So - in a fit of nesting (at 37 weeks pregnant, I say better late than never, right??), I made a huge batch of homemade laundry detergent (with Fels Naptha soap this time) and chopped up the beef fat to "render"....
What?? You don't chop up 4 lbs of beef fat when you hit the nesting stage?? I don't understand...
One of my favorite bloggers: City Wife Country Life, posted a detailed review of How to Render and Can Tallow. So, I followed her advice and threw my fat in the crockpot to heat up.
I got out all my canning supplies and prepared the kitchen to can the fat...
Within minutes, both Jason and I were throwing each other sideways glances. I immediately googled "Can I put my crockpot outside?" and decided I didn't really care about the answers. The odor was all-consuming!!!
The smell was more than we could bear. The crockpot was going outside. Period.
A couple hours later, I put the kids down to nap and decided to muscle my way through the canning process. I was thanking God I have a deviated septum. The smell could only enter my nose through one nostril instead of both.
We quickly boiled water, poured fat, disposed of "cracklins" and water-bathed our jars.
And I was also thankful that the same friend who suggested rendering tallow for those "amazing french fries" gave me this delicious candle for Christmas. Because holy rancid smell from the underworld....
Here are my jars of tallow. And I am too scared to open any of them and cook with them...
The amount of money we saved in rendering our own lard, we LOST in heating bills by airing our house out all day in late January...
I decided to render my tallow on a day when my husband was home. By default, he had to assist me. The comments about the odor were rolling off his tongue faster than I could process them and I almost went into labor I was laughing so hard!
- At least we can cover our tracks if zombies ever attack
- It smells like a one year old diaper left in a hot car in Texas next to a dead tuna...covered in chili
Me: Wait Jason - we need to can it next
Jason: Oh no you don't - YOU'RE not bringing this in the house!
- This stuff smells like leprosy looks
- I don't care how poor we are. Just put the lard on the credit card...
- I'd rather compost someone else's s#!* than do this again
Sorry honey...
At least I gave him extra brewing supplies for Christmas and he has almost 100 beers in his "Beer Store" downstairs...
I promised him that if I ever break into one of these bad boys, I'll do it when he is away on a youth retreat with the youth group. And why does no one else mention the odor on their blogs about rendering tallow?? Perhaps our cow got into an onion patch or something...
*Click here to read why I would rather render my own tallow/lard than ever cook with vegetable oil, canola oil or eat any butter that is in a "tub"
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