Rendering down the Tallow

We may have downsized on the number of animals here due to the planned move but that does not mean that we are sat twiddling our thumbs! LOL! Thursday morning, Richard picked up Lady from the processors so the freezer had to be sorted & the meat packed into it. It was quite a challenge to get it all in & in fact the fat (tallow) would NOT fit meaning that I needed to do something with it ASAP!

When the processors did Ruby for us last year they ground all the fat up, this year they did not 🙁 HOWEVER we still had a BIG bag of Ruby’s fat left so that was what I rendered down, Lady’s fat will be fed to the dogs. Why? We do not like to cook with the tallow as, to us, it has a nasty taste. We do cook with Lard (pig fat) which is much milder. SO the only thing we use the tallow for is soap. With all I rendered down on Thursday we now have over 2 gallons! Couldn’t make soap that day as we did not have any lye so that will have to be a job for another day.

It was actually just as well we were out of lye as there are only so many hours in the day and I had used 4 gallons of milk to make cheese earlier in the week, the pizza dough was mixing & then I had to make garlic pizzas. A double recipe of dough makes 9 medium sized pizzas. They freeze really well & are great for when we need something quick or just an extra little something to go with leftovers etc.

In the next couple weeks I have got to can Baked Beans too as we are nearly out & the bag of beans has been sat in the cooler waiting for me for quite some time 🙂 I also have my head in preparing school work, specifically Lapbooks, way ahead as I know when this next adoption happens my time is going to be limited for a while. Caleb absolutely loves his Lapbooks so I am trying to get all of his done. It takes 2-3 hours to prepare each one for him even though I am just printing out etc but most times I have to write a Daily Lesson Plan plus do alot of the cutting out ready for him as with being only young, his attention span is not that long which is absolutely fine but I do not want to use that little attention up by watching me cutting etc. I prefer to have everything ready to go to engage his enthusiasm. This afternoon I actually worked on a Rainforest one that all 3 of them will do. That was a little bit of a challenge as obviously I had to change some things for the differing ages. While Caleb needs to know how to count how many spots are on the Jaguar, Daniel & Hannah need something a little more challenging! I was hoping to get them finished today but it is not going to happen – still got 5 left. Once Caleb’s are all finished then I will start on Hannah’s & from there Daniel’s. This way no matter where we are, I know I can pull a Lapbook off the shelf & it is all ready to go with books, if needed, inside.

BUT back to the rendering of the tallow. Start with the ground fat. We have proven that ground fat works the best as it is broken down so it melts/separates much easier.

Heat in on low. You do not want it too hot. This is a slow process. I use our cast iron pans & have two going at one time but any cookware will work. Stir it occasionally to ensure that it is all cooked. What you are wanting to happen is for the meat & “crud” (hard cell membranes etc) to cook & separate from the liquid fat like this next picture shows:

The cooked “stuff” will float to the top. Once this has occurred, then strain it through a sieve with a fine butter cloth in it. Cheesecloth will also work but sometimes the holes on that can be too big. Although you could technically eat the “scraps” or make something with them we feed them to the dogs

Once separated you should have a nice clean liquid fat as shown below:

Depending on what you are using it for you could put it in jars & can it, freeze it or if like me you are going to be making soap soon then just store it in a clean bucket & put in the refrigerator/cooler!

Take care,

Liz