How to Render and Purify Tallow DIY

May 18

If you want to learn more about the benefits and many uses of tallow visit my blog post Why is Tallow so Beneficial?

Wet Method vs Dry Method?

Tallow is a versatile ingredient to have in your home. It has so many purposes such as cooking, skincare, and cleaning.

I am going to show you how to make a beautiful, white, odorless tallow using the wet method. The wet method is a way to melt the tallow and seperate the impurities from the tallow. Usually, chunks of beef suet are just put into the pot/slow cooker without water and it is heated very slowly to remove any impurities- called the dry method. The wet method uses water and sometimes salt along with the beef suet and it can help remove more impurities from the suet as well as prevent it from burning in your pot/slow cooker. They both work just as fine but I find the wet method a bit nicer, especially if you are a busy person and don’t want to risk your tallow burning by forgetting about it (highly unlikely but I like to play it safe).

Since tallow is made from melted beef fat you will want to make sure you have a good source such as a local butcher or local farm. You can either purchase regular beef suet (beef fat from the body) or beef leaf fat (kidney fat- it's a bit cleaner with fewer impurities). I used a regular beef suet in this recipe and it turned out beautiful!

SUPPLIES YOU WILL NEED:

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Beef Suet/Leaf Fat- I started with 5 pounds. You can get this at your local butcher, farm or online. (NOTE-You can use trim fat but the finished product may be softer in texture and may smell beefier)

Slow Cooker- I used a 7 QT pot and it fit everything just fine.

Fine Mesh Strainer: I like to use a larger strainer to avoid spillover or accidental spilling.

Cheesecloth or Tea Towel: This can catch more impurities than just using the strainer alone.

Metal Soup Spoon: This allows you to transfer rendered tallow to its next location. You can also use a glass measuring cup if you wish.

Sharp Kitchen Knife- If you can’t get ground suet you will need to chop it up into ground bits yourself. A knife works fine or you can use a food processor.

Metal Bowl: You will be pouring your rendered tallow into the metal bowl. It is easier to take the disc of tallow out of a big metal bowl like this instead of a straight edged container or pot.

Cutting Board- You will want to have somewhere to cutup and chop the suet and tallow.

Glass Measuring Cup: I used this to pour finished tallow into the muffin tins and storage containers.

Storage Containers: Since I used this batch of tallow for skincare I poured finished tallow into a silicone muffin tin to make it easier to pop out for my recipes (each muffin pocket was 4 oz). If you are using the tallow for cooking you can just use a regular mason jar or any other glass storage container.

INSTRUCTIONS TO WET RENDER TALLOW

**Cut up Your Suet**

Place suet on your cutting board and cut it up enough to fit it in a food processor or continue to cut it up until it is all very fine. The smaller the pieces the better the rendering will go. Ask your butcher to grind it up if you can.

**Place Ingredients into Slow Cooker**

Place all of your suet into your slow cooker and add 6-8 cups of water and about 2 Tablespoons of salt. Turn it to LOW.

**Keep Melting!**

This is what the tallow looked like after 4 hours. (*I forgot to put mine in the food processor before I placed it in the slow cooker, so I did that quick about 2 hours after it was melting. That’s why my chunks are now all super small.)* As you can see there is still a lot of fat chunks that need to be melted and they are still all sitting on the top.

**It’s Done!**

This is finished rendered tallow. This took about 14 hours. Everyone’s slow cooker is different so it may take a shorter or longer amount of time. **Don’t worry about leaving the tallow to melt overnight. I accidentally fell asleep at 11pm and woke back up at 5am scared, it was gonna be messed up but it was completely fine!*

**Time to Strain!**

Get out your metal bowl, strainer and place your cheesecloth/tea towel directly onto the strainer. Once strained place the bowl into your refrigerator/freezer overnight or at least for 6 hours to let the fat rise and harden. **As you can see my impurities are crispy and brown. Yours may look different depending on the fat and temperature you use.*

**Time To Take it Out of the Fridge!**

When you take it out of the fridge the fat should have solidified and stayed at the top and the brown water will be underneath (discard the water). I topulling on the sides of the metal bowl to loosen the tallow disc. Then you just push down on one side and itll rise out. I flipped the tallow disc over and you will see all the brown impurities like you see here.

**Scrape It Off!**

Scrape those brown impurities off the back surface of the tallow. Gently take your knife and use a sweeping motion. Your tallow may not have much brown impurities (good quality suet) but even if you dont see any, still scrap the bottom to be safe.

**Here We Go Again!**

Once you scrape off all the impurities cut the tallow into quarters and place the tallow, 6 cups of water, and 2 tablespoons of salt back into the slow cooker. Set it to high and let it simmer for an hour or two. Strain it like before and place it back in the refrigerator in your metal bowl for at least 6 hours or until tallow is solid.

**Scrape, Cut, Melt!**

As you can see there are almost no impurities left after the second purification. The water underneath it was also clear. I scraped the bottom, discarded the water, cut the tallow into quarters and placed it into a pot on the stove set to low heat to separate any remaining water and tallow. You can slowly simmer it until all of the water bubbles are gone or just move right on to the next step.

**Time to Pour!**

Once the tallow and leftover water are melted I poured it directly into a glass measuring cup in multiple steps. The water will settle at the bottom after a few minutes. I poured the melted tallow into flexible muffin tins making sure not to pour in any water! I placed my muffin tin into the fridge overnight. You can use a jar or whatever container you want. Just try not to pour in any remaining water.

**All Done!**

These are the finished tallow discs. I will pop these tallow discs out of the muffin tin and then set them out on a wire rack at room temperature in my pantry for a week or two. You will see little drops of water/oil oozing out. Once there are no more drops on the surface they are WATER FREE!

How to Make TALLOW BALM for Skincare

Melt your finished tallow on low on the stovetop. If there are bubbles and/or popping sounds that means there is still water in your tallow and you need to evaporate it by gently simmering in on low heat until no more water remains. Take off the heat, let cool slightly, and add your carrier oil and essential oils (if using) and gently mix well.

If you want an unwhipped balm just pour this into your desired jars.

For whipped tallow, you will pour this mix into a separate bowl and allow it to solidify for an hour or so in the fridge. Once set you can whip it for a minute or two with a hand beater or put it in your stand mixer.

You can use a rubber spatula to scoop it into your desired jars or scoop it into a piping bag and squeeze it into your jars. Many people add a piping tip to add a little flare/design to it, like icing a cake!