Lard 4

If you're wondering how many parts this lard thing is going to turn into, you're not the only one! Bear with me...I'm just not done talking about it quite yet! There's a lot to say on the subject!

I am little dissapointed in the amount of lard I'm going to get from this pig fat. I bought 60 pounds, but it isn't even going to make 5 gallons of lard. I think I'll get 4 gallons by the time I'm done. I've already melted all of it, but I put some of it back in to try to get a little more lard out of it. I need about 3 more cups to make 4 gallons, so I'm going to try to squeeze that much out of it. The problem is the fact that there was so much meat in it...if I had taken the time to trim the meat out before I chopped and ground the fat, I'm pretty sure I could've gotten at least one, if not two meals for our family. So, maybe it would have been more cost efficient to do it that way. I think I will keep an eye on the lard prices and only buy when it is $0.80 a pound or cheaper, especially if it isn't all pure fat. I would've gotten so much more if it was all fat!

My price breakdown, based on getting 4 gallons of lard from the 60 pounds of "stuff" compares to the other oils we use as follows.

I paid $66.00 for 60 pounds of pig fat. Turned into 4 gallons of lard, it is $16.50 a gallon.

We buy coconut oil by the 5 gallon bucket, from Tropical Traditions, and we pay $250, which breaks down to $50.00 a gallon (not including shipping.) Wowzers. We use this pretty sparingly...

We get good (raw and yummy) butter for $3.00 a pound, which makes it $24.00 for a gallon. We use this very liberally...

We buy pretty nice (as nice as we want to pay for..) olive oil anywhere from $25.00 to $35.00 a gallon. We use this less than butter, and more than coconut oil...

So, even with paying $1.10 a pound for pork fat, it's still cheaper than anything else we use. Granted, it's probably more expensive than vegetable oils, but we don't use those, so it doesn't really matter to me. It's definitely worth what I paid for it, but being that I always want something cheaper, I'd like it to be a little cheaper! But for a good, healthy product that I've been dying to have, it's all good!