Hi all! I know that using animal fat in food has been a heated subject, to say the least. However, I feel that anything in excess is not good for you, even healthy food. Thus, proceed with caution if you decide to use animal fat in your diet, plus do your own research and come to your own conclusions. With that out of the way, I want to share with you how I render our animal fat, how I store it and how I use some of the leftover rendered fat. Please feel free to try this yourself!
Step 1: Choosing the Fat
For beef tallow, the best fat will be leaf fat which is fat around the kidney if I am correct. In any case, you want hard brittle fat that is solid at room temp. This was an especially hot day, I think 30 degrees Celsius and it was solid. Other oil such as coconut oil will be liquid at this temperature. I use 80% leaf fat and around 20% pork fat.
I think you can see the difference in texture between the leaf fat and pig fat.
Step 2: Low heat Rendering
I use a slow cooker to render out my fat. It works the best in my opinion and it is most economical, I think. PLEASE be advised that rendering fat can be dangerous (it is after all boiling fat) and it is really a nightmare to clean!
See the process in steps in the photographs below. You will see the slow process. I think this took round about 12 hours.
After most of the fat has been rendered (I don't think you will ever get out all of the fat!) strain it and let it cool down till manageable.
I finished too late to finish so I just left it overnight and you can see even at 30 degrees Celcius it almost solidified.
I cheated by adding half coconut oil so the coconut oil seems to be less dense and the tallow sank to the bottom.
Step 3: Storing it Effectively for easy use
I have never liked to leave tallow outside as where I live is too hot so it goes bad quickly. Putting it in the fridge hardens it too much. So I just came up with the solution of putting the fat in icecube trays and freezing the fat. This also makes it so much easier to use! Just put two or three blocks of fat into the pan and you are ready to cook.
Aren't these blocks the cutest!
Recipe: Pork Crackling and Fried Pineapple and Fried Rice
So before all the fat renders out of some of the fat, place it in a skillet on a low heat ad fry them crispy. Add some pineapple pieces and fry them too. Add the rice and fry it in the sticky pineapple and pork crackling. This tastes so good (if you like the taste of pork crackling). I hope you give this a try! Stay safe and healthy and do your own research!
