{"id":441,"date":"2014-05-31T10:04:01","date_gmt":"2014-05-31T15:04:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.polarisstarfarm.com\/adventures\/?p=441"},"modified":"2014-05-31T10:04:01","modified_gmt":"2014-05-31T15:04:01","slug":"oldfashioned-beef-tallow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.polarisstarfarm.com\/adventures\/2014\/05\/31\/oldfashioned-beef-tallow\/","title":{"rendered":"Old Fashioned Beef Tallow"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"????????????????????\"<\/a>Ah fat.\u00a0 That horrible word that causes\u00a0people\u00a0to cringe.\u00a0 Fat is pretty important in life, despite the bad reputation it has gotten.\u00a0 Not only do you need fat\u00a0to cook with, but you can use fat and oil to burn for light (either as a candle or an oil lamp), and you also need fat and oils to make soap.\u00a0 In a pinch,\u00a0even\u00a0animal\/plant based\u00a0oil can be used to silence squeaks and help things slide and move easier.\u00a0 Since we need fat for various reasons and we have been getting away from things like “diet butter”, having a more natural, renewable source of fat interested me.\u00a0 Even though we aren’t at the point where we can keep large animals like cattle for a natural source of fat, and I have no idea what it would take to start pressing oil from plant-based sources, that doesn’t mean we can’t try to make our own fat from\u00a0the raw ingredients.\u00a0 After all, I’ve been making our own butter for a couple of years now and it is great – so why not try something new?<\/p>\n

Rendering beef tallow is\u00a0easy once you have obtained the fat.\u00a0Luckily I found a local butcher that didn’t think I was crazy when I walked into his shop and asked if he had any fat to sell.\u00a0 We\u00a0don’t have many fat scraps to save, so it would have taken forever to try to save up scraps to make tallow with.<\/p>\n

There seems to be different thoughts on what is considered beef “tallow”.\u00a0 Some people think of tallow as only being the fat around the cow’s kidneys.\u00a0 This kidney fat is\u00a0usually called\u00a0suet.\u00a0 Other people make\u00a0the separate\u00a0distinction\u00a0between beef suet and beef tallow – the tallow being made from all the other bits of fat from the cow except from the kidney fat.\u00a0 The kidney suet is supposed to be the purest, whitest fat in the cow and therefore a little more expensive than just regular fat trimmings.<\/p>\n

So far, I’m going with the\u00a0idea of suet and tallow being different, since the antique cookbooks that I read generally make a distinction in using suet for certain things where you might want a more purer, whiter fat if you are using it for\u00a0an ingredient, \u00a0and mentioning\u00a0tallow\u00a0for use as a frying agent, an ingredient where the “whiteness” is not a factor, and in the instructions for making non-food items where it wouldn’t seem to matter as much just how white or “pure” the fat is.<\/p>\n

Quick version of how to make your beef tallow shortening for food and non-food items:<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Cut off as much meat from the fat as possible.<\/li>\n
  2. Cut the fat into small chunks, or if you have a meat grinder you can grind the fat up like hamburger meat.<\/li>\n
  3. Put the fat into the pot and cook it down slowly, stirring as needed.\u00a0 This will probably take at least a couple of hours depending on how much fat\u00a0you are doing at one time.<\/li>\n
  4. When it looks like a bunch of crispy stuff floating in a sea of oil, and isn’t changing its appearance\/consistency any\u00a0more, it’s done.<\/li>\n
  5. Skim off the floaties.\u00a0 Keep or throw away the floaties – your choice.<\/li>\n
  6. Strain the hot fat through a fine mesh sieve or at least some cheesecloth.<\/li>\n
  7. Pour into a heat-resistant storage container with a lid.<\/li>\n
  8. Cool.\u00a0 Store. Use.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Longer version of rendering beef tallow:<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

    \"????????????????????\"<\/a>

    Trimming the meat from the fat.<\/p><\/div>\n

    1.\u00a0 Trim the meat off your fat as much as possible.<\/p>\n

    Sometimes you can’t get it off unless you are willing to lose some fingers, so don’t worry about getting every bit off.\u00a0 The meat will cook off the fat.<\/p>\n

    2.\u00a0 Cut the fat into manageable chunks to help them melt better.<\/p>\n

    3.\u00a0 Put the fat into your pot.<\/p>\n

    I used my cast iron dutch oven since it’s the deepest\u00a0iron pot I have.\u00a0 I chose to use the cast iron for specific reasons.\u00a0 One – if I were to be without my gas stove or an even an electric stove, I probably wouldn’t be using my\u00a0good stainless steel stock pots\u00a0over an open fire.\u00a0 So I wanted to know what to expect from cooking the fat in a cast iron pot like my ancestors would have done.\u00a0 Two – a cast iron pot is thick and can take heat well for long periods.\u00a0 Since it’s difficult to find copper clad\u00a0Revere Ware these days, I didn’t want to accidentally kill my good stock pots that I’ve had for twenty-plus years – just in case things went wrong with my rendering process.<\/p>\n

    \n
    \"Approximately<\/a><\/dt>\n
    Approximately 10 lbs of beef fat in the cast iron pot.<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n

     <\/p>\n

    I cooked the fat on a medium-low flame for\u00a0pretty much an entire afternoon, stirring it occasionally to get the fat chunks\u00a0down to the bottom to melt faster.\u00a0 Since I used a lower flame with a thick iron pot, I didn’t\u00a0have any problem with the fat burning.\u00a0 I could probably have sped up the process to just a couple of hours or so if I had used a higher\u00a0flame and watched the pot more closely.<\/p>\n

    Some people say that\u00a0rendering tallow is really horrible smelling.\u00a0\u00a0There was a smell, but it\u00a0wasn’t that “horrible” to me – not like\u00a0if your hair gets burnt.\u00a0 I did try to get a good deal of meat off the fat so\u00a0there wasn’t a lot of meat to cook off, and I turned the vent hood on to help vent off heat and\u00a0moisture from the kitchen.<\/p>\n

    \"About<\/a>

    About half-way through the rendering process.<\/p><\/div>\n

    4.\u00a0 The fat finally gets to a point where it has a bunch of stuff floating on top of a sea of oil.\u00a0 Here in the South, these floaty things are called “cracklins” when\u00a0they come from rendering lard.\u00a0 Laura Ingalls Wilder mentioned lard cracklings as a treat in her Little House books.\u00a0 Ma Ingalls used the cracklins to flavor Johnny Cake.\u00a0 Hubby tasted our beef cracklins and said they would be fine to eat with a little salt on them, otherwise they did not have a lot of flavor on their own.\u00a0 I tried to save our cracklins.\u00a0 In a big plastic bag.\u00a0 Apparently the cats thought the cracklins\u00a0were wonderful.\u00a0 They got on the counter after we went to bed and ripped open the bag of cracklins.\u00a0 Next time I’ll put the cracklins in something the cats can’t open.<\/p>\n

    \"Ready<\/a>

    Ready to skim off the cracklins.<\/p><\/div>\n

    5.\u00a0 After taking out the cracklins with a slotted spoon, you’ll need to strain the hot fat.\u00a0 I lined a fine\u00a0mesh sieve with cheesecloth to do this.\u00a0\u00a0This gets the smallest\u00a0cracklins out, however I discovered that it does not get out the tiny specks of black that comes from cooking this in the cast iron pot.\u00a0 For using the tallow for food, I really don’t care if there are tiny black specks in the tallow since we eat them anyway whenever we cook with cast iron.\u00a0 But in the case of using tallow for pretty candles or for soap, I’m thinking that I’d want the black specks out of the tallow.<\/p>\n

    To get the tiny black specks out of the tallow, I think using a finer woven cheesecloth or cotton cloth would work.\u00a0 I just used the cheap cheesecloth available at Wally World, which is\u00a0NOT a super-fine mesh fabric.\u00a0 I could also just wait for the tallow to harden and then not use the tallow at the bottom of the jar since that is where the\u00a0black specks\u00a0sink to the bottom.\u00a0 Or I could use a metal stockpot instead of an iron pot.\u00a0 Some people pour water into their fat during the rendering process and then refrigerate the tallow to be able to separate the fat on the top from the water and any impurities at the bottom.<\/p>\n

    \"Hot<\/a>

    Hot tallow poured into jars.<\/p><\/div>\n

    6.\u00a0 Once you have the fat strained, you can put it into containers for storage.\u00a0 Plastic is not recommended since this stuff is literally boiling hot.<\/p>\n

    There isn’t any specific shelf life for beef tallow.\u00a0 I found people saying they kept it refrigerated for over a year and it was still good.\u00a0 Others said that they kept theirs on the kitchen counter for a year with good results.\u00a0 And of course if you follow what government entities say is max shelf life for\u00a0food storage…well you get a whole ‘nother story there.<\/p>\n

    I decided that I wanted to get maximum storage time from this stuff – at room temperature – so I actually went ahead and pressure canned the tallow.\u00a0 I boiled the jars in a water bath to get them hot to avoid cracking the glass when the tallow was poured in.\u00a0 Then I “canned” the tallow like I would can any other low-acid food.\u00a0 I used my pressure canner with the 10 lb weight for about 30 minutes\u00a0for\u00a0these small jars.<\/p>\n

    Some folks say they water bath can their tallow with good results for shelf life.\u00a0 Others just pour the hot tallow into clean containers.\u00a0 It’s a personal preference.\u00a0 Even if I had not pressure canned my tallow, I would still have boiled my jars before filling them to help get rid of any germs that might cause spoilage sooner.<\/p>\n

    One jar did get\u00a0sterilized and filled, but I did not bother to pressure can\u00a0it – that way I could see how it did without the extra step of pressure canning.\u00a0 I just put a plastic lid on the jar and left it on the counter.\u00a0 I’ve used this jar of tallow to cook with, after several months of sitting on the counter.\u00a0 There is no indication of any spoilage at all.\u00a0 No flavor change, nothing.\u00a0 So while the pressure canning of tallow might be overkill, I’ll do it, just to try to get the most storage time for this stuff.\u00a0 But it isn’t absolutely necessary.<\/p>\n

    7.\u00a0 Let the jars cool.\u00a0 It took about 24 hours for the tallow to completely solidify and the jars to be cool.<\/p>\n

    \"Finished<\/a>

    Finished beef tallow, cooled and solid like shortening.<\/p><\/div>\n

    8.\u00a0 Use your tallow.\u00a0 So far I’ve used the tallow to make home-made flour tortillas and refried beans.\u00a0 Both turned out terrific.\u00a0 Definitely thinking I’d like to try my hand at making dipped candles with tallow.\u00a0 And home-made soap.\u00a0 In addition to using the tallow for more cooking recipes.\u00a0 There is a bit of a flavor to the food from the tallow, so I’m not sure how it would work in something like cookies.\u00a0 Guess that is another project – see if there is a way to get rid of more of the meaty taste to be able to use the fat in more delicate food items…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Ah fat.\u00a0 That horrible word that causes\u00a0people\u00a0to cringe.\u00a0 Fat is pretty important in life, despite the bad reputation it has gotten.\u00a0 Not only do you need fat\u00a0to cook with, but you can use fat and oil to burn for light (either as a candle or an oil lamp), and you<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":447,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3,9],"tags":[136,137,135,5,134,138],"class_list":["post-441","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-farmlife","category-food","tag-butchering","tag-canning","tag-cooking","tag-homestead","tag-old-fashioned-skills","tag-preserving"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.polarisstarfarm.com\/adventures\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/comfinishedtallow.jpg?fit=448%2C336&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2wWew-77","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.polarisstarfarm.com\/adventures\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/441","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.polarisstarfarm.com\/adventures\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.polarisstarfarm.com\/adventures\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.polarisstarfarm.com\/adventures\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.polarisstarfarm.com\/adventures\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=441"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.polarisstarfarm.com\/adventures\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/441\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":459,"href":"https:\/\/www.polarisstarfarm.com\/adventures\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/441\/revisions\/459"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.polarisstarfarm.com\/adventures\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/447"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.polarisstarfarm.com\/adventures\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.polarisstarfarm.com\/adventures\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=441"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.polarisstarfarm.com\/adventures\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}