{"id":2232,"date":"2012-05-09T17:01:44","date_gmt":"2012-05-09T21:01:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/JackieClay\/?p=2232"},"modified":"2012-05-09T17:01:44","modified_gmt":"2012-05-09T21:01:44","slug":"q-and-a-canning-peanut-butter-debarking-logs-and-making-lard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/JackieClay\/2012\/05\/09\/q-and-a-canning-peanut-butter-debarking-logs-and-making-lard\/","title":{"rendered":"Q and A: Canning peanut butter, debarking logs, and making lard"},"content":{"rendered":"

Canning peanut butter<\/strong><\/p>\n

Can I can homemade peanut butter? If so and how?<\/em><\/p>\n

Ann Hazelett<\/em>
\nLitchfield Park, Arizona<\/em><\/p>\n

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<\/p>\n

Debarking logs<\/strong><\/p>\n

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!<\/em><\/p>\n

Kristy Keller<\/em>
\nDaleville, Alabama<\/em><\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Congratulations on your new homestead! Maybe we’ll meet sometime. Enjoy your exciting future! — Jackie<\/p>\n

Making lard<\/strong><\/p>\n

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 \u00bd 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, 1-1\u00bc inches deep. And then the layer that looks like the lard I expected on the bottom.<\/em><\/p>\n

I’d like to know:<\/em>
\n1. Can I still use this? Do I mix it up and use as if it hadn’t separated?<\/em><\/p>\n

2. What did I do wrong that caused this to happen, so I can avoid a repeat in the future?<\/em><\/p>\n

Kristine<\/em>
\nConneautville, Pennsylvania<\/em><\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,8,13],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/JackieClay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2232"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/JackieClay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/JackieClay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/JackieClay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/JackieClay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2232"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/JackieClay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2232\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/JackieClay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2232"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/JackieClay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2232"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/JackieClay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2232"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}