On Mon, 27 Oct 1997, romper wrote:

> This leaves a lot to the imagination. First unaccounted for is the
> reaction to your buying 8 lbs of beef fat. "You want *what*?" and "How
> is beef fat good for you?"
>
> Second, when I put the beef fat in the pan it didn't melt right away
> like familiar fat does. You have to separate it from the protein-skin.
> If you don't chop it up into little pieces, this takes all day instead
> of half the day. The process can be sped up by putting the fat on higher
> than low on the stove, but then it smokes and your husband complains
> big. Impatience usually sets in before you get all you can from the
> skin, so you get about 1/2 - 3/4 of the volume you started with in
> actual hard-crisco-consistency fat. Am I doing this all wrong?

Are you sure you're getting *suet*?  This is not just generic
"beef fat"; it is the hard fat deposit from around the kidneys.
If you just ask for beef fat, you could just end up with muscle
fat trimmed from various steaks, chops, etc.  This fat is
different from the tallow you get from suet in a number of ways,
and I doubt that it is much good for making pemmican.

When you get suet, you can cut it into chunks and add just a
splash of water.  As the heat renders the tallow from the suet
tissue, the chunks will shrink somewhat but they won't melt.
You'll be left with some crispy suet rinds.  I've eaten them and
they're not bad.  My dog is very keen on these rinds, possibly
because he has already been driven to distraction by the smell of
the rendering.

For the second rendering, let the tallow cool and harden, then
add another splash of water and reheat.

The filtering removes the little particles of stuff that are left
from the rind; I don't think it's a big deal.

Todd Moody
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