Topic: Tallow?

Retrieved: 12/19/2014
Last Post: 02/03/2008

So, I'm gonna make another bullet lube concoction. Its time really. And its winter. And I am bored. Rather than go read volumes on the internet, I would like to ask:

How do you make tallow?

Dick Dastardly
January 20, 2008

Ya get some fat from the beast of your choice (I prefer Whitetail Deer) and you cook it slow in a big kettle. The fat will cook out and release the liquid tallow. Pour off the liquid and discard the cracklins unless you like them for breakfast.

Don't get the heat too high cuz the stuff can and will catch fire. The resulting mess is dangerous and downright dirty leaving black oily soot everywhere your bride never wanted it in her kitchen. (experience speaking here)

Anyway, the liquid you pour off is your tallow. Use it in the recipe of your choice. There's tons of good ones in the library above thanks to the good housekeeping of the moderators here and on The Darksiders Den over at CAS City.

FWIW, the folks that cut up deer here in Wisconsin will give you all the free deer fat you can truck away. They have to pay a tipping fee to get rid of it.

Virgil Ray Hality
January 20, 2008

Thanks Dick. Can you boil it out or do you really have to melt it in a pot/kettle?

Ranch 13
January 20, 2008

If you can talk the local butcher out of some beef kidney fat, or same with mutton/lamb that's where the finest tallow will come from,

You could boil it out, but you'll loose some in the water.

It's really best if you heat the fat in real low heat just barely enough to get it to rendering. To much heat can scortch it and ruin it.

Prairie Dawg
January 20, 2008

I boil it outside in a kettle of water. Dakota Skipper sez it stinks, so I heat it up using my forge.

Dick Dastardly
January 21, 2008

If you have a plumbers furnace or turkey cooker base you can do a good job. Like PD says, do it outside for a more harmonious outcome. Boiling is ok and so is cooking on low heat. Don't burn it. Be aware, hot tallow is dang near as flammable as gasoline.

I use an old milk strainer to strain it thru. Gets out the floaters n stuff.

You can pour it into a muffin tin and make cakes. That way it's easier to portion out come recipe time.

Good luck.

Ranch 13
January 21, 2008

Back in the old days when folks took care of themselves for the most part, at butchering time Mom would render the tallow/lard on her kitchen stove in a roaster pan. When she had the pan full good and melted her and dad would pour the grease out thru a tightly woven cheese cloth into a crockjar. We always figured the cracklins left in that cheese cloth was the extra treat.

Virgil Ray Hality
January 21, 2008

Thanks for the pointers. I boiled some lamb fat yesterday and it came out pretty good. I got to get more fat though. I did not end up with enough to suit my immediate needs.

John Boy
January 21, 2008

Virgil... Words of Wisdom: Buy a pound or 2 of mutton tallow from Dixie!

This fall I made my own FIRST and LAST batch of bayberry wax. And no, ya don't get 1# of wax from 4#'s of berries. Plus ya don't get 47 chigger bites and some in places that cannot be described in mixed company. BTW - chigger bites can last up to 3 weeks!

Virgil Ray Hality
January 27, 2008

That's funny, I go to the grocery store for fat so chiggers and sheperds are not on the path I traveled. Anyway, the grocer was glad to be rid of it. I boiled out several "skins" from lamb shanks that the butcher carved up for other shoppers. Interesting that the color when cooled was very white. Not yellow like beef. The fileting process sure may just require another trip to the grocer though, I need to get 1/2 pound of tallow, and I can see that there will be a little loss the way I doing this. I may just go on the prowl for an iron kettle.

John Boy, what the cost of mutton tallow from Dixie and does it have any preservatives in it?

John Boy
January 27, 2008

Virgil... http://www.dixiegunworks.com/product_info.php?products_id=3686

Note the words "pure mutton tallow"

I was talking off line with one of the BPCR shooters 'VBull' and he tried the Pope Lube using beef tallow. Said it went moldy. I made mine with the mutton in Oct 07 and it has not been in the refrigerator - tubes wrapped in wax paper sitting on a shelf in the basement. NO MOLD!

Dutch Bill
January 27, 2008

Had I known the plant would be closed a few years after I took the money and ran I would have heisted one or two of the books in the department library on oils, fats and waxes.

Looking at late 19th century lube formulas.

Basically, the tallow best suited for bullet lubes were those least desireable in a meal.

This animal fats are very complex things made up of a large number of "fats". And rendering them to get specific portions, or parts, out of the fats can be something of an art form. The books went into placing the pieces of rendered fat on wire racks and then into an oven where they would be held at very specific temperatures and what dripped out would be collected.

For instance. I had been given a bottle of bear grease. Sitting on my bench in the basement it would be a grease in the winter and an oil in the summer.

John Boy
January 27, 2008

Bill, when I was on this Pope Lube 'mission' - here's all I could find about the analysis of mutton fat, plus it melts at 107 degrees F. Mutton tallow is pure white.

http://www.nutritiondata.com/facts-C00001-01c209N.html

Quote
I had been given a bottle of bear grease.

For what it's worth, try frying some eggs in bear grease - does a great job. On one waterfowl trip to Canada, the guide's wife cooked eggs in it and served em with a slab of moose meat - for breakfast! The guide was a Cree Indian.

Virgil Ray Hality
January 27, 2008

Thanks, $3.50 a pound for tallow is cheap enough to buy. That stuff looks exactly like what I ended up with too. I'll have to ask when I call. I don't really want any preservatives in the mix just yet.

BTW, what ratio were you using in the Pope Lube?

John Boy
January 27, 2008

Modified Pope Lube

6 oz. mutton tallow
4 oz. bayberry wax
2 oz. beeswax
2 oz. jojoba oil ...has same properties as sperm oil

or substitute jojoba with meadowfoam oil... also has same properties as sperm oil

Original Pope Lube
6 oz. beef tallow
4 oz. bayberry wax
2 oz. beeswax
2 oz. synthetic sperm oil
1 heaping teaspoon of fine graphite powder

Virgil Ray Hality
January 28, 2008

You using meadowfoam oil? I have jojoba and it don't look at all like sperm whale oil. The synthetic stuff was closer, but I have abandonded the use of synthetic oils. They just smell wrong when burned.

John Boy
January 28, 2008

Quote
You using meadowfoam oil?

No. Virgil, the meadowfoam was listed only as an optional substitute for jojoba.

Virgil Ray Hality
January 28, 2008

DD, Last I knew, Dixie Gun Works was selling Synth Sperm Whale Oil. It was kinda pricy too.

Dutch Bill
January 28, 2008

Lets see now. With a Sea Shanties CD playing in the background.

Jojoba oil is almost identical to Sperm whale oil in composition.

There were basically two types of whale oils. One was rendered from whale blubber. It could get really stinky. Then there was the oil rendered from the head cavity of the Sperm whale. It was not a fatty acid as one would render out of blubber. The tech books on oils, fats and waxes from the 1930's described it as an oily wax. Very unique in composition. The only other oily wax like it is the oil extracted from the Jojoba bean.

When automatic transmissions were developed for cars you relied on whale oil for transmission fluid. By the late 1950's they had to come up with a substitute. The first one is known as 1-Dodecanol. This synthetic whale oil was used in a lot of things. I worked with it as a plasticizing agent for PVC compounds. It was used in a lot of products that had previously used whale oil. Today's ATF fluids are made to mimic the behavior of whale oil.

You gotta watch the sources of info on this. Something may have replaced whale oil in a particular application. That does not say it would replace it in all applications.

Another thing with sources.

I remember reading somewhere where this well know shooter, way back, stated that shooters using whale oil could load and fire 10 rounds without having to wipe the bore. But when he wrote that the boys he was talking about were banging away with the fast, hot burning sporting powders.

I got into this with the moist-burning Swiss powder in the ml rifles. When I shot the Swiss the gun does not seem to care what lube I am using. With the moist powder residue it is as if the lube is just almong for the ride.

I used to buy and take apart original bp loadings for the powder. Then put the cartridges back together and give them to a guy who collected bp cartridges. I found that sperm whale oil tended to evaporate. The tech books backed that up. It would not turn gummy when used as a lubricant but it was volatile and would evaporate over time.

Back in the 1980's I had played with jojoba oil based on the idea that it was identical to Sperm whale oil. But given the bore fouling left by GOEX at that time the lube simply could not deal with it. Then along comes the Swiss moist-burning sporting powder and suddenly the old writings could be duplicated.

Professor Marvel
February 03, 2008

As stated by our learned colleagues, different fats have different properties, and further, the quality of the fat (and thus the tallow) is further affected by the eating habits of the creature in question.

Bear Fat, and the resultant tallow is highly regarding by the ML community as a patch lube, and even more so by the Native Americans for it's own medicinal properties, and further as a based for the addition of various herbs to manufacture medicinal salves and balsams (balms). I have no experience with Bear Fat itself, or as a lube, but the tallow salve base seems to last forever without spoiling. It is said it can be used as a leather dressing. Bear fat is considered by all tribes to be sacred and should not be wasted.

Buffalo Fat (Washee or Waci) has been eaten raw by the Plains tribes as a treat (the fat under the hump tastes a little like creamy chocolate), used medicinally, used in cooking and the tallow used as patch lube and bullet lube. I have no personal experience with the Washee as a lube, but I can relate the following: render any fat you get as soon as possible or freeze it. The fat *will* go rancid quickly and the resulting smell can make the strongest stomach reveal it's last meal. I have kept some tallow in a cool basement for some time with no problem. your mileage may vary.

Everything from the Buffalo is considered sacred by the Plains tribes - The buffalo is said give everything The People need: meat and fat for food, Hide for robes and tipis, hoofs for rattles, horn for cups and spoons, bones for tools and sacred items, sinew for thread, brains to tan the hide, and even the organs have specific purposes such as the stomach (paunch) is used as a water sack and cooking vessel - (hot rocks are dropped into the water filled paunch to boil stews) . When a buffalo is taken, it is taken with respect and honor, often with a ceremony. Everything is used, nothing is wasted.

Pig Fat: my experiences with Ordinary store-bought pork and bacon have left me unimpressed. It seems to generally produce a yellow and odoriferous liquid fat/tallow which I simply throw out. However, I had the good fortune to purchase an entire "natural raised" pig with no chemicals, no store-bought feed, and no antibiotics. These pigs were the result of a 4-H kid's project supervised by a serious "old-timer" that believed "you are what you eat" . The pigs were fed quality stuff he raised, and select table scraps - nothing rotten, no meat or animal products. Further, he taught the kids to use "movable pens" which allowed the pigs access to fresh soil on a regular basis, and as they rooted they turned their manure into the soil "automagically." Interestingly, these are all "old-timey" practices. In my humble opinion, these pigs were as close to "organically" raised as one can get without jumping through all the hoops.

The fat from this pig (especially the bacon) poured off the pan as clear as water, smelled very clean, solidified to a pure white and has been a delight to use as a patch lube (not yet tried in ca'trdiges). The tallow has kept well in a glass jar in the basement without apparent spoilage. I have used store-boughten Lard and Crisco for patch lube, cap-and-ball pistol lube, (but not for ca'tridges ) and as a dressing for polishing clay pots prior to firing them

FYI - the Clay Pot process sounds odd but is simple:

1) make pot;
2) smooth pot;
3) allow pot to to air dry;
4) apply lard to pot;
5) burnish pot with extremely smooth river stone;
5) bury pot in dry manure in nested tin cans
6) fire pot

The resultant pot is very glossy and black (it is called blackware) and in the style of Maria, the famous potmaker of the Santa Clara Pueblo

I have had no personal experience with Deer, Elk, Beef tallow or Lamb tallow.

I hope this information is useful, or at least entertaining :-)