Tallow

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HerbalEarthling

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For those that render their own tallow, how much do you pay for your beef fat? My husband is going to try to get some from the restaurant that he works for. I don't believe they normally sell it, so if they do sell it to us, what is a reasonable asking price? I am clueless on this! Any help would be greatly appreciated!
 
The butcher shop that I get suet from sells it for $3/lb plus another $1/lb to grind it up. I am jealous of Obsidian!
 
I have a sincere question...why do you render your own? Columbus Foods sells tallow for only $.86pp and all the work has been done. There are other suppliers who don't require that you purchase 50 pounds at a time.

Considering the cost of energy and your time to render it, what benefit do you get from doing this?
 
I have a sincere question...why do you render your own? Columbus Foods sells tallow for only $.86pp and all the work has been done. There are other suppliers who don't require that you purchase 50 pounds at a time.

Considering the cost of energy and your time to render it, what benefit do you get from doing this?

For me, even if it takes me time, I still like to know how to do things the long way. I've never used tallow before and am really only doing this to make a doggy shampoo bar that I saw. Dont know if I'll even be selling it, may just be Christmas gifts for all of the dog owners I know.
 
For me, even if it takes me time, I still like to know how to do things the long way. I've never used tallow before and am really only doing this to make a doggy shampoo bar that I saw. Dont know if I'll even be selling it, may just be Christmas gifts for all of the dog owners I know.

I also might be getting some deer fat hopefully this weekend if my dad gets a deer so in that case unless someone sells it, I'll have to do it myself.
 
I render my own because I use only kidney suet ( ordered from groc. store meat guy $1.00 lb, from local custom slaughter place 50 cents lb.) which makes better tallow than what you get from places that sell "tallow" made from body fat, bone fat and the kinds of fats you get from rendering up the whole cow. I do however call the renderers when a cow dies on the farm. It's nice to think they may end up in handmade soap. Just not mine.
 
I was just reading up on tallow from Columbus foods and they use 2% soybean oil which I refuse to use in any of my products. Just seems easier to make it myself than buying it and not have to worry about other ingredients going into it. Plus if I find it locally, instead of having it shipped to me, that's cutting down on mine and my business' carbon footprint.
 
Did they say why they put soybean oil in their tallow? I've looked at their site and never noticed that before, good catch.
 
Wow, I guess I get a really good bargain. I get mine (already ground) at the butchers for free and just take him a bar of soap every so often:) He's happy to get rid of it and not have to pay to have the rendering company haul it away. I can't believe it would be $3/lb when you can buy a lot of different meats for less than that and beef/pig/deer fat are typically just "by products".

Before I found this butcher shop I used to get it at another one for $2.00 for a 30 lb bag of it ground and I thought that was a good deal. You might want to check around and see if there are other places you could get it cheaper...good luck!!
 
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Thanks for answering my question. I didn't know CF used other oils in their tallow, so maybe others do also. ...something to think about.
 
My local grocery store sells the ground beef fat in small packages, I think most people feed it to wild birds. There is no place around here to buy rendered tallow so I have to render my own. After a few test batches, I've found I prefer lard which I can buy rendered so I doubt I will mess with beef tallow any more.
 
My local grocery store sells the ground beef fat in small packages, I think most people feed it to wild birds. There is no place around here to buy rendered tallow so I have to render my own. After a few test batches, I've found I prefer lard which I can buy rendered so I doubt I will mess with beef tallow any more.

Do you have any restaurants around you that serve steaks? You may want to just check that out, you may be surprised. But yeah, no matter what, $0.90/lb doesn't seem unreasonable to me considering the cost of what oils are per lb. are.
 
That's smart. I love when people (especially men) really appreciate handmade soap! It raises my faith for humanity :)
 
I did it! I started with 39 ounces of fat (after trimming before it went into the crock pot) and now have 29 ounces of useable tallow!

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Using a crock pot is a great idea to render tallow!

It was seriously the easiest thing! I encourage everyone to do it. Yes it takes time but if you had a whole day to be at home, you just gotta give it a stir every half hour or so. Maybe every hour. I got mine from my husbands restaurant and they were willing to give it to us for free but they didn't grind it up so I chopped into pieces, put it back in the fridge over night to let it harden again and then put it in the food processor. After that, I put it in the crock pot on low, let it melt and cook for several hours then strained it through a cheesecloth lined sieve. Done deal pal. :thumbup:
 
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