Just got my first smoker

[MileHighGrowler]

(02-26-2021, 02:27 PM)fredtoast Wrote: So you can buy just straight tallow?

That reminds me of the time I was turning one of my goats into sausage.  When you make sausage from lean meat instead of pork you actually have to add some pure fat.  So I went to Swaggerty Farms plant outside of Sevierville to buy casings and fat.  The pure pork fat was $1.99 a pound.  As I was paying for it I saw a pork shoulder roast for $1.59.  That just seemed crazy to me.

Luckily I was just making a small one-goat sized batch.

You sure can!  I've bought lard before to make tortillas and such.  Comes in a tub, usually a few pounds at a time.  

I wouldn't be surprised if that cost was higher for the lard because it takes more work.  To butcher the cuts, they're just going on and cutting the animal down, doing a little trimming.  But it's a quick process.  The tallow or lard has to be cleaned and rendered down and is more time intensive for them, or so I would imagine.