Deer tallow

[Fishman]

My son shot his first buck and we are processing it now. We are interested in rendering the tallow for use as a black powder lube. Any advice would be welcome on how and especially what not to do. Sorry to be so brief.

[357maximum]

Save the hard fat from the hams/butt/back and also the fat from around the kidneys(in the gut pile...easier to get once the guts have cooled). You do not want any fat that is gooey when cold only the hard white stuff. Does generally have alot more tallow to be mined than bucks do...but a buck will work...you just get less tallow.

Take the clean fat cut it into 1 inch chunks and put it in a pot that is too big and add an inch of water to get things going....cook it over direct heat...gas is best.

Cook it until all popping noises cease and all the cracklings are floating. Now you have a pot of dirty hot oil.

Sift out the cracklings and save them for your best friend...fido.

Strain it well through and old t-shirt or pillowcase.

Take the still hot oil and add it to a pot with about 6 inches of water in it and cook it (boil the whole mess) for another 20 minutes or so.



Turn off the heat and leave the pot in a cool area until the pot is dead cold. Now you have a block of tallow on top of a puddle of cold water.

Slice/peel/cut/scrape the tallow brick from atop the nasty looking water under neath it.


Remove the slimy Spam goo like goo from the underside of your block.

Take that tallow and cook it again until all popping noises are gone...that is how you know it no longer has any water in it.

(optional) strain it again


Pour it into mini breadpans to make "loafs" for storage.


Ta daaa you just made thrice rendered deer tallow that is good for all sorts of things. Congratulations.

If you did it right it will be almost snowy white and will not have any special storage issues. I have kept a block of mine in open air for 3 years and it has not changed one bit or gone rancid.

[legend]

could candles be made from it ?

[webfoot10]

Yes legend, candles could be made from the tallow. But it's cheaper to buy them.
Fishman, after you render the tallow, mix it 50/50 with beeswax. It will be a hard wax mixture. Add a little snowcap unsalted lard to it to soften the mix, you'll have to
play around with the mix till you get the consistency you like. I use a harder mix for
lubing cast boolits, and a soft mix for patch lube. Don't get no leading from my rifle loads
or in the 44 mag. Works great. have fun expermenting.
Dave/webfoot10

[Jailer]

I render mine a little differently. The water method was too much of a pain and way too messy. The first time I tried, it looked someone had a bacon grease fight in my kitchen.

I cut mine up in small pieces as well. Put them in a frying pan on low heat on one burner with a saucepan on low heat on another burner. Heat them slowly and they will begin to melt.

Once they get to this point I use a plastic potato masher to squeeze all of the melted fat out of the more fleshy pieces and continue to cook it down. Once all the flesh has been reduced to cracklings I pour it off into the sauce pan running it through a strainer lined with a couple layers of cheese cloth.

After it's all done I pour the sauce pan off into my silicone bake pans to let it sit up and then cut it into chunks and freeze it.

I don't shoot black powder so I use mine to make soap.

What I wouldn't give for a fight club mold :mrgreen:

[runfiverun]

don't leave it where the dogs,hogs,cats,possums,or squirells can get it.

[nanuk]

tallow works GREAT for frying French Fries also

far better taste than any veggie oil.... and far less greasy = Far MORE HEALTHY

[357maximum]

tallow works GREAT for frying French Fries also

far better taste than any veggie oil.... and far less greasy = Far MORE HEALTHY

I will give you $20 if you can fully eat 2 large french fries that have been fried in deer tallow:shock:........the only catch's...............the fries must be cold and you get nothing to drink. I have tasted deer tallow..............NO THANK YOU.

[GabbyM]

357maximum you may lose that bet.
Saskatchewan is up there where they chew on caribou tallow as a snack.

[nanuk]

357maximum you may lose that bet.
Saskatchewan is up there where they chew on caribou tallow as a snack.

Heh..

I've read what some of you southern boys eat.... Arrggghhh... We call it Coyote bait!


deer fat cold is fairly strong, (I liken it to cold lamb) but hot, it is not bad at all, and to cook in it adds something that can only be described as "French Haut Couture Cuisine"

[357maximum]

Heh..

I've read what some of you southern boys eat.... Arrggghhh... We call it Coyote bait!


deer fat cold is fairly strong, (I liken it to cold lamb) but hot, it is not bad at all, and to cook in it adds something that can only be described as "French Haut Couture Cuisine"

I will take you at YOUR word. Your tastes are obviously differnt than mine. [smilie=s:

[Jailer]

I will give you $20 if you can fully eat 2 large french fries that have been fried in deer tallow:shock:........the only catch's...............the fries must be cold and you get nothing to drink. I have tasted deer tallow..............NO THANK YOU.


Heh..

I've read what some of you southern boys eat.... Arrggghhh... We call it Coyote bait!


deer fat cold is fairly strong, (I liken it to cold lamb) but hot, it is not bad at all, and to cook in it adds something that can only be described as "French Haut Couture Cuisine"

The last time I rendered deer tallow I had to leave the room a couple times because the smell made me nauseous. I can't imagine eating anything that was cooked in it.

[Griz44mag]

After rendering to pure white, melt and mix with 25% Palm Oil, saponify with Sodium Hydroxide, add a touch of your favorite fragrance (I just love the Wellington "Baby Powder"), pour into a wax paper lined wood loaf mold, age for 4 weeks, slice to bar size. It makes a delightful and deep cleaning soap! If you leave the Palm oil out, and use wood ash drippings instead of NaOH you will be making Pioneer soap exactly like the pioneers made it!

[Silvercreek Farmer]

I will give you $20 if you can fully eat 2 large french fries that have been fried in deer tallow:shock:........the only catch's...............the fries must be cold and you get nothing to drink. I have tasted deer tallow..............NO THANK YOU.

I'll take that action all day long! Once won $20 for taking a shot of Papa Johns garlic butter in college. That $20 bought plenty of beer to wash it down with!

[cajun shooter]

I did some deer tallow in the 80's No Thank You, I'll stick to my Lamb Tallow which is good enough to use for cooking. It also will keep for many years.

[1Shirt]

Sounds like a lot more work than I want to mess with, cause time spent rendering could be spent reloading or shooting. But to each his own, I guess.
1Shirt!

[Boyscout]

I just rendered some deer tallow down from two does I shot this weekend. However, I didn't strain it; I just picked out the cracklins and debris and poured it into a pie pan. Plan on putting it in a suet feeder for the birds. I cooked mine outside on a Coleman stove so I wouldn't have the odor.

[jonas302]

I cooked some down on the outside cook stove after reading this post went pretty good until I fell asleep on the couch It burst into flames and hour later when I went out and took the lid off has that stinky burned smell now not sure if it will be good for anything and now defiantly not for cooking
Oh well maybe the muzzle loader will bring home some more deer(:

[randyrat]

thrice rendered deer tallow that is good for all sorts of things.
357 Maximums directions are perfect.. I have done this and I would Highly recommend doing this outside. If you want good clean tallow that will last for years in storage follow his directions.

[cajun shooter]

Again, I agree with that Randy. The more care that is taken in the processing the better the tallow.
You can however drink lamb tallow and even bear tallow but deer tallow will make you upchuck. At least any I ever tried did.
The pure tallow taken from the kidney area of sheep is some of the purist on this earth. You may purchase it from a green farm for about $8 a quart. It does not take that much to make some very fine BP lube.
If you are trying for a MZ lube then adding some of Randy Rats pure clean BW is fine. If you are trying for a cartridge lube for BP then I make my own that has other ingredients. You may want to look at the lube sticky section for many ideas. They all will work but some are much better than others.
Pure lanolin, JoJoBa oil, Carnuba flakes, olive oil are just a few things that are used with a BW base.

[Fishman]

Wow, these are all great ideas. I rendered it down on medium low as I processed the deer so it wasnt really much extra work. I ended up with about a gallon of hard tallow! We are going to try making a few items with it, including soap and boolit lube. I wrongly assumed it couldn't be used for smokeless loads so that is exciting. I won't be throwing out the tallow in the future that's for sure.

[pilot]

Keep posting about it here so I can follow along. I also rendered a gallon of tallow from a couple deer I got this season. I did it originally because a friend said they used it for boot waterproofing when he was a kid. It looks like it would be a great base for cast bullet lube, too.

[OverMax]

I got to try this. I hate the store B/P patch lube stuff. It all stinks!! Now I know where the best tallow comes from to do this with out of a deer. Going to my local Goodwill tomorrow to look for a pot & cover. Thanks, to Fishman & 357 maximum and all you others who participated in this interesting thread.