Hi All,
I also had a good experience using the crockpot to render. Three pounds of beef fat filled a 2 lbs peanut butter jar.
I found that it was better to render at the lower temp. and keep the lid on until it got up to temp. then remove. It's also important to give it a stir every hour or less so that moisture doesn't collect under the fat layer. If you get a moisture deposit under there and then give it a stir it will literally "Pop!" . Way to exciting for me! Stirring it more frequently keeps the fat from flying.
I used some of it today to make pemmican. Yummy!
Signey

This is great news to hear it worked using a crock pot. I haven't tried rendering yet but this crockpot method is inspirational. Good job Signey!
Alaska Girls Rock

Hi Harvest,
Well, I wish Alaska meat suppliers rocked. I haven't been able to locate any grass fed beef fat. I finally just went to Mr. Prime Beef on Old Seward and bought some garden variety, grain finished fat. (and yes Deano, I said "bought" I guess we have a higher home sausage making contingent up here) It's what I can find.
I'll keep looking and you let me know if you find any o.k.?
Signey

I live in north texas, 2 blocks down from a slaughterhouse...one of the few in the state that's certified to dress deer, boar and most anything else.....we've been getting bone meal for the felines, but never thought to ask for fat...I'll have to go up tuesday (small town usa is closed today and sunday and nobody's open monday, being a holiday and all) and see what I can wrangle out of them....

I've always felt you can never go wrong with a black dinner jacket and a straight bow tie.

Salmon, and all fish look perfect in a black dinner jacket and tie.

I prefer to dress deer in Carhartts and bunny boots.

Hi all, i am rendering a huge vat of tallow and have storage questions:
1. glass or plastic?
2. what is freezer, fridge, cupboard shelf life?
3. are nutrients lost if frozen?
4. any way to store the cracklins, i have a ton, but find after a few days they aren't so good.

THANKS!

Hi,
I store the lard that I'm using in the fridge in a glass peanut butter jar. I do know people who store food in glass in the freezer but I haven't had very good luck with that. You just want to put it in something that's going to keep it from picking up freezer flavors. You could even spoon the lard once it's not hot but still spoonable into vacuum bags that you seal. These stack nice in the freezer. When you need a new one it can be thawed to room temp. and then spooned into your peanut butter jar. Measure it into the freezer bag by the size of your fridge jar and you won't have multiple jars lurking around. Ziplocks would work too. Just let your fat get cool enough that it doesn't melt the bag. I seem to remember Deano saying that he stores the jar he is using out in the cupboard. I'm sure that's fine and it's certainly the way that the old timers did it but I don't mind the extra step of keeping it cold. I feel more comfortable keeping my meat product cold.
Hope this helps and good luck with your rendering.
Signey

How were the cracklins? Did you need to salt them?

[Edited: I'm sorry, I didn't realize this thread was 11 pages long. Back to reading for me....]

Bleh, old thread.

ok old thread, but do you know I always always lose weight when I get my fat from lard or pork?

Huh??? Yeah no dairy, just lard. So eat those pork cracklings but not too much salt.

Hey, it may be old, but it ain't rancid, it's LARD!!

Had to refer back to my old recipe as I made some more beef tallow to add to lard to make the lamb confit. We'll see how it works.

This time I got good numbers, too.
2.5 pounds beef fat cut into half-inch or smaller chunks, crowded in one layer in a big steel roasting pan at 300 degrees takes almost exactly 3 hours to render and yields just under 2 cups of tallow. It smells so good in here!!

And yeah, I like to salt mine. Cayenne also works wonderfully on cracklin's.

Plane
Not above resurrecting a very old thread I began years ago.

I'm glad this thread's been brought back to life - it's interesting and it's inspiring me. Confit, oooooh it sounds so good!

Anyone ever made a compound lard, like how ppl make compund butters with herbs etc?

No, it's fine it gets ressurrected but I tend to rerespond to the first post over and over again. Makes me sound like a broken record.

Ok, got another lardish wonder. So simple too.

Take a cabbage and cut it into slices, like a loaf of bread. Lay out the slices on your plate.

Take whatever meat you're going to eat (from the fridge) and place it in top of the cabbages slices. Microwave until the meat is nice and hot.

Dot the cabbage with duck fat and salt. The cabbage should have drippings from whatever meat you're eating plus wonderful duck fat.

Delicious! I had a chicken breast this way today.