Rendering Fats

Rendering fat is a simple and gr-easy process! The first step is finding an animal to harvest the fat from. Lots of hunters discard the fats of their animals, especially Bears. Bear fat is a wonderful rendered fat, and if processed correctly will turn out pearly white with a mild fatty scent. Even the most delicately processed Pig lard tends to retain an odor of pork. Which turns out to be ideal to cook with, especially savory things like tortillas or frying.  Beef fat is also nice when rendered, though it is not as silky as Bear. Make some calls to any hunter friends of yours, on just put it out into the community (Craigslist?) that your interested in it. You can also, obviously raise or hunt the animal yourself. When dressing the animal make an effort to leave the fat trimmings as clean as possible. This will save you time in the process.

Once you have your fat, put it in the freezer and let it freeze through (at least 24 hours). Pick a day when you have a good 6 hours of free time and energy to process your fats. To prepare for the process you will need:

• A sturdy cutting surface with cutting boards
• Sharp knives
• 1 bowl of steamy hot water (to be refilled periodically)
• 1 bag for discarded scraps
• 1 large steel pot
• A heat source (propane stove, wood fire, or stove top)
• 1 large stirring spoon (wood is best)
• Rags for hands
• Cheese muslin or cheese cloths for straining at end
• Enough clean glass jars to contain the amount of fat being rendered

Step 1 - thaw fat.
Pull out your fat from the freezer and let it begin to thaw as you set everything up.

Step 2 - prep your station.
Set up your cutting table with cutting boards, knives, numerous rags, hot water, and a place to discard scraps.

Step 3 - prep the pot.
Get your steel pot ready to be filled with fat chunks, and your heat source ready to use.

Step 4 - cut the fat.

Begin to cut up your fat chunks. The goal with this is to end up with completely clean small chunks of fat with no debris or meat still attached. Once you have a clean piece of fat, cut it up into small square inch pieces. This can be tricky as your hands and knife get super greasy, so be careful and go slowly.
The reason you want a completely clean piece of fat with no hunks of meat or bits of dirt or hair is because the temperatures reached when simmering fat is much higher than water, so meat bits will char and hair burns and gets stinky...this is the main reason people end up with off smelling and tasting rendered fat. It is the most time consuming part of the process, but if you take your time your product will be better.


Step 5 - getting your fat to run.

Once you have all your meat cut into small pieces and put into your steel pot you can begin to heat them. This process should be done very carefully and on low heat to begin. You do not want to heat up the fat too quickly. In the old Foxfire books this part is called 'getting your fat to run'. The fat is inside the fibrous tissues you just cut up. You want to gently heat the pieces up, getting the fats inside the chunks to liquefy and seep out. If you do this too fast, you essentially end up searing the tissues and cooking them. This impedes the fats to run out, kind of trapping them inside. This is also a way to get off flavors and smells. Patience is key, as well as stirring. Once you begin to heat the chunks you want to avoid any cooking/ sticking of the pieces to the bottom, so stir stir stir. You ultimately want to gradually increase the heat to be high enough that your melting the fats efficiently, but not so high that your fat will reach a boil. Keep this heating stirring process until you have what resembles a fat soup with chunks of flesh floating about.(yum) It can take over an hour, depending on how much fat you are running.

Step 6 - straining the fat.

Take your fat soup and pour it through a colander lined with a thin cloth (linen or cheese muslin/cloth will work) into your jars, or into another container to strain one more time into your jars. You want to get the liquid fat into your jars ASAP, so that it will set up (cool to a solid) in the jar. Once your jars are filled place them in a fridge for 1-2 days and then afterward freeze until your ready to use! They can also remain in your fridge and will keep for months.


Step 7 - squeezing the last bits.

After you have strained your free flowing fat out of the pot you can do one last ditch effort to get as much as possible out of your fat chunks. Scoop up the remaining chunks into a few layers of linen cloths, take up the ends and squeeeeeze until you get the last remaining fats in the tissues to come out. This is the greasiest part...and can be frustrating as well! BUT, you really can salvage quite a bit more fat by going though this step. There are such devices out there called 'fat presses' that do this step for you. You can also buy a sausage stuffer...and squish out the remaining fats that way!

Step 8 - enjoy and feed them birds.

You can use your rendered fat to infuse herbs, make salves, cook, and grease things. Birds love the fatty meat chunks you end up with afterwards. I have noticed as least with Bear meat and fat dogs don't tend to be interested! Which is a rarity.