Chickenpoopshoes
Active Member
Ok, so a weird first post but I have some serious beef fat questions that I need answers to from the more experienced Tallow users.
The first Tallow I rendered was free muscle fat from the butcher. I wandered in, Tupperware tub in hand, and the butcher filled it up with fat scraps from his cutting table. I rendered this wet, over the stove, after chopping it to tiny pieces and then stick blending. It made the house smell like a roast dinner!
This first render produced a lump of minced meat scraps (which went to the chickens, who ate it in seconds flat), about a pint of beef gelatine and about another pint of smelly, solid Tallow that I didn't want to soap with.
I googled how to get the smell out and then went back to the kitchen to re-melt it in clean water a few times until it was less stinky (with experience I now know if I just kept doing this it would stop smelling altogether, but I was impatient so I just stopped when it was good enough)
I used this Tallow in two 500g batches of soap and I'm pretty happy with the results.
Then I started looking at Tallow in other skincare and got very interested in using suet (kidney fat) instead of muscle fat due to it's improved purity and other alleged benefits. I had to pay £4 for all the suet from the butcher's latest slaughter, but once it was wet rendered and washed I had over a litre and a half of hard, white suet Tallow.
Some of this I used to make a facial Balm which is astoundingly good. Some I used to make a whipped Tallow Balm with olive oil, which I won't make again because it smelled so strongly of olive oil and I've now read some research that strongly indicates problems with the use of olive oil on the skin. There are other, better oils for what I need, so it's no biggie.
I was going to use the remainder to make soap but good grief! The suet is as hard as glass and doesn't even melt when you hold it in your hand! It's great quality stuff for skincare and so hard that I can probably do without beeswax in my balms (the facial Balm is 75% suet with the rest being liquid oils and I have to scrape it up with a fingernail to use it!) but if I use a fat that hard what the heck will it do to my soaps?! Is it a waste to soap with it? I can happily render normal fat for soaping if so - it's free after all. Or is there any benefit to soaping with this rock-hard Tallow? I'm guessing it will make super long lasting bar...
I'd love to know if anyone else gets suet that solid or if I've done something weird to it and no one knows what the heck I'm on about...
The first Tallow I rendered was free muscle fat from the butcher. I wandered in, Tupperware tub in hand, and the butcher filled it up with fat scraps from his cutting table. I rendered this wet, over the stove, after chopping it to tiny pieces and then stick blending. It made the house smell like a roast dinner!
This first render produced a lump of minced meat scraps (which went to the chickens, who ate it in seconds flat), about a pint of beef gelatine and about another pint of smelly, solid Tallow that I didn't want to soap with.
I googled how to get the smell out and then went back to the kitchen to re-melt it in clean water a few times until it was less stinky (with experience I now know if I just kept doing this it would stop smelling altogether, but I was impatient so I just stopped when it was good enough)
I used this Tallow in two 500g batches of soap and I'm pretty happy with the results.
Then I started looking at Tallow in other skincare and got very interested in using suet (kidney fat) instead of muscle fat due to it's improved purity and other alleged benefits. I had to pay £4 for all the suet from the butcher's latest slaughter, but once it was wet rendered and washed I had over a litre and a half of hard, white suet Tallow.
Some of this I used to make a facial Balm which is astoundingly good. Some I used to make a whipped Tallow Balm with olive oil, which I won't make again because it smelled so strongly of olive oil and I've now read some research that strongly indicates problems with the use of olive oil on the skin. There are other, better oils for what I need, so it's no biggie.
I was going to use the remainder to make soap but good grief! The suet is as hard as glass and doesn't even melt when you hold it in your hand! It's great quality stuff for skincare and so hard that I can probably do without beeswax in my balms (the facial Balm is 75% suet with the rest being liquid oils and I have to scrape it up with a fingernail to use it!) but if I use a fat that hard what the heck will it do to my soaps?! Is it a waste to soap with it? I can happily render normal fat for soaping if so - it's free after all. Or is there any benefit to soaping with this rock-hard Tallow? I'm guessing it will make super long lasting bar...
I'd love to know if anyone else gets suet that solid or if I've done something weird to it and no one knows what the heck I'm on about...
