How To Process Beef Tallow – A Healthy & Traditional Fat (Video)
Learn how to process beef tallow – a traditional fat for cooking, making skincare products, candles and more. Back in the old-fashioned days, the tallow or fat on an animal was considered the most valuable because it could be made into so many things. It was one of their only sources of fat for cooking, and was useful for making candles which also provided light and heat. In this tutorial we are going to show you how to process beef tallow from start to finish so you can enjoy the benefits of this traditional fat in your cooking and everyday life.
What Is Beef Tallow?
Tallow is the rendered fat from a beef animal. It can be rendered (slowly melted) down to get out all of the impurities and then sealed in jars so it is shelf stable. Tallow can then be melted and used just like regular oil in any kind of cooking, and is excellent for frying potatoes, french fries, donuts or anything else you may fry.
Beef tallow is very similar to the natural oil on human skin, so it can be used to make skin nourishing lotions, lip balm, homemade soap and other skin care products. These skincare products are much better for sensitive skin than ones made with other kinds of oils or fat, and contain many natural vitamins and minerals. Tallow can also easily be made into healthy candles to add a cozy element to your homestead especially in the winter or for light and heat in the case of an emergency like loss of electricity.
Is Tallow Healthy?
Tallow is a healthy fat and much better for your body to consume than vegetable oils, seed oils or other synthetic oils. The structure of the fat is similar to avocado or olive oil, and is heart healthy. Tallow contains so many vitamins and minerals that are easy for your body to absorb, and when it’s liquid it is actually a yellow color like butter because of all the beta carotein in in from all the green grass the cows eat. It is high in vitamin D from all the sunshine the cows soak in making it like liquid gold. It’s easy to see why our ancestors were so much healthier than we are, they consumed healthy unprocessed fats like tallow and homemade butter along with locally sourced fruits, vegetables and meats.
Why I Love Beef Tallow
- It is a fat we can raise on our own homestead or source locally for free
- It is a great substitution for oil in my cooking
- It has a high smoking point making it great for frying or high-heat cooking
- It is shelf stable and keeps for many months on my pantry shelf
- I never have to buy cooking oil or worry about running out of oil again
Where To Source Beef Tallow
If you raise your own beef, when you take it to the butcher you can request that they save the fat (tallow) for you. If you don’t raise your own beef, the easiest thing to do is contact your local butcher and see if they can save some tallow for you. A lot of people don’t want their tallow, because they don’t know how to use it, so oftentimes butchers have extra tallow that they end up throwing away. You can often get it for free or very inexpensively.
If you want tallow that comes from grass fed beef, you may have to look for farmers or ranchers that raise grass fed beef and ask them if you can purchase the tallow when they take their beeves in for butchering. I personally don’t mind tallow from grain fed animals, especially if I know where they come from and how they are raised.
What Kind Of Fat Is Best For Making Tallow?
The purest form of fat on a beef is the internal fat that surrounds the organs and is known as leaf fat. This fat is thickest around the kidneys and is very pure without much meat spread throughout the fat. This is the best fat for rending down into tallow. You can also render down the rest of the fat from the beef, but there will be more waste in the end because of the amount of meat in the tallow. It also won’t end up quite as pure and can still have a slightly beefy smell. This isn’t a big deal really, just something to be aware of.
Ground Beef Tallow
Beef fat renders best if it is ground. We grind our own tallow (see video below), but if you don’t have that ability, you ask your local butcher to grind it for you for a fee, or just cut it up into small chunks with a knife. Keep in mind that you purchase an inexpensive grinder which you can use for all of your homestead meat processing. It’s a good investment to make for your homestead.
FAQ
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Tools You May Need
How To Process Beef Tallow
How To Process Raw Fat
If starting with unground beef fat, cut the fat into small chunks, removing any glands as you go (see video below). It is easier to cut beef fat when it is cold or even slightly frozen. It will also grind better when it’s cold. Warm tallow will tend to plug up your grinder.
Grind the small chunks of fat using a course grinder. If you don’t have a grinder, you can render down the small chunks you cut with a knife, it just might take a little longer.
If you don’t have time to process the tallow immediately, it can be frozen in bags until you have time to process it.
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Render The Tallow
When ready to render the tallow, place thawed ground tallow into your slow cooker or roaster. Use a liner if you wish, it will make the cleanup easier.
Add 3-4 cups of water and about a ¼ cup of salt to the roaster. I can fit about 20 pounds of ground tallow in a roaster. The proportions of water and salt don’t have to be exact, just add some and it’ll be fine.
Cook on low for several hours or overnight. My roasters cook best between 200 and 250 degrees.
After several hours the fat will have melted and become liquid, and there will be little pieces of meat and grissle remaining. These are the impurities we will discard.
Line a colander with the cheesecloth and place it over a bucket or large container.
Ladle and pour melted tallow and impurities into cheesecloth lined colander and strain.
Discard the meat and grissle. I like to throw it out to the birds especially in the wintertime.
Pour the melted tallow into wide flat containers like roaster pans and chill in the refrigerator, or outside if it’s cold. I like to do this project in the wintertime because then it’s cold enough to set the tallow outside.
Let it chill for a few hours. As it chills any remaining impurities will collect at the bottom of the tallow in the water.
Continue Purifying Tallow
Using a knife and metal spoon, cut the tallow into chunks, and carefully remove any impurities that have settled to the bottom (see video).
Place chunks of tallow into a large stockpot. Add more water and salt and slowly melt on the stovetop.
Once tallow is melted, pour it into wide flat pans and allow it to chill. (The wide flat pans are optional, but they do allow the impurities to settle out over a larger area.
You can repeat the melting and cooling 2-3 times until you are sure that all the impurities are out of the tallow. For cooking, the impurities don’t matter as much, but if you’re planning to make skincare products like lotion, you’ll want it completely pure for the most perfect results.
Once all the impurities are removed, dry the tallow as much as possible and melt on the stove top in a clean, dry pot.
Jar Tallow
Pour melted tallow into clean, dry jars. Put on lid and ring and allow to slowly cool at room temperature. Jars will self seal.
Pure tallow is shelf stable and safe to leave on the counter for extended periods of time. The reason we seal it in jars is to prevent it from molding in case there is any moisture left in it from the rendering process. We also want our tallow to store for more than a year on our pantry shelf, so we seal it to make sure it will last a long time.
Use melted tallow in place of any cooking oil. It’s the best oil you can find for frying. Make into candles, or skincare products and enjoy.
How To Process Beef Tallow
Equipment
- Meat Grinder
- Sharp Knives
- Roaster or slow cooker
- Large pot
- Colander
- Cheesecloth
- Canning jars
Materials
- Raw beef fat or tallow
- Salt
- Water
Instructions
How To Process Raw Fat
- If starting with unground beef fat, cut the fat into small chunks, removing any glands as you go (see video below). It is easier to cut beef fat when it is cold or even slightly frozen. It will also grind better when it's cold. Warm tallow will tend to plug up your grinder.
- Grind the small chunks of fat using a course grinder. If you don't have a grinder, you can render down the small chunks you cut with a knife, it just might take a little longer.
- If you don’t have time to process the tallow immediately, it can be frozen in bags until you have time to process it.
Render The Tallow
- When ready to render the tallow, place thawed ground tallow into your slow cooker or roaster. Use a liner if you wish, it will make the cleanup easier.
- Add 3-4 cups of water and about a ¼ cup of salt to the roaster. I can fit about 20 pounds of ground tallow in a roaster. The proportions of water and salt don’t have to be exact, just add some and it’ll be fine.
- Cook on low for several hours or overnight. My roasters cook best between 200 and 250 degrees.
- After several hours the fat will have melted and become liquid, and there will be little pieces of meat and grissle remaining. These are the impurities we will discard.
- Line a colander with the cheesecloth and place it over a bucket or large container.
- Ladle and pour melted tallow and impurities into cheesecloth lined colander and strain.
- Discard the meat and grissle. I like to throw it out to the birds especially in the wintertime.
- Pour the melted tallow into wide flat containers like roaster pans and chill in the refrigerator, or outside if it’s cold. I like to do this project in the wintertime because then it’s cold enough to set the tallow outside.
- Let it chill for a few hours. As it chills any remaining impurities will collect at the bottom of the tallow in the water.
Continue Purifying Tallow
- Using a knife and metal spoon, cut the tallow into chunks, and carefully remove any impurities that have settled to the bottom (see video).
- Place chunks of tallow into a large stockpot. Add more water and salt and slowly melt on the stovetop.
- Once tallow is melted, pour it into wide flat pans and allow it to chill. (The wide flat pans are optional, but they do allow the impurities to settle out over a larger area.
- You can repeat the melting and cooling 2-3 times until you are sure that all the impurities are out of the tallow. For cooking, the impurities don’t matter as much, but if you’re planning to make skincare products like lotion, you’ll want it completely pure for the most perfect results.
- Once all the impurities are removed, dry the tallow as much as possible and melt on the stove top in a clean, dry pot.
Jar Tallow
- Pour tallow into clean, dry jars. Put on lid and ring and allow to slowly cool at room temperature. Jars will self seal.
- Pure tallow is shelf stable and safe to leave on the counter for extended periods of time. The reason we seal it in jars is to prevent it from molding in case there is any moisture left in it from the rendering process. We also want our tallow to store for more than a year on our pantry shelf, so we seal it to make sure it will last a long time.
- Use melted tallow in place of any cooking oil. It’s the best oil you can find for frying. Make into candles, or skincare products and enjoy.
Hello, I followed each step by step but my tallow isn’t setting up and I’ve given it 2-3 days. I eventually placed my batch of tallow in my garage as it’s winter and the temps are below 30-40 degrees for the next few months. What signs should I look for if my batch is bad?
Hi Jerica. How liquid is it? At room temperature it will be soft like butter, and it will be grainy. But when it gets cold, it sets up really hard. And the water should always be on the bottom when rendering. If it has a lot of water in it and it’s warm, then it might be more liquid, but if it gets cold, then the water will settle out to the bottom. If all the impurities are out of it, then it won’t spoil, even if it’s room temperature. Let me know, thanks.
Sooo helpful!! Thanks a ton!!