Today's Project- rendering tallow!

[Yooper]

Today during the Packers/Lions game, I'm going to set up in my kitchen where we have a little TV and watch the game and render tallow.

I just picked up my portion of my grass-fed side of beef, and asked for the fat as well. I ended up with a LOT of fat, as the slaughter house gave me more than my own portion. I bet I have 30 pounds of fat.

And it was free.

I'm following the rendering directions on a paleo-lifestyle website. I'm going to use the grass-fed tallow for cooking, as well as for soap. Tallow soap is really an amazing soap, and tallow is good for cooking as well.

I wanted to render some deer tallow this year for soap, but the deer haven't been very cooperative so far so it's a good thing I have the beef fat!

I'm going to try dry rendering in the oven at a low temperature. If anybody has any tips, I'm all ears!

 

[Glynn]

back in the 80 i use to render beef fat at a restaurant i worked at for our deep fryer. we just did it in a tilt braser (really big skillet) we just cooked it slowly and then poured it off. both method of in oven or on top of the stove will work just be really really careful and make sure you have a fire extinguisher with an ABC rating handy. a boil over of that stuff is not something you want to deal with. tallow make awesome fries. duck fat is even better.

 

[Yooper]

My meat grinder was borrowed by a friend, and I had forgotten! So I cut the fat into big chunks, but it's taking a long time. Next time I'm going to grind the fat before rendering.

But now my creative juices are flowing. I think I'm going to make some tallow candles, and some tallow/beeswax candles, and then of course I put some tallow in ice cube trays to freeze for cooking use. An ice cube is about right for frying up some onions, I think. I'll put them in zip loc bags once they freeze.

The thing is- I need MORE tallow now for soap!

Oh, and this sounds crazy, but the tallow is super creamy and rich feeling. So I'm thinking about a tallow/shea butter whipped body butter. I think that would be awesome, with some lavender and bergemot essential oils.

This could start a whole new obsession.

 

[dallasdb]

Don't forget to take pictures and post them!

 

[Yooper]

Don't forget to take pictures and post them!

Well, I didn't take photos although I'm not done yet.

It's pretty boring- just a bunch of fat baking in a slow oven. I've poured off quite a bit of fat through a strainer and cheesecloth into the ice cube trays and into two smaller containers with a lid for cooking, and then a bigger tupperware for my soapmaking.

 

[Glynn]

Just dont put it the beer

 

[Leadgolem]

Body wash is pretty much a soft soap. Like shampoo, only with extra stuff to help out the skin. Sounds reasonable to me.

Deer don't generally have that much body fat. I'd probably leave most of it in the portion that's going to be ground up for flavor.

 

[Yooper]

Body wash is pretty much a soft soap. Like shampoo, only with extra stuff to help out the skin. Sounds reasonable to me.

Deer don't generally have that much body fat. I'd probably leave most of it in the portion that's going to be ground up for flavor.

No, I don't like the flavor of deer tallow at all, and totally remove it. I didn't get enough fat off of the last deer to make it worth it for rendering, though!

 

[Yooper]

Well..........it came out great. Nice, creamy white fat. I was so excited, and planning to make soap with a large portion of it.

Bob wandered in, and asked what I was doing. I told him, and he convinced me to make all of my grass-fed beef tallow available for cooking. He googled a few things, and it looks like that is an ideal cooking oil, so he convinced me.

So I turned over all of my rendered tallow to the cooking guru of our family. It's in smaller packages and I showed him where in the freezer to find it. He loves the ice cube sized ones, and I think they'll be used for all of our cooking needs.

But I still have some more tallow (from Angus beef) to render on another day. :rockin:

 

[Zuljin]

Are you going to make soap for straight razor shaving?

 

[BigPicture]

just an idea.............. tallow shaving soap is all the rage.............. it's all over EBay......................... specific web sites........................... B&B forum..............

check out artisan shaving soap, Mama Bear's, Mike's, Goat's Milk, Vanilla..................... etc.

 

[Yooper]

Mama Bear is actually in my homebrew club. Small world, huh?

I do not sell soaps, just make them for fun and to give away. I started making very small batches about a year ago, because we were overwhelmed with soap. I found that I absolutely love tallow soaps (with other oils, too) better than any others.

I gave some shampoo bar soap to Pappers, and he's using it for shaving soap, but I told him that I should have added some clay for slip if I knew he was going to be shaving with it!

I love the ritual of a brush and mug with shaving soap, but Bob barely shaves as it is (retired and all) and will NOT use a straight razor and shaving soap.

 

[AScott]

We use a crock pot to render our tallow. You have to keep an eye on it, but if it's on low and you fill the crock almost to the top (which you should do anytime your using a crock pot) it's pretty fool proof.

We use it mostly for cooking, but I use it on all of my hunting knives, axes, etc. It also makes a great lube on patches for my muzzle loaders. I use it on the rifles themselves for protection, as well.

 

[bottlebomber]

I wanted to render some deer tallow this year for soap, but the deer haven't been very cooperative so far so it's a good thing I have the beef fat!

I know, it sucks when they won't let you shoot em. Yooper, you're a hell of a gal. You'd get along well with my wife. So far this week she's tiled a bathroom, made a 3x5 oil painting, altered/mended a mountain of clothing, cooked cleaned and I think now she's felting a handbag. She claims she can't make soap though.

 

[bottlebomber]

Don't forget to take pictures and post them!

Yooper glistening with beef tallow body butter? Why not?

 

[Yooper]

I know, it sucks when they won't let you shoot em. Yooper, you're a hell of a gal. You'd get along well with my wife. So far this week she's tiled a bathroom, made a 3x5 oil painting, altered/mended a mountain of clothing, cooked cleaned and I think now she's felting a handbag. She claims she can't make soap though.

She sounds great! I'm not all that handy, as I always seem to somewhere get a minor injury each time I attempt a project.

I called lschiavo a few weeks ago, to tell him I cut a board to put in front of my dishwasher. I think I said something like "And I'm only bleeding a little bit!" He was so proud.

 

[Gameface]

This is going to be an odd post because I'm "quoting" (and putting the word quoting in quotation marks to boot) a post of mine from a sports forum I frequent. I posted about making tallow there and figured there must be some HBTers making tallow as well. Low and behold one of the HBT greats does (or did) render their own tallow.

I'm getting a little obsessed with it. I love the stuff, besides making beef broth at the same time.

A while back I had a crack at making homemade pho. Of course to make a proper pho you've got to make your own broth. So I did that. I used some chuck, oxtail and beef bones. I used all the pho aromatic spices, charred the onion, etc, the whole nine. I had also read that for clearer broth you should continuously skim the stuff that rises to the surface. I did that. I collected my "skimmings" in a large bowl. Realizing much of the skimmings was rendered fat I looked that up. Turns out rendered beef fat is called tallow (rendered pork fat is lard, rendered chicken fat is schmaltz). I followed a procedure for clearing/purifying the tallow and I saved it for a later use. Now, this tallow was rendered with a spice-rich broth, so it retained a lot of that flavor, which was pretty awesome, but not always appropriate.

A bit later I decided to make my own beef stock for stew, and again I saved the tallow and cleared it up. But I had used bay leaf in the stock and the tallow had a pretty noticeable bay leaf flavor.

I've been buying broth/stock components for the last month or so when I find a nice fatty, bone-in piece of beef on a manager's special or whatnot and I made a special trip down to the Asian market to get a bunch of beef bones (for some reason the butcher at China City Market likes me. He's talked **** about other customers and stuff with me a few times. He reminds me of Buntaro from the book Shogun.) I bought all the bones they had, about six pounds worth. The butcher hooked me up and only rang up about 2/3 of them. I guess since they probably go to waste a lot it wasn't much of a hookup.

So today I'm making more stock and collecting more tallow. This time I'm rendering the tallow with no added spices. I'll fix that when it's time to make some beef stew (later tonight).

Anyway, tallow is phenomenal! It is just about the best cooking "oil" I've ever used. Delicious, high smoke point and surprisingly enough, healthy. You can reuse it too, as long as you don't get it too hot, but I haven't reused mine.

Feels good making my own stock, rendering my own tallow and cooking my own food from scratch. But you know, I'm like a bad ass and ****.

 

[Yooper]

I still render tallow! I do deer tallow for soaps (it tastes bad), and beef tallow for cooking fat.

I just bought a pig on Friday, but it was a fairly lean pig with not as much fat so I don't have a ton of lard to get through. There is maybe a couple of pounds in a bag for me to render. I love the idea of having wholesome lard to cook with, although I think lard makes great soap as well.

I also make 'bone broth', and keep it on hand for stock. It's very healthy, as marrow is particularly good for you, and it gives great flavor to many of my favorite dishes. We don't waste any part of an animal if we can help it- what we don't eat, the dog does.

 

[unionrdr]

Dang. I've been saving excess stock in glass bowls in the fridge. The fat hardens on the top, making meat jello underneath. All well and good. But I've been tossing the hardened fat. Won't do that again..." don't do that"?