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Tallow

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Aug 22, 2013
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Red Lake, Ontario
I capitalized on a fortuitous situation and now have several jars of tallow. Anybody have some creative uses for it?

Will it work as well as Bear grease in waterproofing/treating leather straps?

Is it flammable enough to use a firestarter?

Anybody use it as a lard substitute?

I ended up with 8 litres of it (about 2.5 gallons).
 
I rendered 5 lbs of the stuff a little while back. Aside from the obvious, cooking (which it is great for), I use it to oil up knives and other metal objects. I plan on making some pemmican with it. That's primarily why I got it.
 
If you are talking about deer tallow I wonder also. I tried it as alard in some cooking and didn't like the taste. I always have a lot left over when I butcher my deer and hate to waste it. I found it makes good food at the bird feeder,and you can stick seeds in it for a complete bird feast.
Turtle
 
The taste is not the greatest, but so far I did attempt to make some suet so far. I will try to do some experiments on using it as a firestarter and post later.
 
Hi Red, I'm sure you know all the hoopla about how a person should store the food and all while camping; when a person is finding new and interesting uses for tallow, it's probably well to remember the bears are enthusiastic about it too! If you used it to grease leather straps on a pack I'd bet that you'd tempt a mouse as well!

Just thinking,

Rob
 
Good point.

Reminds me of a bug lotion I used to use. Bought from some crafty shop in Cloyne Ontario many many years ago. To be honest it worked better than anything I have ever used. I used it for several years. Even wrote a letter to the lady who made it and had her mail me some more when it ran out. Then some well meaning soul told me that the ingredients of lemongrass, coconut oil, peppermint and other food type ingredients would be like icing to a bear. :eek: I ceased using it immediately because I could no longer sleep at night in a tent thinking of a bear licking the icing off me like an oreo cookie.
 
Tallow (rendered bone marrow) was traditionally used as the binder in pemmican. Either white or yellow marrow is best, I believe white, but either will do. Melt the tallow, mix in pounded jerky and whatever dried fruits you like, and let it cool. Pack it in 90-pound containers of green hides and carry it on your back across portages. You did say something about living like a voyageur, no?
 
I've made 'pemmican' before but chose not to use tallow. Used peanut butter instead and added nuts and honey as well as dried fruit. Wicked good energy bars. Oh and I opted for a much easier size to carry over the portages.

I've ordered some lye and I am going to try making some bars of soap with it.
 
You can use anything that's solid at room temperature for the binder in pemmican. Some folks use hard maple candy or just sugar, in small quantities.
You can make lye with wood ashes and water. There's a good description of that as part of the soap-making process in The Foxfire Book (ed. Eliot Wigginton).
 
This thread is so funny, yet so informative! I don't hunt (my loss), so I'm shut out of the pemmican game. It sounds good. I'd have a difficult time making it last till the next canoe trip. I wondered where your tallow came from. I never thought of deer. Why do I think of candles when I think of tallow? Must have been a traditional candle making material, once upon a time. Several litres/gallons would make one big bunch of candles though. You're not a warlock there, are you Red?
Pemmican sounds awfully good.
 
The Tallow is used for candles as far as I can remember.

My Tallow came from a deer that was given to me. A person I know shot one but did not want it, so offered it to me. I tried for my own but I am a terrible hunter so it seems. I don't agree with hunting for something you don't plan on using yourself but I am grateful for the gift.

I also have Bear Grease from a previous hunt, so far that I just use to waterproof leather boots and oil up the guns.
 
I greatly admire your hunting philosophy Red. My memory is quite rusty, and not to be trusted, so I wasn't sure of the candle connection. To illustrate my rusty memory point, I googled pemmican, and found this:
http://www.mec.ca/product/5001-837/manitou-pemmican-co-bison-pemmican/
I bought a few of these on a trip to Manitoba, a few years back. I can't believe I'd forgotten that. I remember now, how good it tasted.
Excellent informative thread, thanks.
 
Brad, why would you be "shut out of the pemmican game"? I don't hunt either, but that didn't stop me. I got marrow from beef bones that would otherwise have gone (literally) to the dogs. And I make (beef) jerky a couple times a year. In any case, you don't need either marrow/tallow or jerky to make pemmican. It seems to me the word means basically "all sorts of stuff thrown together."
 
Gavia you're right. Come to think of it, there's a bison farm just up the road from me. There's enough food sources in my region, I can put this together.
That's a great link 50littlebirds, thanks. I'm going to give the process some thought. The nutritional info is interesting stuff I didn't know before.
 
50 LB, That was a very interesting read! I wonder how it is possible to obtain so much fat from the animals. I haven't cut up many deer, but I know moose are usually pretty lean. A pound of fat for a pound of meat is quite a lot. The difference shown between the grass fed animals and the grain fed animals was actually kind of scary. I hope to be able to try this next year.
 
My memory is coming back to me now. I bought the pemmican I mentioned here:
http://www.fortwhyte.org/about
I bought enough to last me our 3 day trip back home. Either I didn't buy enough (possible), or I ate too much (probable), or I drove way too slow (maybe).
The link to making your own recommends making a large amount, requiring a larger dehydrator. I have a small one, and will just stick to small batches if I make any. The Saskatoon berries were a great addition to the flavour.
 
Instead of Tallow or lard, try it with peanut butter.

I made these before and were very very good and was some of the best energy food I have ever tried

Ingredients are:
Main mixture:
Dried shredded meat.
Peanut Butter
Added for flavour and purpose:
Dried Berries
Chopped Nuts
Honey
Sunflower seeds
 
That's a lot of flavour, and no less purpose Red. Just skimming down that list suggests - delicious nutrition impossible to put down. Sorry to be needy here Red, but what is the process? You don't need to melt the PB, right? Just mix and package? This looks like a recipe you could juggle; more honey if it's too dry, more meat and nuts if it's too moist. More PB if the kids/grandkids are com'n along. Thanks Red. I'm freak'n hungry just looking at this.
 
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