How To Process Beef Tallow – A Healthy & Traditional Fat (Video)

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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

1.  It is a fat we can raise on our own homestead or source locally for free
2. It is a great substitution for oil in my cooking
3. It has a high smoking point making it great for frying or high-heat cooking
4. It is shelf stable and keeps for many months on my pantry shelf
5. 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.

Frequently Asked Questions

How Is Beef Tallow Processed?

Chunks of fat from a beef are ground into small pieces and then rendered or slowly melted down into a liquid form.  The impurities are strained out, leaving behind pure fat or tallow.

How Do I Make My Own Beef Tallow?

Get some beef tallow from your local butcher.  Ask them to grind it for you or you can grind it yourself.  Render it down slowly, strain it and chill it.  Repeat the melting and chilling process a couple of times to get all of the impurities out.  Pour hot tallow into jars and seal.

How Do You Jar Beef Tallow?

Once all the impurities are removed from the tallow, melt it slowly and once it’s hot, pour it into clean dry jars.  Put lids and rings on jars, and as the tallow slowly cools it will seal the jars.  It will keep on your pantry shelf for a long time.  

How Much Tallow Does 1 Pound Of Beef Fat Make?

This depends on whether you’re rendering pure leaf fat, or the fat from the entire animal that has more meat chunks in it.  As a general rule you will lose 25% of your raw fat to impurities, so 1 pound of raw fat will yield ¾ of a pound of pure tallow.  (See video below)

Is It Cheaper To Render Your Own Tallow?

Yes, it is cheaper to render your own tallow than purchasing pure tallow from other sources.  It can be purchased from places like Azure Standard for anywhere from $12 to $30 a pound, but can easily be rendered on your own either very inexpensively or free depending on whether your local butcher charges you for raw tallow or not.

Is Beef Tallow Just Lard?

Beef tallow is the fat from a beef, while lard comes from pork fat.  The rendering process is similar, but tallow is slightly harder than lard and has a texture similar to solid butter.

Are Suet And Tallow The Same?

No, suet is the unrendered fat from the beef, and tallow is the finished product after the rendering process is complete.

How Much Tallow Does 5 lbs of Suet Make?

Suet is another name for beef fat, and when rendered down you will lose about 25% of the suet to impurities like glands and small meat chunks.  So you’ll end up with about 4 lbs of pure tallow from 5 lbs of suet.

Should You Add Salt To Tallow?

When rendering tallow, it is a good idea to add salt and water to the melting fat.  This gives something for the impurities to cling to so they can settle out of the fat and collect at the bottom of your melting pot.  Once cooled, the salt, water and other impurities can easily be scraped off the bottom of the tallow, leaving pure tallow behind.

How Do You Prepare Tallow For Rendering?

Before rendering it is best to grind your tallow or cut it into very small chunks so it melts evenly.  Beef fat has glands scattered throughout that you will want to remove as they can give a bad taste to your tallow.  The video below shows how to remove the glands in detail and how to grind the tallow.

Can You Leave Beef Tallow On The Counter?

Yes, pure beef tallow is shelf stable and does not need to be refrigerated.  It can be left on the counter for up to a year and be just fine.  The reason we choose to seal it in jars is in case there is any moisture left in the tallow, the sealing will prevent mold from forming on the moisture as it sits on our pantry shelf for months at a time.  But in the old days they never would’ve sealed it, and you don’t have to seal it now either, as long as you’re sure you get it completely dry before melting it and pouring it into your storage containers.

How Many Times Can You Reuse Beef Tallow For Frying?

Beef tallow has a really high smoke point which makes it great for deep frying or cooking at high temperatures.  It can be reused several times for frying.  You can make a slurry out of water and corn starch.  Pour into the warm oil, and any impurities in it will clean to the corn starch which can then be strained off, leaving pure tallow for frying something else.

Can You Render Deer Fat And Make Tallow?

Yes, you can render deer, or elk or moose fat the same way you render beef fat.  Keep in mind that deer don’t have as much fat on them so you won’t end up with as much pure tallow in the end as you do with beef.

Can You Fry Donuts In Tallow?

Yes, tallow or lard is the traditional fat used for frying donuts, and you’ll have a better donut than sourdough donuts fried in homemade tallow.

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Tools You May Need

• Boning Knife with Semi Stiff Blade
• Meat Grinder
• Slow cooker or roaster for larger batches
• Slow cooker or roaster liner, optional
• Large heavy bottom stock pot for melting finished tallow
• Wide flat roaster sized pans for cooling tallow
• Salt
• Water
• Fine cheese cloth
• Colander or fine mesh strainer
• Knife or metal spoon for cutting tallow into chunks
• Large measuring cup with handle for ladling tallow into jars
• Canning jars – wide mouth preferred (makes it easier to scoop tallow out for cooking). Use code NEW15 to get 15% your first order of $100 or more from Azure Standard
• Canning lids and rings – my favorite lids are from For Jars Lids.  You can get 10% off your order from For Jars by using the code Wagon10

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.

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.