? Source for Mutton Tallow - 5# Containers or Less

[357maximum]

You could just raise a couple of sheep in your back yard. I am sure your buddies would not rib you too hard about it.

Personally I find it alot easier just to kill a deer and use it's tallow myself, but my buddies are know to be cruel.

[semtav]

If tallow goes rancid it was NOT rendered properly! After rendering you need to "wash" it atleast 2 times also. Tallow is what the Indians used to make pemican and they have found caches of that which are over 100 years old and still eddible!

Tom

OGK

Clue us in on what you mean by washing it at least 2 times.

I was going along fat dumb and happy rendering my mutton tallow in the crock pot and suddenly nothing was working right. came up with a batch that had dark swirls in it, and some was yellower that the rest.
I still get a lot that is good hard and white when done, but what am I doing wrong with the other?

One batch wouldn't even harden. felt like hog lard.

Do you suppose they slipped some hog fat in on me?

Thanks
Brian

[John Boy]

How to Mke Tallow Wax

[DIRT Farmer]

To render clean tallow, it needs to be rendered on water. cut up the tallow in small chunks and simmer out the fat. The quanities needed for a pot of lube proably there is no need to press it. After rendering it and it is cooled, simmer it in a pot half full of water which will leach out some of the natural salt and other impurities. After cooling cut the tallow from the top, in a fresh pot bring it to a simmer, just enough to remove the water. While hot pour in jars and seal with a lid.
The last time I did this was about 15 years ago and I am on my last pint, it is not rancid. I get my mutton tallow from the local B'cue joints.

[semtav]

OK

Just trying to analyse why some of mine turned bad.
I did have a litttle meat on some of the scraps, and taking some of the liquid out early may have let the meat burn and spoil the rest.

[357maximum]

A little meat on the scraps will NOT hurt anything in the rendering process. Not getting all the water out of the finished tallow will kill it for long term storage however. Water is what allows the bacteria and such to keep working on your tallow and make a stink sooner than later.

This is how I do it with whitetail tallow, right wrong or otherwise......it works for me.


1. Place all hard fat and scraps in the appropriate sized pan/pot. Add about 1/2 inch of water to keep the chance of scorching down on the initial heating. Cook at high until all the oil is leached out of the cracklins. You should end up with a pot full of hot oil with cracklins floating on top. IT WILL LOOK LIKE YOU ARE DEEP FRYING fish/fries WHEN DONE.

2. Remove the now depleted large chunks/cracklins(these may look like porkrinds but I do not like the taste) with a slotted spoon and mix this in with the dog's food. I feed this mix to the hounds and they love it BTW.

3. Strain the still hot liquid through an old bedsheet or other tightly woven cotton scrap as a filter into another clean pot.

4. Add an equal amount of water to the liquid and boil it for an hour or so. Stir occassionally. This removes any salts and foreign matter (blood, etc) from your prize.

5. Let this cool completely and then remove the now solid tallow cake off the liquid mess below. Scape the "squishy" stuff off the bottom of the cake (the dogs like this too).

6. Now you have a nice white solid mass of tallow with no impurities other than a bit of potential trapped water. Take the white mass and re-melt it in a clean container and simmer it until all signs of water are 100% gone....(NO popping sounds or bubbling)

7. Pour HOT LIQUID into jars and seal or make "ingots" in a miniloaf pan. I vaccum seal the miniloafs when cold to keep any future contaminitaion issues away.

8. PICK A RECIPE and make lube. Or use it as is for patch lube on your frontstuffer as is.

9. Enjoy using something that most people waste.

[semtav]

Thanks
DF and 357.

Starting to make sense why some of mine turned out great and some was a little off.
I'll redo the batches that aren't hard and white.

Brian

[cajun shooter]

The mutton tallow that John Boy and I both used from Dixie was a large important part of the lube recipe. It was very slick and would take quite a lot of mixing to come up with a replacement. I used 12 to 16 oz with each batch not a tablespoon full or rubbed on a patch. I thank you for your post and suggestions as I know John Boy does. Right now I will have to say that lube will not be made anymore.

[John Boy]

Right now I will have to say that lube will not be made anymore.

David, we would be back in business if a willing soul was to be the Honcho for a 1000 POUND order from Uruguay - Australia or India!

[zxcvbob]

Would grocery store lard (Armour or Hormel) work if you boiled it with water to extract the citric acid, etc, separated it, and then cooked the residual water back out?

(I've always just used the cheap shortening that's a mixture of beef fat and hydrogenated vegetable oil, but I wasn't mixing it with wax to make lube)

[Old Goat Keeper]

Sorry for it takignme so long to reply guys. My puter went down. Anyway How 357Max said is how I render my tallow. And I do the reheat the cooled rendered tallow with water thing. But I do it several times. When it is rendered and washes several times it will have very little if any smell. Other options other than lamb/mutton tallow includ any of the venison family (deer, elk, moose), buffalo/bison and good ol plentifull cow tallow. I only use the kidney or "leaf" tallow from inside the body cavity. IF you want to use lard/pig fat get the kind in the cold case. The kind that is on the shelves and don't need refrigeration has additives that you DON'T want inside of your barrel.

Tom

[alamogunr]

David, we would be back in business if a willing soul was to be the Honcho for a 1000 POUND order from Uruguay - Australia or India!

Something like this is probably the only solution for most of us. I'm not in a situation where I can obtain the fat from the kidneys of any animal, and even if I could, I'm not going to cook it down for tallow.

I would buy 5 lbs if someone had it for sale. Could tallow from Uruguay, Australia or India be trusted to be what we need?

John
W.TN

[cajun shooter]

I was thinking that a container from New Zealand would be of a fine quality. It would take some research to make a final decision. A call to Dixie management would probably be a better start as they have been importing it for years. I would think that the reason for the dry up was a money thing as I have never been there but know for a fact they did not run out of sheep.

[Shiloh]

Didn't know you could buy this. I thought this was something that had to be rendered at home.
But in reading that it was available in 1000 lb. barrels, one would think that there is not a big demand for small quantities. 1000 lb. of mutton tallow would make enough lube for all on the Cast Boolit forum.

[semtav]

I rendered up about 25 lbs this summer. Even if I sold it for $10 a lb, it wouldn't have been worth the trouble. So I gotta believe it is a monetary issue.
At least I have enough to last me a couple years.

[hangn7]

I am new here but I did find a local butcher that is saving me about 10 to 15 pounds of kidney fat from lamb. Cost at 1.00 a pound. Bear Paw Meats Chinook Montana. 406-357-3119 if anyone is interested. I believe they butcher weekly. Thank you to all for your postings. Mark

[alamogunr]

Should be some mutton tallow available somewhere in the near future.

http://tinyurl.com/3bdmrak

John
W.TN

[TCLouis]

Stole a recipe from Larry Gibson (I think that is where it came from)

5:4 beeswax to olive oil

I use this on conicals, will try it melted into patches this spring.

Another I found that I have ritten down, but not used
4 Beeswax
3 coconut oil
1 olive oil

[stubshaft]

FWIW - Dixie has been out of Mutton Tallow for at least a year and a half. I called them and spoke to a woman in their CS office that politely told me they "did not know when they would be getting anymore". There are a multitude of recipes that do not use MT but for me it is just one of the things that I had come to rely on.

[waksupi]

How about Bag Balm?