Notes on tallow rendering (for future A&S)
Nov. 9th, 2023 12:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
trombonishA few years ago I bought 10 lbs of beef kidney fat (8 packages) from the local meat co-op (this was while I was raising chickens for them). It has been sitting in my deep freeze ever since, being mildly annoying because all the packages were really oddly lumpy and don't stack well. The original intent was a soap making experiment, but, well, life.
Yesterday, with the mixer alive again, and a day at home to stir, I decided to finally get around to rendering it. There was also some motivation around making freezer space. *Eyes the yard full of turkeys*
The first 2-3 packages (each package is a cow's worth), I chopped it smallish and fed it into the meat grinder that fits on the front of the mixer. This spat it out in little pellets that then went into the midsize kettle from the bottom of my steam juicer (heavy bottomed, about 2 gallons. Also, at the moment, clean, which none of my big tomato processing pots were). This went on the stove on low, which all the guides were QUITE adamant about, so it would not scorch before melting.
The little pellets melted VERY fast! But feeding it all through the meat grinder was very very slow, and heavy work for the grinder, because of the hard texture. The fat, even thawed, was very solid, almost powdery in texture. I don't know if all beef fat is like this or it is what is special about the kidney fat. It was interesting but also kind of a pain - the temperature of my hands was enough to start it melting, so handling it left a greasy layer all over my hands and stuck under my nails, even though a bowl sitting on the counter would go solid.
In the interest of speeding things up, the rest of the packages I gradually chopped into roughly half inch cubes and added them to the pot, over the course of the day (omitting the meat grinder). I did eventually learn to wear gloves to reduce the endless greasy hands. As things simmered I ladled out fat through a colander into bowls, returning the solids to the pot, as it didn't all fit in the pot at once. I ended up with maybe 6-7 quarts of liquid fat, maybe a couple pounds of trimmings and cracklings/waste that went to the chickens.
I did offer J a crackling, as we've been reading Little House in the Big Woods and there's a part in there about Ma rendering lard. J looked at them and refused, and also observed "they ate some weird things back then, didn't they?". Yes kiddo, they did.
It also had a definite Smell. Not as unpleasant as I was thinking from the various warnings on the guides I was following, but definitely sort of an overcooked hamburger smell. J came home and wrinkled his nose and said "what is that SMELL". Vs my dad coming in and saying, "Smells like dinner!"
Eventually I got down to just grease in bowls, which I poured back in the main pot to reheat before a second straining. The second straining was rather obnoxious - I was trying to filter out the very fine particle bits left behind by the regular strainer. Cloth lining a small strainer was awfully slow - seemed like it clogged up quickly. Coffee filter seemed even worse, and also flattened and threatened to spill. I finally did paper towels, which worked pretty well, but split at the very end when I was trying to squeeze it out and spilled just a bit of coffee grounds looking oil into the last pan.
I also in retrospect should have reheated the grease hotter the second time - I don't think I actually got it to boiling so I'm worried I might have left water. On the other hand, part of the appeal of the kidney fat is that it's supposed to have very low water content.
For a final step, I poured it in 9x12 cake pans to freeze up. It was rather fascinating to watch them transition from golden and clear liquid to white solid fat - they would kind of get streaks on the top, meeting with white on the edges, and eventually turning a solid white. Once they were middling solid I scored lines in them, then set them in the garage to get quite cold overnight. Then this morning I snapped them apart into bar type things, and bagged them to return to the freezer. But now they are at least consistent shaped and stackable.
Future plans are homemade soap! And figuring out how to clean all those bowls and pots with a thin sheet of solid fat, without clogging my drains with grease.
Yesterday, with the mixer alive again, and a day at home to stir, I decided to finally get around to rendering it. There was also some motivation around making freezer space. *Eyes the yard full of turkeys*
The first 2-3 packages (each package is a cow's worth), I chopped it smallish and fed it into the meat grinder that fits on the front of the mixer. This spat it out in little pellets that then went into the midsize kettle from the bottom of my steam juicer (heavy bottomed, about 2 gallons. Also, at the moment, clean, which none of my big tomato processing pots were). This went on the stove on low, which all the guides were QUITE adamant about, so it would not scorch before melting.
The little pellets melted VERY fast! But feeding it all through the meat grinder was very very slow, and heavy work for the grinder, because of the hard texture. The fat, even thawed, was very solid, almost powdery in texture. I don't know if all beef fat is like this or it is what is special about the kidney fat. It was interesting but also kind of a pain - the temperature of my hands was enough to start it melting, so handling it left a greasy layer all over my hands and stuck under my nails, even though a bowl sitting on the counter would go solid.
In the interest of speeding things up, the rest of the packages I gradually chopped into roughly half inch cubes and added them to the pot, over the course of the day (omitting the meat grinder). I did eventually learn to wear gloves to reduce the endless greasy hands. As things simmered I ladled out fat through a colander into bowls, returning the solids to the pot, as it didn't all fit in the pot at once. I ended up with maybe 6-7 quarts of liquid fat, maybe a couple pounds of trimmings and cracklings/waste that went to the chickens.
I did offer J a crackling, as we've been reading Little House in the Big Woods and there's a part in there about Ma rendering lard. J looked at them and refused, and also observed "they ate some weird things back then, didn't they?". Yes kiddo, they did.
It also had a definite Smell. Not as unpleasant as I was thinking from the various warnings on the guides I was following, but definitely sort of an overcooked hamburger smell. J came home and wrinkled his nose and said "what is that SMELL". Vs my dad coming in and saying, "Smells like dinner!"
Eventually I got down to just grease in bowls, which I poured back in the main pot to reheat before a second straining. The second straining was rather obnoxious - I was trying to filter out the very fine particle bits left behind by the regular strainer. Cloth lining a small strainer was awfully slow - seemed like it clogged up quickly. Coffee filter seemed even worse, and also flattened and threatened to spill. I finally did paper towels, which worked pretty well, but split at the very end when I was trying to squeeze it out and spilled just a bit of coffee grounds looking oil into the last pan.
I also in retrospect should have reheated the grease hotter the second time - I don't think I actually got it to boiling so I'm worried I might have left water. On the other hand, part of the appeal of the kidney fat is that it's supposed to have very low water content.
For a final step, I poured it in 9x12 cake pans to freeze up. It was rather fascinating to watch them transition from golden and clear liquid to white solid fat - they would kind of get streaks on the top, meeting with white on the edges, and eventually turning a solid white. Once they were middling solid I scored lines in them, then set them in the garage to get quite cold overnight. Then this morning I snapped them apart into bar type things, and bagged them to return to the freezer. But now they are at least consistent shaped and stackable.
Future plans are homemade soap! And figuring out how to clean all those bowls and pots with a thin sheet of solid fat, without clogging my drains with grease.