Canning peanut butter

Can I can homemade peanut butter? If so and how?

Ann Hazelett
Litchfield Park, Arizona

Sorry, but this is one of those very dense foods that is not safe to home can. You can’t be sure sufficient heat reaches the center of the jar for long enough to safely process. — Jackie

Debarking logs

So my husband and I ever since getting married (3 years ago) have been planning on homesteading. We’ve bought our land close to family and will not be living too far from where you and Will are (we’ll be in Gilbert, Minnesota). My question arose from one of your recent blogs where you showed the progress of your barn. You mentioned that Will ended up debarking the logs by hand. I’ve looked for information about doing this since the round house we intend to build will be using debarked logs from our property. I’ve heard contradicting information from various sources about the debarking process. We intend to use Jack pine, but I can’t find any information online about using Jack pine either. So what did you guys (Will) do to debark the logs? Our plans are to (hopefully) start not this summer but next summer- assuming the military doesn’t deploy my husband right away. My husband and I really enjoy BHM and all the articles. We have lots of future plans based on the information!

Kristy Keller
Daleville, Alabama

Will and I use a drawknife to peel logs, followed by a flap-disc on the angle grinder to smooth off the knots and take the rest of the bark layer off. Jack pine is pretty knotty but then so is spruce, which Will has peeled. Sometimes you can use a bark spud which is kind of like a hoe handle with a small, flat blade on the end. A lot of folks have made peeling spuds from an old car or truck spring, sharpened on the end.

Congratulations on your new homestead! Maybe we’ll meet sometime. Enjoy your exciting future! — Jackie

Making lard

I’m sorry if you’ve already answered this question. I did a search and couldn’t find anything. I rendered lard from our pigs for the first time this week. The leaf lard turned out beautiful and the first batch of the back fat also seemed good. Then I tried to do the last 2/3 of back fat, approximately 7 lbs, in a large cast iron dutch oven. I cut it into ½ inch chunks. It took several hours for the cracklins to get “crackly.” The lard in the quart jars, once cooled, separated. There is a layer on top that looks like dark golden oil, 1-1¼ inches deep. And then the layer that looks like the lard I expected on the bottom.

I’d like to know:
1. Can I still use this? Do I mix it up and use as if it hadn’t separated?

2. What did I do wrong that caused this to happen, so I can avoid a repeat in the future?

Kristine
Conneautville, Pennsylvania

No, I haven’t answered this before. In fact, I’ve never had lard do this before! Are any readers smarter than I am? (I’m sure a lot are!) Perhaps the lard got a little too hot during rendering. I usually grind my pork fat then put it in a turkey roaster in the oven at 250 degrees and just bake until the lard is melted and the cracklin’s are left but not crunchy. Then I pour off the lard and continue baking the cracklin’s until they are crunchy.

How does the odd lard smell? If it smells okay, I’d use that first and use it only in frying, not baking. I think I’d stir up the lard/oil before using. I hope this helps some. — Jackie

3 COMMENTS

  1. Thank you, Jackie, for replying. And thanks for your feedback, Aim and Janelle. I put those jars on the cellar shelves but I think I’ll take Aim’s advice and move it to the fridge as soon as I can. Perhaps it was that I let it get too hot for too long. Being my first time I hated to see all that oil in the cracklin’s going to waste and I don’t have a lard press. I kept hoping that that last of it would release from the solids. My pigs were so lean I only got 14 pounds of fat from the two of them and 327 pounds of beautiful meat. Next time I’ll be less greedy and I’ll try your method, Jackie.

  2. I had the same issue with lard. All of the lard that I rendered failed to set up except during the coldest part of winter (or if an opened jar is kept in the fridge.) The rest of the time it is kind of slushy. I still use it for pie crusts, and it seems to work fine. Is it possible that my temperatures were too high? I am getting ready to render some more that I had in the freezer, and if I can do something differently to make it more solid that would be great.

  3. About the lard, I’ve had this happen too. Some of the last quarts out of the last batch (8 gallons total of rendered lard) never solidified. Over time, the questionable ones separated into oil and slushy solids. I used some right away for frying. It smelled normal and worked great. Some that sat in the well sealed jars for months didn’t fare so well. One jar unsealed and smelled rancid. I opened some others to use, and they smelled a little rancid too, although they hadn’t unsealed yet. I don’t know why it happened. Most of the lard rendered and sealed beautifully and has remained good for more than a year. I would use the separated stuff soon for frying, and refrigerate it. Just be sure to sniff first. I wouldn’t hesitate to use it for frying if it smells fine.

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