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Saturday, June 28, 2014

Home Kill Beef - Making Tallow

Preparing the beef cuts for the various cures entailed trimming off all the fat. On the brisket this was huge. It seemed a waste not to make it into Tallow which Jean tells me is very good for you. Being a saturated fat it is supposed to be good for the cell structures in our bodies. See Doctor Bruce Mackie's Abstract here and some further research material here

There is a slight problem for me as I'm a vegetarian. It may be bullet bighting time.

The other uses for Tallow are candles, Soap, Bio-diesel and Lubricant. What a versatile product.

The extraction process involved a small amount of water and the lowest possible heat setting with lots and lots of time. Using a Bain Marie is a better idea. Even my lowest stove stop setting still created excessive bubbling but it still worked out fine.

A by-product of all this was a jelly (after cooling) that will make great soup stock.

If you look at the last picture in the sequence, this is the leftover meat, sinews etc. It went in for a second rendering for another 4 hours with a little water and produced almost as much Tallow on this second run.

The remaining material went to the chickens and ducks although it was a tossup between them, the dogs and Jean. Apparently it was very tasty.


Simmering on very low heat in a small amount of water.

Chook or dog food from leftovers


Tallow on the top and a thin layer of jelly on the bottom

These leftovers for reprocessing just to extract the last of the tallow

4 comments:

  1. I use a friend's lard to make soap and I love it! There's nothing like it. The last batch I made had her lard and my goats milk. Bit by bit we get closer to knowing the source of everything. It feels good. The picture of the leftovers doesn't appeal, I'm sorry. I hope Jean had something else to eat instead!

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    1. Yes Linda, Jean didn't starve. After all the grinding and chopping of spices and herbs we made a rolled roast from the remaining brisket which was stuffed full of all sorts of goodies. I had to rely on Jean to confirm that it was very tasty. She even tried making her chips (separately) with Tallow, a much stronger flavour than mine in Olive Oil.

      Jean remembers growing up with a dripping pan in the kitchen where all the cooking juices would be emptied and when full this pan would be warmed through with some water filtered and settled providing a constant source of fresh cooking medium.

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  2. I have used fat from the animals that we eat to make soap too. I see it as about using what we can for what we have, thanks animals!

    Barb.

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    Replies
    1. Hi Barb, It is good to hear from others who don't waste these opportunities. So many people feel it's too much work and miss out on the chance to make something of their own as well as reduce waste and save money.

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