Hi everyone, Jess here to talk of some adventures in beef tallow! For those that are unfamiliar with tallow, it is the rendered version of suet. For those that are unfamiliar with suet, it is the pure hard fat of the cow, usually from around the kidneys. Think of it as the lard of the beef world (as lard is the tallow from a pig).
Until this weekend, I’ve only used suet in feeding the birds outside my window in this little contraption.
The woodpeckers, nuthatches, and even the chickadees make short work of this delicious treat! It is a highly nutritious resource for birds. Rendering it, however, allows one to make all kinds of things for us humans too, such as soap, candles, or pie crust! Since I’ve never rendered suet into tallow, I thought I’d give it a try with a little help from some fellow food bloggers at the Prairie Homestead.
I took my frozen suet (much easier to work with) and peeled off any visible membranes (if you find meat, remove that, too – my suet was already very clean). Next I broke the suet into smaller pieces with the help of a food processor (though a knife works, too). Into the slow cooker things went, on low for about 8 hours with a check and a stir here and there.
This picture is from about 6 hours in. You can see that much of the suet has melted into a yellowish-clear liquid. This liquid will become the tallow. There are smaller brown bits floating to the surface which house the stuff that we’ll strain out.
After the full 8 hours in the slow cooker, I lined a pan with wax paper and poured things through a cheesecloth-lined sieve. I kept the contents of the sieve and wrapped it up in a block to see if it will harden and be useable to feed to the birds.
The liquid begins to harden pretty quickly, and acts much like paraffin in the way it cools.
Liquid gold! Here is the tallow ready to go out onto the porch on this very cold day.
After it’s cooled, the tallow really does resemble candle wax, soap, white chocolate.
Here it is unwrapped from the wax paper. There is no smell, it really is like a block of wax, and with the use of the slow cooker, much easier than I thought!
Once it’s cooled and solidified enough, I popped mine into an airtight container in the fridge. You can freeze it too.
Tallow can be used as one would use lard. In cooking, it’s a Paleo dream.
Check out the pie crust recipe that we’ll be posting here in the next couple of days. It’s a confirmed great way to enjoy your tallow, and really does make a great pie crust that puts the store bought crust to shame.
UPDATE- Some people render for many more hours, some for less… I’m still learning the best way myself… But 200 kitchens are better than one, so I’d love to hear more about your experiences. Try a different method it you like and report back how it goes. Please feel free to drop a comment or a photo!