Use this simple guide to render fat into tallow and master this important homestead survival skill. Tallow can be used in soap making, for bird feeding, fire starter, and more. Depending on the fat source, this same technique can be used to render lard.
Knowing how to render fat into tallow is an important homestead survival skill. Rendered fats can be used for soap making, cooking, baking, conditioning leather, candle making, and as fire starter. Rendered fats are stable, safe for storage, and won’t go bad if kept in cool or cold storage.
Different Animal Fats
Animal fat is a valuable substance. In commercial meat processing, animal fat is sent to a rendering plant to be rendered into animal feed. On the homestead, you can render fat on your kitchen stove or better yet on the wood-stove (free heat source). Beware that rendering fat will fill the house with the smell of roasting meat, some find the smell nauseating. So if you are sensitive to smells you may want to do this in an outdoor kitchen.
Fat from goats, sheep, llamas, alpacas, deer, moose, elk, caribou and other ungulates is hard and when rendered is called tallow. Fat from pigs, bear, and rabbit is soft fat, and when rendered is called lard. Fat from poultry such as duck, geese, and chickens is called “schmaltz” and is soft, almost liquid, at room temperature. The fat is rendered the same way regardless of the animal that it comes from. Softer fats render faster, and fats from different animals should be rendered separately.
The harder fats make a very good soap for laundry and other household cleaning products. It can be used as a bathing soap, as well, and is a good grease cutter. However, most bathing soap these days includes coconut oil and olive oil which provide luxurious lather, as well as skin moisturizing qualities. Hard fats can also be used as suet for winter bird feeding, suet isn’t needed to feed summer birds, like hummingbirds. Softer fats are good for pastry and baking purposes.
How to render fat into tallow
Equipment:
To render fat into tallow or lard you will need:
2 Large stock pots with lids
A long handled spoon to stir the pot
Fat pieces which have been cleaned of residual organ meat. Muscle meat is all right, just keep meat to a minimum.
Small amount of water
Heat source
Procedure to render fat into tallow or lard
To render fat of any kind, including beef suet, fill 1 stock pot ½ full of cut up fat. The fat may have some meat scraps and perhaps bone attached. This is not a concern. If the fat is from the inner organs, such as around the kidneys (the highest quality fat), remove the kidneys and organ meats before rendering or the final fat will smell off.
Add enough water to cover the bottom of the pot to 1 inch. This will help transfer heat to the fat and prevent burning. Put the pot over medium heat and heat thoroughly. Stir the fat once or twice until it becomes translucent, to keep it from sticking to the bottom of the pot and burning. As it continues to heat the fat will become liquid and the chunks will shrink. The liquid in the pot will begin to bubble and the water will evaporate. Continue stirring occasionally to transfer the heat to all parts of the rendering fat. Once all the water is evaporated the temperature will rise. At this point you can remove any bones that made it into the pot, with your long handled spoon, and put them aside for another purpose.
As the fat begins to render, you can add more pieces of fat to the pot. However, don’t fill the pot more than 3/4s full. As it heats the fat will expand and you don’t want the hot fat to boil over onto your stove, or other heat source.
Caution:
Fat is flammable and boiling fat can smoke and catch fire. At this point, in rendering, watch it for smoking. You don’t want to let the pot get to the smoking point or you can have a flash fire. If you see any smoke, remove it from the heat source immediately, and cool it down before proceeding.
Never use water on an oil fire. Keep your pot lid handy, and if a fire starts, slip the lid over the pot from the edge to deprive the fire of oxygen slowly. If you slam the lid onto a flaming pot, it may not starve the fire of oxygen and it can continue burning under the lid. Turn off heat source without moving the pot, if possible, and let cool. Fat that has flared is still safe to use, just make sure the pot has cooled down enough to not re-flare before you remove the lid, or turn back on the heat source.
The pot will need to bubble gently (simmer) for several hours until all the fat has become liquid and the water in the meat has evaporated. The meat will be hard and crunchy – usually referred to as cracklings. This can take all day or even several days, depending on how big your stock pot is.
Remember, don’t leave the pot unattended on the heat source. I will remove the pot overnight and resume the heating in the morning if necessary.
Clarifying the fat for clean tallow
Once the fat is completely liquid and the cracklings have sunk to the bottom, cool the pot to blood heat. Spoon off the liquid fat into a clean clean pot that is 1/3rd full of hot water. Strain other fat and transfer the liquid to the pot. Reserve the nonliquified pieces to continue rendering. Remove cracklings and drain in a metal sieve. Save the cracklings for the chickens or use as a garnish for salads in place of bacon bits. Add the liquid fat to the new pot.
Place pot on heat source and bring to a boil until the whole pot is liquid. Remove from heat and allow to cook completely. The fat at the top of the pot will harden and can be lifted out in a solid piece. The bottom will be covered in a wet, grey slimy sludge. Scrape or cut this off and feed it to you poultry. It’s the coagulated blood from the rendering process, and it is full of protein. The clean white fat is your finished tallow. I like to melt it one more time and then pour it into wide mouth canning jars, or other storage containers. Cover jars with the 2 piece lids and store without processing. These do not need to be sealed. All water is removed during the boiling process and the tallow is clean of impurities.
Your finished tallow can be used as you would lard, although it will be a bit harder than lard for pastry baking. It can also be used to make soap. Candles can be made with hard tallow or a combination of tallow and bees wax. Pine cones dipped in tallow and then allowed to harden, make easy fire starters. Rendered tallow can be used for bird food to feed insect eating birds like woodpeckers and flickers.
At our house the chick-a-dees will perch on the kitchen window to get our attention when the suet feeder is empty. Once we fill it they come back one more time to say, “Thank you”.
Your Turn:
What animal fat(s) have you rendered? How have you used tallow, suet, or lard? Leave a comment.
I am in the process of rendering some beef fat currently. I noticed as the fat broke down in the crockpot there was still a decent amount of kidney and blood in the center of the fat. Will this affect the tallow negatively as long as I follow the rest of your steps?
I hate to waste this batch but can chalk it up to a lesson learned.
You can clean the tallow once its done rendering by placing it in a clean pot and adding some water (about equal to the amount of fat). Then melt it. The blood will fall to the bottom of the water and the oil will float. Let it harden. Turn the fat over and scrape any brown bits off. You will have clean white tallow.
Good ideas for what to use burnt tallow on? Lol
Suet and what else?
Sigh.
I’ll just Try again!
A crock pot might be more fool proof. You can at least melt the fat at a lower temperature and avoid burning. I get that its hard to keep an eye on it near the end of cooling time though.
I would like to make body & face cream ,
And soap ,
Should I use leaf fat or muscle fat or does it make any difference .
And my cows were fed hay and grain finished is the fat still good or can it only be grass fed ? Thank you
You can make soap from any tallow. Where the fat comes from on the cow doesn’t matter.
Does anyone know the SAP value for Moose Fat?
We have followed this basic method of rendering fat for a few years. The first few batches turned out great, but then they have started being soft and yellow. I cannot figure out what I am doing wrong!!! Is humidity a factor? We did it first in winter, but lately I’ve been forced to do it in the summer, and it is very humid here. I tried this time with the air conditioner on, and it did not seem to make a difference. Still yellow and very soft, almost liquid. Any advice would be welcome!!
It could be where the fat is coming from on the animal. Blade fat is firmer than internal fat.
I’ve rendered beef tallow several time over the years – always before by putting the ground fat into a pot with water and cooking. This time I used my instant pot on low pressure. After it had cooked, I put it into bowls to cool. The V shaped bowls allow the liquid to settle and the fat to rise so the liquid part (now jelled) can be easily removed after the fat is hardened and dumped from the bowl. The tallow came out the first time a nice firm white but was a bit crumbly so I reheated and re-filtered it using a coffee filter. It now has a slight yellow tinge but what concerns me most is that it is relatively soft at room temperature. There is no way I am going to be able to cut it into bars to store it as I usually do.
Any ideas what is happening here?
Thank you for giving such excellent information.
I am rendering my rabbits’ fat; it was beautiful, white leaf fat that i would have hated to waste. Or simply use for animal feed.
These rabbits were about 10months old, hay & garden cuttings fed their whole life. Very healthy.
I am so happy to be able to use every single part of those beautiful animals and grateful to have found you!
Thanks for all your great posts! I am currently rendering some beef fat that I got for free from a local grocery store butcher. I just had to ask and they had a big bag of fat waiting for me the next day that would have otherwise gone in the trash. I can’t wait to use it for soap and candles but I’m a little hesitant to eat the stuff lol. I also followed your instructions for making candle wicks so I’ll be using those along with my tallow.
can opossum fat be rendered and used in lamps or soaps
Yes
Thank you for all these great instructions and thank you for the clarification above, I was also confused a bit.
We purchased a half of grass feed non gmo beef and asked to get the fat for suet, wow I got a lot of fat! My husband and I had a good time rendering though, we love a challenge and learning new/old stuff.
I have a silly question, my friend just got ducks, would they like the crackling? I thought I’d save it for them. Thank you again for the info.
Yes cracklings are fine for poultry but keep it refrigerated to keep the bacteria out. Cracklings can become rancid if they aren’t kept frozen for long term storage, or refrigerated for short term storage.
Ok, thanks for the info!
Good information. But I do have a question, once tallow is rendered, clarified, chilled, scraped theres still water particles in the fat after I have set to dry on towels for hours. Will the remaining water that chilled in the fat cause mold over time. I simmer the chilled fat one more time to dehydrate remaining water. Am i on the right track
You can pat the tallow dry with a paper towel. I simmer the fat again without water, once it’s been clarified and then pour it into warmed canning jars with 2 part lids and seal them. This way there is no chance of mold.
Can you explain how to remove /reduce the fatty smell from the rendered and clarified tallow please….. Thank you
It won’t ever have a completely blank odour like hydrogenated oils do. But if your fat was fresh, not rancid or rotted, it should smell clean. You do have to clarify it after rending by boiling the fat in the same amount of water and then letting it chill so that the fat rises to the top. The flip the solid fat over and scrape any meat bits off the bottom so you are left with dry, clean white fat. This is what you package for future use.
I did deer tallow and it stinks very badly I only let it render for about 30-45 mins on high heat before skimming off cracklings n straining into containers. Is this because I burnt it, or because I did not render it long enough? It was my understanding that once cracklings formed n were floating the tallow was done rendering AND clarifying????
Also I want to mention I had ALOT of fat in my large pot ( over half full) that I covered nearly over with water then began to render over high heat ( again only for maybe an Hr. MAX.) I DID NOT remove melted tallow as it went…. I waited til it all had melted down to liquid form before removing cracklings n straining into jars…… Stinks badly. Did I burn it??? Or does it still need rendering n clarifying????
It doesn’t sound like it rendered long enough. I usually clarify my tallow after rendering so that there are no bits of meat left in it. The tallow should be a creamy white colour. Deer fat though would smell more wild than beef fat, though. So perhaps you are smelling the wild meat rather than a rotten meat smell.
Generally with a large soup kettle worth of fat it takes me about 3 days (72 hours on medium heat) to fully render the tallow.
I rendered pork fat from some pork shoulder I’d trimmed and cubed for canning this week. I made mention of the process in my “What We Spent” post today, and have provided a link to these instructions. I’m sure my readers will find them very helpful. Thank you.
Thanks for the mention in you post, Beth. 🙂
“Once the fat is completely liquid and the cracklings have sunk to the bottom, cool the pot to blood heat. Spoon off the liquid fat into a clean clean pot that is 1/3rd full of hot water. Strain other fat and transfer the liquid to the pot. Reserve the nonliquified pieces to continue rendering. Remove cracklings and drain in a metal sieve. Save the cracklings for the chickens or use as a garnish for salads in place of bacon bits. Add the liquid fat to the pot.” This paragraph is completely confusing to me. If the fat is comopletely liquid, as in 1st line, what am I spooning the liquid off of? And what “other” am I straining if I have spooned off all the fat? What is “blood heat”? Where are the non-liquified pieces from if I have completely liquid fat as in the first line? Then after the cracklings line, I have to add what liquid to what pot? Didn’t I add all the liquid to the pot in the 3rd line from some other fat? I really want to learn how to do this, but I’m just not grasping the proceedure. Would apprciate it if you could try to explain again.
Sorry for the confusion, Sandra. I’ll try again.
1. Put the fat scraps in a pot with a bit of water. Boil it. The water will evaporate. Once that happens the fat increases in temperature and starts to bubble. At this point the liquid fat melts out of the scraps. The meat and blood portions of the scraps will crisp up and this is the cracklings. The fat is held together with fibers. Depending on which kind of fat you are rendering — it will melt at different rates. Fat around the kidneys melts very quickly and completely. Fat that was trimmed off the muscle has a slower melt rate. Its this fat that may not render out completely and may remain soft, when the other is ready to strain. (Think of the fat at the edge of a T-bone steak.)
2. As it continues to cook the fat becomes so hot that it starts to bubble up and when you stir it down it just bubbles harder. At this point remove it from the heat source or it will boil over. Most of your fat will be liquid but there will be other portions of fat that are still soft and won’t be completely rendered. This is the portion that you want to continue rendering. But this is the point that you want to strain out the liquid fat. If you continue to try to cook it down, you will be fighting with it and your good tallow will begin to smoke and burn. You don’t want it to go that far. Its better to take the liquid fat and separate the cracklings, and just put aside the fat that isn’t quite done for a second batch. (Sometimes at this point, if I don’t want to do another batch right away, I will just press this partially done fat with the back of a spoon to get out any liquid fat being held by fibers in the soft fat, and then feed it to the chickens with the cracklings, rather than render it again.)
3. Strain the liquid fat to remove the crackings. Put the still soft fat pieces to the side for further rendering in another pot. I have a stainless steel cone-shaped strainer that I use for this. The holes are small but not as fine as a wire mesh or coffee filter, so some finer bits of the crackings does get through. These will drop into the water in the clarifying stage.
4. At this point you need to clarify the liquid fat that you have just strained. Clarifying removes impurities that can cause your fat to go rancid in storage. It will also remove any grey colouring and leave your fat a creamy white to snow white colour, depending on what your animals were fed. To clarify the fat put water in a clean stock pot about 1/3rd full. Blood heat is body temperature. You can touch the vessel that the fat is in and it won’t feel hot. You want the fat to cool to blood heat so that when you pour it into the water it won’t splash up and burn you. So “blood heat” isn’t a temperature. You just don’t want it hot. You are avoiding the reaction that will happen if hot fat and cold water come in contact with each other.
5. Boil the water and fat together in the clarifying pot, for about 10 minutes. Remove it from the heat and allow it to cool naturally. If you are rendering tallow (beef, lamb, goat,) you will have hard white fat on top of the water, when it cools. If you are rendering lard, it will be softer but still floating on top of the water. Tallow can be lifted in one piece off the top of the pot, once it is cold. You will see bits of grey matter on the bottom where the tallow touches the water. Scrap this off and discard. Your tallow will be white and will keep in a cool, dark place without canning and without refrigeration for many months. I have two year old tallow in my storage that I am still feeding to the winter birds and using for soap.
I hope this makes more sense to you now. Thanks for your questions.
Chris
I also just rendered lard. It is a light gray/brown in color. I’m not sure I understand the clarifying process. Is it needed for safer storage? We boiled it & removed all the cracklings & bottom sediment. Thank you for all of your posts. I enjoy them very much.
The clarifying step removes impurities from the fat. Impurities can make it spoil or go rancid in storage. By removing them you increase the shelf life of your product, keep it smelling sweet and inhibit mold growth. Your lard will be whiter once its clarified.
i’m wondering… i processed some lard (from 2 home raised pigs) in my crock pot a while back. i did not clairfy it and it’s an off white color. i was hoping it would be white and assumed i burnt it as i had it going for a couple days. the cracklings which i hear are wonderful were just plain greasy and gross and went to the chickens. the lard seemed ok though so i put it in quart jars and am keeping it in the fridge. is it too late to clarify it? i’d love to have some nice white lard and free up some fridge space, we have about 6 quart jars of the stuff in there!
You can still clarify it. It sounds like maybe you didn’t cook it long enough. It could be that your crock pot wasn’t hot enough. Try putting it on your stove to clarify. Then get it hot enough to boil rapidly. Once its boiled rapidly for about 5 minutes, take it off the heat and just let it settle undisturbed. You can skim of the fat while its still liquid or you can let it harden and pull it off as a single chunk, scrap the underside if necessary, And you should have white lard. Don’t think you burnt it if the cracklings were soft and greasy. Chris.
thank you so much, I’ll give it a try!
i never new this, i like the idea of having good soap or detergent. thank you for this bit of info!
That was a wonderful tutorial with very clear instructions! I’ve rendered bear fat, and it makes delicious pastries and great soap. Definitely worth the effort.