By David Fisher
On the label of many
commercially available soap products you'll see sodium tallowate listed as an ingredient. Sodium tallowate is the
by-product of mixing lye with tallow or beef fat. Technically, tallow
is fat (beef or other) that has been rendered. The primary ingredient used in
most soaps is beef fat.
Whether
you agree with the use of animal products, there are a few simple reasons why
beef fat (or tallow) is used so widely in soap making:
- It's cheap,
- It's readily available,
- It makes really good soap.
The lather is rich and creamy, and hard to duplicate
in vegetable oil soap. Vegetable oils are easier to store and there are a lot
of people who just don't like the idea of beef fat in their soaps.
So...how
do we render beef (or other animal) fat into tallow? It's pretty easy.
1 - Getting started
Rendering
Tallow
To
render the tallow you'll need:
- 3-5 pounds of fat - chopped or ground into as small of pieces as possible.
- A large pot - you will use to make soap
- Water and some salt
- A sieve or colander
- A large bowl to cool it in
- Some large spoons, and a potato masher if you have one
Be sure to see the Special
Note about the fat you get.
2 - Adding water and salt
Adding Water to the Pot
Rendering is pretty much
just melting it to separate out the fat from the meat, gristle and other
impurities. It is similar to filtering out all the olive skins, bits of pits,
olive flesh and excess water from your freshly pressed olive oil.
To
render the fat into tallow, first, put the fat into a big stew pot and add
enough water to just cover the tallow. Add about 1 tbs. of salt for every pound of fat.
The smaller the chunks, the quicker and more efficiently it will
render. Ask
your butcher to run the fat through the grinder or run it through the food
processor. It really makes a big difference! Don't forget to give the butcher a
bar of soap when it's done!
3 - Heating the mixture
Beginning to Boil
Heat the mixture to boiling, then reduce the heat to a low,
rumbling simmer. The chunks of fat
will start to release the liquid fat, and any meat that was left in the fat
will start to cook.
Be sure to do this
in a well ventilated place or turn on the range fan - it will get very smelly!
4 – Letting it simmer
Almost Ready
The size of your fat chunks
will determine how long you will have to boil the mixture. For pre-ground fat, you
will only have to simmer it for about 20-30 minutes. If the chunks were larger, it will
take longer. Just keep it simmering over a low heat and stir often. You can also take your potato masher and mash the fat a
bit. This will help squeeze the oil out of the meat/chunks.
5 - Simmering until it becomes melted
tallow, meat and gristle
Meat and Gristle
When all that is left solid
in the pot is browned meat and gristle, you've gotten about all of the fat you
are going to get. Yes, there may be some reluctant chunks of fat and meat still
floating in the pot, but sometimes it's just not worth the extra work to get
the fat separated out. If you're up for the challenge, mash the remaining meat
chunks with the potato masher to get out every last drop of oil you can. That
should get nearly all of the usable fat separated out.
6 - Straining the liquid
Strain the Liquid
Now, carefully take
the pot off of the stove and pour the hot liquid through a sieve or colander
into a large bowl in the sink. (And just like you wouldn't pour hot wax down
the drain, be careful that none of the liquid fat goes down the
drain!) The colander is to strain out all of the pieces of meat and gristle.
Lift
the colander out of the big bowl. You'll notice that the water is sinking to the bottom and the melted tallow is rising to the top of the bowl.
Note: You can mix the meat
and gristle with some peanut butter or bran to make a treat for the birds.
7 – Cooling the liquid
Disc of Fat
Let the liquid cool to room
temperature. Then carefully put the bowl in a cool place and let it cool
overnight. The tallow will cool into a large white disc on the top of the bowl.
8 - Separating the tallow
Remove the Tallow
Using a knife or a fork, pry up the disc of tallow and
put the pieces into a large bowl.
Now
comes a tricky part. What's left will be a gelatinous, gray goo. You don't want
to pour the left over liquid into the sink – there may still be some
chunks/particles of fat left that can clog your sink pipes. I recommend throwing
it out into the backyard, or at least into the toilet.
9 – Cleaning the tallow
Clean the tallow
On the bottom side of the
tallow, there will likely be some loose pellet-like particles of fat. Wipe off
as much of this as possible with a paper towel, and wash the rest off under
some cool running water. Again, you don't want too much of this going down your
sink drain.
10 - Ready to use for soap
Ready to Use Tallow
Cut the tallow into small
pieces and put it into a plastic freezer bag. Label the bag as to when you made
the tallow. It will keep a year or so in the freezer. As you need it for your recipes, just break off a few
chunks and throw them into your soap pot!
Special Note about the fat you
get:
Any
animal fat (cow, deer, sheep, buffalo) can be rendered into tallow, but the
quality of the fat you use will determine the quality of the tallow. Many
people swear by only using "kidney suet", the fat that surrounds the
cow's kidneys. It's much harder and whiter and makes really wonderful tallow.
It's also really hard to find anywhere but a specialty butcher shop - and
you're likely to pay a pretty penny for it - whereas normal, everyday beef fat
from the grocery store butcher is likely to be free. Is there a difference?
Probably - to the purists at least - but I haven't noticed a big difference in
the soaps I've made.
As
you'll see from looking at commercial soap labels now that tallow is a common
oil that people use to create soap recipes. Whether you choose to use animal
oils or not in your soap recipes, understanding the qualities of soap making
oils, and at least knowing how to render your own tallow is a soap making experience
that I think all soap makers should have at least once.
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