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.

New Goat Times - Goat Midwifery!

As the rain falls so do little goat kids from the uterus. This spring has been a whirlwind of activity for Nick and me - trying to find a new place to live, then moving all the animals and our belongings, scrambling against weather and time to establish growing beds, setting up a make-shift living area for our goats to have babies, and then having A LOT of kids born in a not-so-ideal space. Stress levels were high - but out of chaos came joy, and now we have lots of kids to lift the spirits and welcome in spring. We were also lucky in the fact that all the births went  smoothly with little complication.
The birthing process for a goat is a very individual experience. No goat is going to do it the same as another. The best birthing story from this spring is from Pearl - our little pure bred Nigerian Dwarf. She showed me signs of pre-labor, including braxton hicks contractions and extreme fussiness a full two days before she decided to give birth at 3am after the second day! Epic. But she birthed two very cute little kids. Pictured below!

Although we had no serious problems during birthing this spring, we did have two yearling does with delivering single kids - which tend to be larger. That makes it quite the stretch for a first timer! Something to keep in mind when dealing with first timers is to have olive oil on hand, so that you can add some extra lube and aid in stretching. If you feel like you need to help pull out a goat kid there are some VERY important things to remember.

• If the babies are positioned normal everything should go fine.  Only help her if you feel like the kid has been in the birthing canal too long. What helps is to have a time keeping implement on hand. It is funny how time gets all fuzzy when you're watching a goat give birth. You think it has been hours and it has been 5 minuets.
• Start timing how long they are in the birth canal after the water breaks and she begins to actively push. In general, 30 mins is the maximum amount of time they should be in the birth canal. In a normal "diving position" kid you can see the front hooves and nose. In this situation you can use the "rule of tongue" - If the tongue is blue - most likely it is time to help a little. But this is not a cut and dry issue - use your instincts and seek help if your nervous!
• In the situation where you are going to be pulling on a kid take a firm hold of ONE hoof and gently but firmly slide it out until it is completely extended. This will help create a more arrow dynamic shape for the mom to push out. If she is still having trouble, you can do the same thing to the other leg.
• Work with the mother's contractions. Do not be pulling on a baby when the mother is resting between contractions. This doesn't help the situation at all, only stresses the mother out even more. 
• When you do help her, pull down - toward her haunches. Do NOT pull out away from her body. Pulling down works with the natural shape of her pelvis. If you pull out you increase her pain and probability of tearing.

 The best thing to remember is that a healthy well cared for goat is going to be set up very well to have an easy hands free kidding. They are really good at having babies, and tend to be excellent mothers. Here are some good things to have on hand waiting for your kids to arrive...

• Olive Oil
• Watch or Cell phone to keep time
• Emergency contact numbers - breeders, vets, savvy neighbors etc.
• Everclear or Vodka to sterilize implements if you need to enter the does vagina or uterus.
• Cayenne - this can be used to stimulate weak kids (rub a VERY tiny amount onto their gums) as well as given to a doe after a difficult birth along with blackstrap molasses dissolved in warm water.
• Clean towels - if you want to help the doe dry off her babies 
• Heat lamp (chicken brooding lamps work great), if it is very cold - kids sometimes need extra warmth.
• And a camera! of course.  

This is really preliminary information and I recommend watching some you tube videos of goat births or better yet finding a breeder in your area who would let you come watch first hand.