Tallow Rendering FAQs | ANSWERS TO YOUR RENDERING QUESTIONS! | Bumblebee Apothecary

Summary

In this informative video, Marissa from Bumblebee Apothecary addresses common questions about rendering tallow, a natural fat used in skincare and cooking. She confirms that leaving the lid on during the process helps in dry climates, clarifies that adding salt does not make the tallow salty, and emphasizes the method's effectiveness in producing odorless tallow. Marissa also tackles concerns about color variation, rendering time, and consistency, offering tips for both cooking and skincare uses. A highlight is her time-saving trick using an immersion blender to break down large fat chunks, increasing yield and simplifying the rendering process.

Takeaways

• 📺 Marissa from Bumblebee Apothecary is addressing frequently asked questions about rendering tallow in a video.
• 🔗 A link to a detailed video of the tallow rendering process will be provided for further reference.
• 🧂 Adding salt during the rendering process does not make the tallow salty; it helps in purifying by drawing impurities into the water.
• 🍲 The rendered tallow is odorless, especially when compared to tallow made with a dry method which can have a beefy smell.
• 🐄 The color of the final tallow can vary depending on factors like the breed of cattle and their diet, but a yellowish hue is normal and not a sign of poor quality.
• 🕒 The rendering time can vary greatly depending on the size of the fat chunks and the method used, with Marissa recommending 8 to 12 hours for the initial rendering step.
• 🥣 The leftover water from rendering can be used in soups or given to chickens, but it's important to consider the salt content.
• 🧈 Tallow consistency can vary due to many factors, including the breed of cattle and their diet, but this does not indicate a mistake in the rendering process.
• 🔥 If tallow has a strong beefy smell from being rendered too hot, the purifying steps may not completely remove the smell, but it's still good for cooking.
• 🍳 The choice of rendering method depends on the intended use; a wet rendering method with purifying steps is best for soap or skincare, while a dry method might be sufficient for cooking.
• ⏱️ A new trick shared by Marissa involves using an immersion blender to break down large chunks of fat after a few hours of initial rendering, which speeds up the process and increases yield.

Q & A

What is the main topic of Marissa's video from bumblebeeapothecary.com?

The main topic of Marissa's video is rendering tallow, including the process of purifying it and answering frequently asked questions about it.

Why does Marissa recommend keeping the lid on the crock pot while rendering tallow?

Marissa recommends keeping the lid on the crock pot to prevent water from evaporating, which is important in dry climates like Colorado where she lives, to avoid the tallow from starting to burn.

Does adding salt to the tallow during the rendering process make it salty?

No, adding salt to the tallow during rendering does not make it salty. The salt helps to draw impurities out of the tallow and into the water, and since oil and water don't mix, the salt remains in the water.

How does Marissa's method of rendering tallow affect its odor?

Marissa's method produces tallow that is odorless to most people's noses, meaning there is no beefy or meaty smell. The quality of the tallow used can affect any residual smell.

What color should the finished tallow be according to Marissa's method?

The finished tallow should be light-colored, which can sometimes have a yellowish tint depending on the breed of cattle and their diet, but it should not be brown or burned.

How long does the initial step of rendering tallow in a crock pot typically take?

The initial step of rendering tallow can take anywhere from 8 to 12 hours, depending on the size of the fat chunks and the method used.

What can be done with the water left after rendering tallow?

The water, which may have a gelatinous texture, can be used for other purposes like soup stock, but one should be mindful of the salt content. Marissa personally gives it to her chickens.

What factors affect the consistency of the rendered tallow?

The consistency of the rendered tallow can be affected by the breed of cattle, the time of year, their diet, and whether the fat is leaf fat or trim fat from under the skin.

Can the purification steps remove a strong beefy smell from tallow rendered using a different method?

If the beefy smell comes from burning during the initial rendering, the purification steps may not completely remove the smell. However, tallow with a beefy smell is good for cooking purposes.

What is the trick Marissa shares to speed up the rendering process and increase yield?

Marissa shares the trick of using an immersion blender to whizz up the fat chunks after they have been heated and softened in the crock pot, which speeds up the rendering process and ensures all fat is rendered.

Can tallow be left at room temperature to solidify after straining?

Yes, tallow can be left at room temperature to solidify. It is a stable fat and will harden without issue, although softer tallow may prefer colder temperatures or refrigeration.

Outlines

00:00

📝 Tallow Rendering FAQ and Purification Process

Marissa from Bumblebee Apothecary addresses common questions about tallow rendering, including the process of purifying tallow with salt. She emphasizes the importance of covering the crock pot to prevent water evaporation and clarifies that adding salt does not make the tallow salty. Marissa explains that the type of tallow and rendering method can affect the final product's odor and color, with her method producing an odorless and light-colored tallow. She also discusses the influence of cattle breed and diet on tallow color and the reasons behind variations in tallow consistency.

05:00

🕒 Rendering Time and Tallow Consistency Variations

In this section, Marissa discusses the variable time it takes to render tallow, which depends on factors like the size of the fat chunks and whether the fat is ground. She recommends an 8 to 12-hour rendering time for thorough extraction. Marissa also addresses the use of the rendered water, suggesting it can be used as a soup stock or given to chickens. She addresses consistency issues, noting that tallow's hardness can vary due to factors like cattle breed and diet, and assures that these variations are normal and do not indicate a mistake in the rendering process.

10:02

🔥 Speeding Up Rendering with an Immersion Blender Tip

Marissa shares a time-saving trick for rendering tallow, especially when working with unground fat. She suggests placing large chunks of beef fat in a crock pot with salt and water, then after several hours, using an immersion blender to liquefy the fat. This method significantly speeds up the rendering process and increases yield. After blending, she continues the rendering process until completion, followed by straining and purifying the tallow. Marissa's tip aims to make the rendering process more efficient and accessible.

Keywords

💡Rendering

Rendering in the context of the video refers to the process of converting raw beef fat into purified tallow, a type of fat used for various purposes such as soap making, skincare, and cooking. The video focuses on addressing common questions and misconceptions about this process, emphasizing the importance of proper rendering for quality tallow.

💡Tallow

Tallow is a rendered form of beef fat that is used for various applications, including soap making and skincare. In the video, the host discusses the process of rendering tallow and how to achieve a pure, odorless product. Tallow is a central theme as the host aims to educate viewers on how to properly render it.

💡Purifying

Purifying, in the context of the video, involves the steps taken after rendering to ensure the tallow is free from impurities. The host explains that adding salt to the rendered tallow helps draw out impurities, resulting in a cleaner, whiter product. This concept is crucial for viewers looking to create high-quality tallow.

💡Crock Pot

A crock pot is an electric slow cooker used in the video for the rendering process. The host recommends using a crock pot for its convenience and safety, allowing the tallow to render over a long period without the risk of burning. The crock pot is highlighted as a preferred tool for rendering tallow.

💡Salt

Salt is used in the rendering process as a means to purify the tallow. The host clarifies that the salt does not make the tallow salty but rather helps to draw out impurities. This use of salt is a key technique discussed in the video for achieving a pure tallow product.

💡Odorless

Odorless refers to the characteristic of the tallow being free from any strong or undesirable smells. The host emphasizes that the rendering method presented in the video produces the most odorless tallow, which is important for applications like skincare where scent can be a factor.

💡Consistency

Consistency in the video refers to the varying textures of tallow, which can be hard or soft depending on factors like the breed of cattle and their diet. The host addresses concerns about tallow's consistency, explaining that variations are normal and do not indicate a mistake in the rendering process.

💡Immersion Blender

An immersion blender is a kitchen tool used in the video to speed up the rendering process. The host shares a tip about using an immersion blender to break down large chunks of fat after they have softened, which increases the yield and efficiency of the rendering process.

💡Yield

Yield in the context of the video pertains to the amount of tallow produced from the rendering process. The host introduces a trick using an immersion blender to increase the yield, ensuring that every bit of fat is rendered and nothing is left unutilized.

💡Skincare

Skincare is one of the applications for the rendered tallow discussed in the video. The host mentions that the tallow produced through the described method is suitable for skincare products, particularly when it is odorless and pure.

💡Cooking

Cooking is another application for tallow mentioned in the video. The host differentiates between tallow rendered for skincare, which should be odorless, and tallow suitable for cooking, which may benefit from a beefy flavor imparted through a different rendering method.

Highlights

Marissa from Bumblebee Apothecary answers frequently asked questions on rendering tallow.

A video link is provided to show the whole process of rendering and purifying tallow.

The importance of keeping the lid on the crock pot during rendering to prevent water evaporation and tallow burning.

Adding salt to the tallow rendering process does not make the tallow salty.

Tallow rendered with the wet method is odorless and pure white, unlike the dry method which can have a beefy smell.

Quality of tallow can vary depending on factors like breed of cattle and their diet.

Rendering time can vary greatly depending on the size of the fat chunks and the method used.

The leftover water from rendering can be used in soup stocks or given to chickens.

Tallow consistency can vary due to factors like breed of cattle and the fat's source on the animal.

Tallow with a strong beefy smell may not be completely purified but is good for cooking.

Different methods of tallow rendering are suitable for different purposes, such as cooking or skincare.

Tallow can be left to solidify at room temperature without issue.

A new trick is introduced to speed up the rendering process and increase yield using an immersion blender.

Using an immersion blender on partially rendered fat speeds up the process and ensures complete rendering.

The immersion blender trick can be applied to both ground and unground fat.

After rendering, tallow should be strained and then purified for use in skincare or soap making.

Marissa offers two new videos every week on nourishing recipes and natural living.

Transcripts

hi everyone it's marissa from

bumblebeeapothecary.com

today i'd like to answer all of your

frequently asked questions on rendering

tallow

[Music]

i have a video which i'll link below

that shows my whole process

for rendering and purifying tallow and

it's gotten a lot of views and there's

been some questions that have come up

over and over again

that i just wanted to answer all in one

spot so if you're

watched that video you still have some

questions definitely recommend watching

this video

and chances are i'll answer those

questions if you still have lingering

questions be sure and leave me a comment

and i'll answer them down below

also stay tuned later in the video i'm

going to share with you

a new trick that i've not really shared

before

anywhere that speeds up the rendering

and yields a lot more tallow

you can use it with unground tallow and

it makes

the process so fast and easy so stay

tuned and

watch for that tip so first of all let's

go over the

most common questions that come up the

first one is do i leave the lid

on the crock pot while it's rendering

and the answer is

yes i do now this is not a hard and fast

rule

you could leave it off and you'd

probably still have pretty good results

especially if you live in a

pretty damp climate i live in colorado

where it's pretty dry

most of the time and so i do leave that

lid on while it's rendering which is

really good because you don't want that

water evaporating

because otherwise then the tallow can

start to burn the next one that i get

asked a lot

is with my method where i add salt in

there to help purify the tallow

a lot of people want to know does this

make salty tallow

and the answer is no it does not so

remember how

oil and water don't mix tallow

when it's melted it's like an oil and

it does not mix with the water the salt

stays

in the water and it helps to draw the

impurities

out of the tallow into the water in that

special

purification part of the process so

the tallow ends up very nice and pure

white odorless and then the impurities

are drawn out by the salt

into the water the salt is in the water

it gets dumped

when you do the step where you scrape

the

tallow cake and dump the water the next

question would be

does this really produce tallow that is

completely odorless

and that's a great question so here's

the thing the type of tallow

the quality of tallow that you use is

going to make a difference whether

there's any finished smell or not

some people's noses are more sensitive

than others but in the whole

broad range of tallow rendering

this method produces the most odorless

towel that there is

and most people including myself when

it's made into an

unscented tallow balm and you put your

nose in that jar

and you smell you smell like a buttery

type of smell when you render tallow

the dry method where you don't use water

and there's no purification step with

salt and water

then you smell that tallow ball made

with tallow with that method

and it smells like a pot roast so in the

whole entire

scheme of all the different methods that

there are to make

tallow this will produce the most

odorless tallow

possible and to most people's noses

it is indeed odorless meaning no beefy

meaty smell

another question that comes up sometimes

is i followed

all the steps for rendering and it's not

perfectly snow white

there's still a yellowish color to it

and let me explain that as well so when

i say

white i mean light colored as in not

burned brown so when you render with the

dry method the tallow starts to burn

and so you get a much darker colored

tallow it's like a

like a light brown color this method on

the other hand

leaves a very light colored towel and

white was the best way that i could

think of to describe it the color of the

finished tallow that you end up with

varies

according to different things especially

the breed of cattle

whether or not they're one were 100

grass fed and grass finished or not

certain breeds of cattle especially

dairy breeds like jersey and guernsey

will have very yellow fat

oftentimes the more grass the cattle eat

the more yellow the fat will be so if

you

do this method and your tallow is not

snow white but it has a bit of a yellow

color

that's perfectly fine that just means

there's a certain breed of cattle that

it came from

and or there's nutrients in there from

the grass it's a good thing what you

don't want is

bird and tallow that's brown another

question that comes up is how long does

it take to render

how long does especially that first step

when you put the raw beef fat in how

long does that take

and the answer is it varies a ton it

matters

mostly according to how big your or

small your fat chunks are if you're

using ground fat or if you cut it up

yourself or if you're putting

big chunks in there the smaller the

pieces of fat the faster it will render

when i render i usually let it go that

first time

for 8 to 12 hours sometimes that could

be longer than it's necessary but i just

make sure there's always water in there

there's no chance of burning

and it always turns out great i want to

make sure if i'm going through all this

process of rendering and purifying to

get

every last bit of tallow out so i let it

go a

good long amount of time that's why i

like the crock pot for doing this

because you can

just set it and it's safe to have on for

a long period of time another question

that sometimes

gets asked is what can i do with the

water that comes

after i'm done rendering like when you

scrape the cake and you have the water

left in the bottom

sometimes it's like jello and i

personally haven't ever used it for

anything i render a lot of tallow

and so i would end up with so much but i

usually just give it to my chickens

so that's a use um some people have had

the idea of

adding it to like a soup as part of the

stock or broth and i think that's a

great idea

you would just want to take into

consideration the salt

make sure and taste your soup to make

sure that it's not going to be too salty

but that could be a great use some other

questions that come sometimes are

consistency questions sometimes people

will be like

i rendered it following all the steps

and it's rock hard

it's so hard i can't do anything with it

or somebody will say

i followed all the directions correctly

and it's so

soft like i didn't expect it to be this

soft

you probably did it right you probably

didn't do anything wrong the thing is

tallow varies inconsistency

due to all kinds of different factors

the breed of cattle

the time of year what they happen to be

eating right then the grass or hay

all that kind of stuff probably even

more factors besides that

another thing to keep to keep in mind is

that

the leaf fat around the internal organs

of the cattle

is going to be harder all the trim fat

from under the skin

and other places is going to be softer

in general you can use both

they both have great benefits the leaf

fat does tend to be

higher in nutrients so if you have a

choice you can use

just that but the main thing to remember

is that if your tallow turned out softer

or harder than you expected you didn't

do anything wrong it's just the way it

is

it varies so if you have soft tallow

then you can make skin care very easily

that you don't have to add any liquid

oil to if you want

if you have harder tallow you'll

definitely need to add liquid oil if

you're making skin care but that's just

how it is tallow's an unrefined natural

product

and it varies another question sometimes

it gets asked is

i already rendered some tallow using

another method like a dry method

and it has a really strong beefy smell

can i do the purification steps

and get rid of that beefy smell and the

answer is if the beefy smell comes from

the tallow being too hot

chances are the purifying steps are not

really going to help

completely they might help some so it

could be worth a try

but if it came from burning the first

time it was rendered you're probably not

going to completely get rid of the smell

but the good news is tala with a smell

or

beefy taste like that is great for

cooking because you actually want some

flavor like that for cooking another

question that comes up

is along the lines of so what method

should i use for cooking like do i need

to use this purifying step if i want to

use it for cooking and

just like i mentioned a little bit ago

not necessarily you can

it makes wonderful tallow for cooking

especially if you want

like a milder use if you're using it in

pastries or something

but if you're frying making french fries

or something like that you probably do

want some beefy flavor so a faster

you know less labor-intensive dry

rendering method can be just fine for

cooking

but if you want it for soap or skincare

and things like that then you probably

don't want the beefy smell

so the purifying method and the wet

rendering method with purifying steps

is the way to go another question that

sometimes comes up is

when i'm letting the tallow solidify in

the bowl

after i've strained it is it okay to

leave it at room temperature

and the answer is yes tallow is a very

stable

fat at room temperature so it's

perfectly okay if you have tallow on the

softer side you'll probably want to let

it sit

in the refrigerator or outside if it's a

cold day

that way it'll be easier to pop it out

of the bowl it won't be as soft

most of the time tallow is hard enough

though you can just let it harden at

room temperature

and work with it after that and it works

great alright and now for

the tip that you've been waiting for

that speeds up tallow rendering

so much increases the yield and makes it

easy to render even if you don't have

ground fat

so i get b fat from a variety of places

some of the places will grind it for me

and some of it won't

so for the places that won't grind it i

get packages that are like

two pat two to three pounds of beef fat

in a shrink wrapped

package so i'll plop a couple of those

into my crock pot

and then add the salt and water so in

the past i've tried different ways of

trying to grind it in a food processor

or cut it up by hand and that takes so

much time

so i discovered this trick so like i

said i

plop it all in the crock pot big old

chunks just as they are

i turn it on i let it start rendering

after

i want to say four hours or so

four to six hours when the fat is all

cooked through heated through and very

soft i take my immersion blender

and then i go in there and i just whizz

up all the fat

tissue meat whatever is there i whiz it

all up until it's a soupy mixture

then i let it finish rendering for the

rest of the time so for a total of eight

to twelve hours usually i go towards 12

because i want to make sure to get all

that tallow

and then after the rendering process is

done

every bit of fat will be rendered there

will be nothing big enough

to be left i probably don't need to let

it go quite 12 hours when it's this

small

i just do because like i said those fat

chunks are whizzed up so small that they

render

very quickly you can just kind of keep

an eye on it if you're trying this

method yourself and once you

think that it looks like everything's

rendered and not raw

anymore it's probably go you can

probably go ahead and strain it so then

after that i strain it just through a

mesh strainer

no cheese cloth or anything for that

first step let it solidify in the bowls

pop it out scrape the bottom of the

tallow cake and then i do my

purification step i usually just do one

but you can do more if you like

and then after that it's drained through

the cheesecloth for the next

step metal strainer with the cheesecloth

inside it you can refer to my video

which i'll link below

that has all the details but i did want

to share that immersion blender trick

for whizzing up big chunks of fat saves

you so much time over trying to cut them

or grind them or if the meat packing

place won't grind it for you

you don't know what to do i've actually

even used it on ground

fat so i put the ground fat in the crock

pot let it start

cooking get soft and then whiz it up

because it just speeds it up

so hopefully you find that really

helpful i know it was life changing for

me okay i think that covers

just about all of the questions that

people have been asking about rendering

tallow

so i hope that answered your questions i

hope you found it useful

if you have more that i didn't answer

here be sure and leave me a comment

be sure and check out that video too if

you haven't if you did like this video

give it a thumbs up

share it with anybody else you think

would like it if you're new to my

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i get out

two new videos every week on nourishing

recipes and natural living

thanks so much for watching see you next

time bye