Do you have some beef suet or beef fat that you need to render down to make it useful? Here’s a complete tutorial on how to render tallow and many tallow uses!
If you are unable to use your suet right away, or you wish to further process your suet making it shelf-safe for use at a later time, you will need to render it. Start by placing the suet in a cooking vessel. We suggest an iron pot as the rendering process will also contribute to the on-going seasoning of the pot.
Once you’ve strained the molten suet free of graves into a bowl, transfer the suet into pans for cooling. Rundell suggests pouring the suet into cold water. This further refines the suet by settling out any particles. Some modern rendering techniques suggest a secondary rendering as well to ensure that the moisture is completely driven off.
A modern alternative to this process is to place your chopped suet into a slow cooker set on low. Be sure to leave the cooker uncovered. Besides separating the fat from the connective tissue, rendering also evaporates moisture that exists naturally with the fat. Leaving the lid off your slow cooker will ensure that no moisture is trapped in the cook pot. An alternate modern method is to warm your suet in a baking dish in your oven set on its lowest temperature. Do not use your microwave. It heats too quickly.
Suet was apparently used both raw and rendered (refined) in 18th century cooking. While some of the original recipes specified the use of rendered suet, most seemed to leave the option open. It is fairly common for recipes to instruct the cook to make sure the suet was free from all skin (connective tissue) and blood vessels. This, of course, suggests the suet was being used raw. I suspect the decision between using raw suet and rendered was ultimately determined by what the cook had on hand.
The remaining particles of connective tissue, called graves, can be discarded. I have found one reference in 18th century literature that indicated graves were sometimes used as fish bait. In our experiments, we weighed the graves as well as the final rendered suet or tallow and compared it to original weight of the well-picked raw suet. The graves accounted for about 25% of the total weight — even with fairly meticulous picking.
What is the difference between rendered fat and tallow?
There is no difference between the two. Tallow is just the name for rendered down beef or sheep fat. Rendered pig fat (or leaf fat) is called lard. And rendered chicken fat is called schmaltz. You can use this same method to render lard or schmaltz if you’d like, although the timing might be slightly different.
How to Render Beef Fat to Make Tallow – How to Render Suet
Can you cook suet in the oven?
Put the suet in the oven-safe pan. Place the pan in the oven at about 200ºF/93ºC. Rendering is a slow process of melting the fat. Do not boil the rendered fat, and be aware that rendered fat (as oil) will be flammable, so use appropriate caution if rendering suet in a gas oven or near any open flame.
How do you render beef suet?
Rendering suet (also called “tallow”) which is beef fat, is the process of heating it to the melting point. Use an oven-safe pan or dish large enough to hold the amount of suet you plan to render. Use a pan that has high enough sides to hold all the suet when it becomes liquid.
Can you use suet raw?
Although you can use suet in its raw form, most chefs and home cooks prefer to render it. This eliminates impurities and leaves you with a clean and ideally textured product. Remove as much fat as you can from around the beef or mutton kidneys and set it aside in a bowl.
How do you render suet in an Instant Pot?
To render suet in an instant pot, start by finely chopping the suet. While you really can render it just roughly chopped, it takes much longer to render than when it’s chopped more finely – so I always feel it’s worth the extra minute or two to chop the suet pieces quite small.