Rendered Beef Tallow
some beef tallow I collected
This is the by-product that turns out to be the point. Trim a brisket and you are left with two pounds of hard white fat that most people throw away. Rendered down, it is the best frying fat in the kitchen and it costs nothing.
It smokes at about 400°F, higher than butter and most oils, it is solid at room temperature so it keeps for months, and it makes potatoes taste like something cooked in a proper kitchen.
The only skill is low and slow. Rushed, the fat browns and the whole batch tastes burnt and smells like a dirty fryer for the rest of its life.
- Makes
- About 3 cups
- Hands-on
- 20 minutes
- Render
- 3–4 hours, low
- Keeps
- Months, cold
What you need
Everything
- 2–3 lb beef fat — brisket trim, suet or butcher's trimmings
- 1/2 cup water, to start it off
- A pinch of salt
To keep it
- Fine sieve and a muslin cloth or coffee filter
- Clean glass jars with lids
How it goes
1 — Cut the fat small, or freeze it and grate it
Half-inch pieces at most. More surface area means it renders faster and more completely. Half-frozen fat grates on a box grater and that is the fastest way of all.
2 — Start it with half a cup of water
Fat and water into a heavy pot over low heat. The water stops the fat scorching before enough has melted to protect it, and it boils away long before the end.
pro tip — This is the trick that makes clean white tallow instead of brown. Nobody mentions it and it matters more than anything else here.
3 — Lowest heat you have, three hours
Barely bubbling. Stirred every half hour. The pieces shrink, go gold, and eventually float as crisp brown bits in clear liquid.
4 — Alternatively, 225°F in the oven
In a Dutch oven, lid off, for three to four hours. Easier to keep gentle than a stove burner and there is nothing to watch.
5 — It is done when the cracklings go crisp and sink
The solid bits turn deep brown and stop floating, and the liquid is clear enough to see the bottom of the pot.
6 — Strain it warm, through cloth
Through a sieve lined with muslin or a coffee filter. Any solid left behind in the jar is what makes stored tallow go rancid.
7 — Salt the cracklings and eat them
The crisp brown bits left in the sieve, salted while hot. They are beef scratchings and they will not survive the afternoon.
8 — Jar it and keep it cold
It sets to a firm ivory white as it cools. Months in the fridge, a year in the freezer. Dark amber while liquid, as in the picture, is exactly right.
Two bratwursts fell in the fire. The tallow was the consolation prize and it was the better one. LFG.