Arts, Craft & Skills

1900

Render Tallow

Start with five pounds of ground or finally chopped suet. Use only beef suet. The best source for this is a local rendering plant.
It should be quite inexpensive. If you don't have a meat grinder, ask the plant to grind it for you.

Using a pot that is large enough to hold all the suet, fill it with water to 1/3 full. Bring to a boil.

Place the ground suet in boiling water and return to boil.

Move to a cooler spot on the stove so that it gently rolls and does not burn or boil over. Cook for an hour and a half stirring frequently.

Remove from heat and let cool enough so you can handle it without being burned by steam.

Strain through sieve into crockery bowl to remove large particles.
Strain again through sieve lined with cheesecloth to remove small particles. Repeat twice.

Place bowl in ice box over night. The next morning you will notice the contents of the container will have settled into two or three layers.

Invert fat container and unmold onto a plate in the sink. On the inverted top will be a gelatinous and grainy layer. Scrape this off leaving the pure tallow on the bottom.

Store in cold box.