Rendering Lard...sort of...

[turtleblossom]

OK, let me start by saying that I know that lard comes from pigs, but I didn't have any pork fat, so I used what I had.

Whenever I trim meat for dinner, I always save the fat and meat scraps. DH said we needed the room in the freezer for real food, so I decided to thaw it all out and put it thru a meat grinder. I had mostly beef scraps with some lamb.
I put all that grisely, fatty goodness in an enamel lined cast iron pot, and set the heat on med. After it all melted I had maybe 8 cups of hot fat and tissue. I added 4 cups of water and brought the mixture briefly to a boil.
I let it cool, and then put it on the back porch for the night (it wouldn't fit in the fridge). The next morning I had a nice thick disk of fat...sitting on a big block of gelatin!
It was easy enough to remove the fat and re-melt it. I plan on repeating the process several times to "clean" all the meat out of the fat.
But what should I do with the hamburger/gelatin stuff? I could heat it up and strain the meat out...but then what? Will wild birds eat it? Will chickens eat it?

Has anyone else done this?

 

[KatyTheChickenLady]

I would mix it with peanut butter and sunflower seeds then freeze and put out for wild birds and squirels in the winter.

 

[flora]

Give the gelatin stuff to your dogs. Just stir it into their dry food or other food you give them.

 

[ScoobyRoo]

THAT's what I need to do soon. You just reminded me about my beef fat. I had the butcher package the suet from our cow so that I could make chicken treats with it. As the other posters mentioned, mix with treats and give it to the animals. Thats what I'm going to do. My chooks Loooove me!