Rendering Tallow

Rendering your own tallow can sound daunting, but it is an easy process with big benefits.

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We had tallow in the freezer that we needed to use and decided to render it for cooking and soap making. We frequently render lard, but had rendered tallow only once before. The first tallow we rendered had a rather strong odor and taste, so after doing some reading, we opted to try wet rendering and double rendering it to see if it made a difference. 

Two Methods to Render Fat:

For those of you, who like I was, are unaware of the different methods of rendering, here is a basic description of the difference:

Dry Render - A method in which you put the fat directly into a pot and render it slowly over low heat.

Wet Render - A method in which you put the fat into a pot with water (and optional salt) and render it slowly over low heat. The idea is that the the fat cooks in the water (indirect heat) rather than in the pot itself (direct heat). This method is said to make the fat less likely to burn and to minimize the flavor and odor of the tallow.

Why Render Tallow:

Why would you bother rendering your own tallow? 

Avoid seed oils - Many people today are choosing to avoid seed oils, which current research shows to be highly inflammatory, often tainted with glyphosate, and potentially damaging to your overall health. 

Many cooking options - Tallow can be used like any cooking oil, but it is particularly good for frying or pan cooking. It has a great reputation for making the best French fries. If you are planning to bake with rendered fat, lard (long known for making flaky pie crusts) is usually the fat of choice.

Know what is in your food - Raising your own animal, or having someone you trust raise an animal for you, allows you to know what has been put into the animal. Since many of the toxins animals are exposed to are stored in their fat, ensuring that any animal product you consume has minimal exposure to harmful substances is optimal for your health as well.

Nourish your skin - Recent research suggests that tallow is biocompatible with human skin and can have beneficial effects when used in skincare products. One of the studies cited in this research review suggests that emulsions with high fat content, such as those that contain tallow, provided symptomatic relief to mice with atopic dermatitis. Another showed that it decreased IgE levels and mast cells in mice with pruritis. This is promising news for those of us with mast cell issues!

How We "Wet" Rendered Our Tallow:

1) First, we took the beef fat out of the freezer and let it thaw. The chunks were large, so once thawed, we cut it into smaller pieces. While this step takes time, the fat renders much faster when you have smaller pieces. Fortunately, it isn't at all difficult to cut through. A chef's knife made this step of the process quite easy. 

(If you are looking for a quality knife set, we love this 7 piece Henckels knife set. We won it years ago in a drawing held by our local kitchen store. The knives are high quality and easy to keep sharp.) 

If ordering a beef from your butcher, you can ask them to grind the fat for you. The butcher from whom we buy our pigs grinds the fat for us, which eliminates the need for this step when we make lard.

2) Once we had the fat cut into smaller pieces, we put the pieces in a crockpot.

3) We then added water to make it a "wet" render, added about 3 tablespoons of salt, turned on the crockpot, and left it on all day.

4) Once the fat was well-rendered, we set a colander lined with cheesecloth over a large pot and poured the contents of the crockpot through it. Once the water and rendered fat seeped through, we twisted the cheesecloth with the solid pieces inside to get out as much of the rendered fat as possible. 

5) We then set the pot in the refrigerator to allow the tallow to solidify.

6) The next day, we removed the layer of tallow from the pot, poured out the water, and scraped the impurities off the bottom of the tallow. 

7) We put the tallow back into the crockpot, added more water and salt, and turned it on to render for the second time. At the end of the day, we repeated the process of straining, cooling, and scraping the impurities from the bottom.

8) We then melted the tallow (without water) and poured it into jars. We labeled them with the date. The small jar (see photo below) will be put into the refrigerator for immediate use. The larger jar on the left will go into storage. Sealed and stored in a cool, dark place, it should keep for a year. You can also freeze tallow it to extend its shelf life.

Compared to the time we "dry" rendered the tallow, the flavor and aroma were much lighter. 

Would we consider triple or quadruple rending the tallow? Possibly. However, the tallow was light enough in aroma and flavor to enjoy using it as-is.