end yield Was 12.3 Pounds of Lard.
I have no idea if a 37% impurity factor is typical, but it sounds reasonable. I have about 2 more batches to go, so I will have a better idea when they are complete.

I'm pretty sure lard only comes from a hog. Tallow is it's beef equivalent, what you started with was suet. You never hear as much about cooking with tallow and suet, except old school McD's fries and the traditional English 'suet puddings' like Spotted Dog and Drowned Baby.

[Montegriffo]

Thanks Team.
First batch rendered out. Started with 19.4 Pounds of Beef Tallow, end yield Was 12.3 Pounds of Lard.
I have no idea if a 37% impurity factor is typical, but it sounds reasonable. I have about 2 more batches to go, so I will have a better idea when they are complete.

I'm pretty sure lard only comes from a hog. Tallow is it's beef equivalent, what you started with was suet. You never hear as much about cooking with tallow and suet, except old school McD's fries and the traditional English 'suet puddings' like Spotted Dog and Drowned Baby.

Lard is fat from a pig.
Suet is (strictly speaking) fat from around the kidneys of cattle.
https://www.triedandsupplied.com/saucyd ... t-is-suet/

Suet can be used to make savoury recipes such as dumplings, steak (or lamb, or cauliflower) and kidney pudding, beef suet pudding; and also sweet suet puddings, such as spotted dick (made with raisins, hence the ‘spotted’), treacle pudding, pond pudding (cooked with a whole lemon at its heart and jam roly-poly

[Speaker to Animals]

I know mountain men used to carry around bear fat to cook with in their cast iron pans. You don't necessarily have to do a lot of processing to get the same effect.

[Montegriffo]

Come the zombie apocalypse, it will probably have more value than saffron or truffles.

[Speaker to Animals]

Come the zombie apocalypse, it will probably have more value than saffron or truffles.

Unless the zombies are repelled by saffron and truffle-tonic is a buff against catching the virus.

[C-Mag]

Thanks Team.
First batch rendered out. Started with 19.4 Pounds of Beef Tallow, end yield Was 12.3 Pounds of Lard.
I have no idea if a 37% impurity factor is typical, but it sounds reasonable. I have about 2 more batches to go, so I will have a better idea when they are complete.

I'm pretty sure lard only comes from a hog. Tallow is it's beef equivalent, what you started with was suet. You never hear as much about cooking with tallow and suet, except old school McD's fries and the traditional English 'suet puddings' like Spotted Dog and Drowned Baby.

Thanks guys! Always good to get the terms right.
I've been using it for some cooking. It's working well.

This is the first time I've done this. I helped a little as a kid, but in my old sexist family this was womens work and my mom, sisters and grandma handled it. I learned a lot. First, it's messy as hell. I'm doing it in my shop, so clean up won't be too bad. Funny you mention old school, before times McD's fries. My shop smells like that.

Had a total of 57.6 pounds of Tallow, which is just under 10% of my carcass weight. I'm just over 30 pounds of rendered tallow. I experimented with 3 different ways of processing the tallow prior to rendering. Fine grind by far rendered best. I used a steamer pot to strain the rendered fat through an old clean T shirt. Most of it went in jars and 1 gallon honey buckets, but I made 8 pounds in silicon ice cube trays, then put the pucks into a zip lock bag. I think that is going to be very handy.

I've tried to use just about everything off my beef. It's frankly amazing how much of an animal you basically pay for, but never see when you buy beef. My cost on raising the animal was about $2.50 live weight, and $5 a pound for just packaged meat.

[C-Mag]

Come the zombie apocalypse, it will probably have more value than saffron or truffles.

Unless the zombies are repelled by saffron and truffle-tonic is a buff against catching the virus.

I'll bet on lard being worth more