It isn’t every day you shoot a bighorn. Naturally, one should want to utilize every edible bit. One way to do this is by making lard.

What Is Lard?

Lard is the product of rendering, or melting, the fat of an animal off of the meat or other tissue. It also helps to preserve the fat, which can eventually go rancid. Lard is an ancient product primarily used as a cooking oil but also in baking and several not-so-scientific folk remedies.

Making Bighorn Lard

I started with approximately 3 liters of bighorn sheep fat cut into 1-inch cubes. I wasn’t overly concerned with trimming every bit of meat as I knew this would also produce cracklings. These were frozen into two large blocks. When I was ready, I placed these blocks directly into a pot over medium-low heat and covered them to assist in thawing. I also adding about half a cup of water. This helps to prevent burning the fat before it starts to liquefy. The water will eventually evaporate off.

The process is really very simple. Low and slow until all of the solid fat is liquid. You definitely don’t want your heat too high or you risk burning. The cracklings that float to the top can be fished out. I recommend saving them.

With this amount of frozen product, it took close to three hours to render it all down. After removing the cracklings, I strained the amber liquid into two glass pint jars through cheese cloth. After cooling, the oil turned a solid, snowy white.

Taste and smell were like used cooking oil. Not too pungent or gamey. It doesn’t coat your mouth with that waxy feel of deer tallow. I’ve used it a couple times and it doesn’t seem to impart any off tastes. I store mine in the fridge just to be extra safe so the texture is pretty flaky. Not smooth like butter or Crisco.

If I attempt this again with other animal fat, I’ll probably let it thaw first on the counter. I believe I burned it a tad between the thawing and rendering stages in the pot. Overall, I’m happy with the end result. It’s just another way to make use of the entire animal, especially one I will not likely get to hunt again.