Rendering beef fat into tallow is a classic cooking technique that has recently regained popularity. Home cooks are discovering the benefits of making their own tallow from high quality grass-fed beef. In this complete guide, you’ll learn everything you need to know about rendering beef fat and making beef tallow from scratch.
What is Beef Tallow?
Beef tallow is rendered and clarified beef fat. To make tallow, raw beef fat trimmings are slowly cooked to extract all the pure fat. The liquid fat is then strained and cooled into a solid form.
Historically, tallow was used for cooking, baking, candle and soap making. These days, rendered beef fat is most often used in the kitchen to add rich depth of flavor when cooking Using tallow is also a more sustainable way to cook since it utilizes more of the animal.
You may have heard the urban legend that McDonald’s french fries were better back when they were fried in beef tallow. There’s likely some truth to this myth! The beefy, fatty flavor of tallow makes an excellent frying oil.
Benefits of Making Your Own Tallow
There are several good reasons to render your own beef fat instead of buying pre-made tallow
- Cost savings – Get more value from the meat you buy instead of throwing away extra fat
- Customization – Control the quality and flavor rather than relying on store-bought
- Responsible usage – Rendering your own tallow reduces meat waste
- Long shelf life – Homemade tallow keeps for months in the fridge or freezer
- Versatility – Use tallow for cooking, frying, baking and more
- Flavor – Homemade tallow has delicious beefy richness unmatched by store-bought
Of course the number one benefit is the incredible flavor it adds to food when cooking and frying!
How to Choose Beef Fat for Tallow
The first step is sourcing high quality beef fat trimmings to render the tallow from. Look for fat from grass-fed or pasture-raised cattle. Some excellent cuts to get fat trimmings from include:
- Brisket
- Chuck roast
- Ribeye
- Tenderloin
Avoid using low quality feedlot beef fat as it will have a less ideal flavor. Also don’t use exterior fat with dirt or hair on it. Focus on white interior fat closest to the muscle.
For the whitest, most neutral tasting tallow, choose fat from around the kidneys and loins. Fattier cuts like brisket will produce tallow with a deeper beefy flavor.
Step-by-Step Instructions for Rendering Tallow
Rendering tallow is a simple process, though it takes some time. Here are the steps:
1. Cut the Fat
Cut the raw beef fat into 1-2 inch cubes. This increases the surface area for faster rendering.
2. Simmer the Fat
Place the cubed fat in a heavy bottomed saucepan or stock pot. Add just enough water to cover the bottom of the pan.
Cook over medium-low heat for 1-2 hours, until most of the fat has melted and the crispy bits are lightly browned. Avoid overheating or burning.
3. Strain the Tallow
Pour the liquid fat through a cheesecloth-lined fine mesh strainer to remove any food particles and impurities.
For clearest results, strain a second time through cheesecloth or a coffee filter.
4. Cool and Store
Pour the filtered tallow into jars, allow to cool completely, then cover and refrigerate. The tallow will become solid white once cooled.
Store homemade tallow in the fridge for up to 3 months or in the freezer for up to a year.
Tips for Best Results
Follow these tips for successfully rendering high quality beef tallow at home:
- Simmer the fat low and slow at 200°F – 250°F for the cleanest flavor
- Stir frequently to prevent burning on the bottom
- Strain twice through cheesecloth and/or coffee filters to remove impurities
- Avoid direct stovetop heat; use a double boiler or bain marie instead
- Render large batches at once to increase efficiency
- Use wide mouth jars for easier removal of the solid tallow
- Store tallow in the fridge to prevent rancidity
Taking the time to slowly render tallow pays off in the delicious end result!
Uses for Homemade Beef Tallow
Once you’ve created your own homemade beef tallow, what are some ways to use it? Here are just a few ideas:
- Roast potatoes – Crispy, beefy roasted potatoes
- Frying eggs – Adds richness to fried eggs
- Sauteeing veggies – Excellent for cooking hearty greens
- Seasoning cast iron – Creates a natural seasoning on cast iron
- Deep frying – Use for frying chicken, fries, doughnuts, etc.
- Searing steaks – Adds nutty beefy flavor when pan searing
- Pie crusts – Creates the flakiest, most buttery crust
- Spread on toast – Tallow can replace butter or oil on bread
Homemade beef tallow can be used anywhere you’d use oil, butter or lard. Feel free to experiment with it in all types of cooking and frying.
Frequently Asked Questions About Tallow
Here are answers to some common questions about rendering tallow:
How long does tallow last?
Properly rendered and stored beef tallow will keep for 2-3 months in the fridge or up to a year in the freezer. Store it in an airtight container.
Can you reuse tallow?
Yes, you can strain and reheat tallow multiple times. Reheating helps remove any impurities from previous uses. But freshly rendered tallow tastes best.
What’s the difference between tallow and lard?
Lard is rendered pork fat while tallow comes from beef. Both can be used in similar ways for cooking but have different flavor profiles.
Is tallow healthy?
Like any saturated fat, tallow should be eaten in moderation. But high quality grass-fed tallow contains vitamins, CLA and other nutrients. Pasture-raised tallow is considered superior to vegetable oils.
Can you cook tallow at too high of a temperature?
Yes, overheating tallow can cause it to smoke or take on a burnt flavor. For best results, keep temperatures between 200°F and 275°F when cooking with tallow.
The Bottom Line
Rendering your own grass-fed beef tallow is extremely rewarding and adds amazing flavor to cooking and frying. While it takes some time and effort, the end result is well worth it. Homemade tallow brings beefy richness and creamy texture that can’t be replicated with store-bought products. Once you master the simple process, you’ll never buy tallow again!
With a little care and patience, anyone can render high quality tallow and experience the magic of cooking with real homemade beef fat. Looking for more tips on using up beef fat or curious about recipes with tallow? Check out these two helpful guides:
Rendering and Storing Beef Tallow
To prepare beef fat for rendering, all you need to do is freeze it for about an hour (frozen fat is easier to cut), then cut it into small cubes. If you have a meat grinder, even better. Just run it through the coarse plate, and it’s ready to go.
After you’ve cubed it up, take the cubes of fat and toss them into a Crockpot with 1/4 cup of water. Turn the Crockpot on low, cover it, and leave it going for about 12 hours, stirring every few hours. About two hours before it’s done, stir it and let it cook with the lid off to allow the water to evaporate.
Water introduces oxygen that can cause tallow or lard to spoil faster. It’s only added in the beginning to keep the fat from frying before it has released enough liquid to protect it from that.
Basically, you’re doing the same thing you would do to render pork lard, except for the addition of the following steps.
After you’ve finished rendering your beef fat in your Crockpot, you’ll need to strain out all of the solids. Just pour it through a fine-mesh strainer or cheesecloth into a clean, heat-proof bowl.
Let it cool for about an hour once you’ve strained it.
You don’t want to let it get cold yet, though. You just want it warm. Too hot and it will melt the wax off of the wax paper in the following steps, and add a weird flavor.
The difference between rendering beef tallow and pork lard is that beef tallow becomes very firm after it cools. Pork lard is soft enough that you can pour it into jars and tuck it away in the fridge to be spooned out as needed.
Getting beef tallow out of a jar after its cold can be a bit of a challenge.
You can solve this problem by pouring it into a wax paper-lined baking pan then refrigerating it until it firms up. Once it’s cold, you can pop it out of the pan and cut it into bricks.
You can use regular plastic wrap, but I prefer to use wax paper due to it being more firm. It makes it a little easier to get it out of the pan. To use wax paper, you need to be careful to let the tallow cool enough to not melt the wax, but not so much that it becomes hard and won’t pour.
Letting the tallow cool for about an hour before pouring it into the pan solves this problem.
After you’ve cut your bricks of tallow, just wrap them in plastic and throw them in the refrigerator or freezer. They’ll hold up for as long as a year in the fridge and indefinitely in the freezer.
This is an optional step that ain’t for everybody. Some people simply don’t like cracklins. If you haven’t tried them before, though, give it a shot. If you have and don’t like them, simply toss the solids out. No biggie.
To make cracklins out of the leftover solids, toss them in a pan and fry them until they’ve released all of their fat and have become crispy.
Next, strain the liquids from the solids.
If you like, you can add this additional rendered tallow to what you’ve strained from the Crock-pot (before cooling and cutting it into bricks, of course). You should understand, though, that the pan-frying process will introduce a more prominent, beefier flavor that you might not want in your cooking tallow.
To get your cracklins extra crispy, throw them onto a heavy-duty pan, and crisp them under the broiler for about five minutes.
You can use beef cracklins the same way you would use bacon bits or as a crispy topping for tacos.
I like to make tacos out of rice, refried beans, and roasted jalapeños. Crispy beef cracklins tossed in add a satisfying beefy crunch.
Like tallow, beef cracklins will hold up indefinitely in the freezer.
Fat is Gold, Don’t Throw it Away
Let’s talk about the waste, though, especially for Texans who love to cook brisket. Before writing this post, I found a 17.5-pound prime brisket on sale at HEB. After trimming it and leaving about a 1/4-inch fat cap, I had a 5-pound pile of fat and a 12.5 pound trimmed brisket.
I turned that 5-pound pile of fat into 3 pounds of tallow and 4 cups of beef cracklins. Considering that beef tallow can sell for anywhere between eight and twelve dollars, that’s quite a bit of savings.
Throwing all that away is wasteful.
Keep in mind that the best fat for rendering into tallow is the leaf fat that can be found near the cow’s kidneys. It has a much milder flavor than the fat trimmed off a brisket. I don’t mind that beefy flavor since I primarily use rendered lard in dishes that need a milder flavor, not beef tallow.
I generally save my beef tallow for beef-based recipes. Beef seared in beef tallow is better than beef seared in vegetable oil (do you know which vegetables are used to make vegetable oil?).
Also, keep in mind that prime brisket generally comes with a more significant amount of fat than choice or select brisket. If you don’t have enough beef fat to render, just freeze what you have and add to it as you trim beef for other meals.
It freezes well and will be ready for you when you have enough.