Rendering Beef Suet Into Tallow

Used in

• Chapter 9 The Hardest Chapter

On the Menu

Lard and tallow

The rows that check it

• 2 confirmed
• 2 unresolved
• 2 marked for safety

• B14 unresolved Safety Fat fire: tallow catches at ~200 °C and above, a wood fire under an unwatched kettle reaches it in minutes; lid or sand, never water (fireball); kettle never left, never more than …
• B19 unresolved Safety Lye and lime: wood-ash lye burns, eyes covered; 1 kg tallow ≈ 140 g NaOH or 200 g KOH; egg-float test (coin-width cap); slaked lime 1 kg/20 l burns eyes and skin, goggles and …
• B54 confirmed Fat: cow 30–40 kg fat and 40 kg bone; pig 12 kg fat and 10 kg bone; render within 12 h or hold ≤7 °C (Reg 853/2004); suet 86–90 % lipid, trim 62–76 %; dry rendering 104–116 °C …
• B56 confirmed Tallow melts 45–50 °C; candle: twisted linen/cotton wick dipped 20–30 times in wet-rendered tallow, slumps in August; potash soft soap hardened by boiling with salt …

In the Index

The cow Slaughter and butchery Water The kitchen and its dishes Soap, lye and the wash