Pemmican question!
 

Hello everybody,

just a quick pemmican preparation question: In the various recipes that I've looked at, it says that you should not have smoke coming out of the fat when you render it. However, I have noticed that even when I heat the fat (beef suet in my case) at relatively low heat, smoke comes out of it and it doesnt bubble (which means, I suppose,that the water doesn't come out?)
So I was wondering if this is normal, to have some smoke coming out even at a relatively low heat, and do you have to boil (bubble) the fat to get the water out?
Thanks a lot,

TBoneMitch

I rendered a bunch of fat down to make soap. Here's a tip, it renders faster if you cut the fat up into small pieces. ;)

I had lots of steam coming off my fat when I started, but no smoke. Later, the grease was boiling hot, and the cracklin' pieces were frying, and I still didn't have any smoke. If you are worried, try putting a thermometer in it so you know its below smoke point.

I rendered mine on medium heat on my electric stove. I even added some water at the beginning to get it started. It took about 4 hours (it was a REALLY big pot of fat bits). I fished the cracklins out with a sieve, strained it through a coffee filter to remove any stray particles. I ended up with about a gallon of rendered lard/tallow. It made lovely soap.

I have heard the microwave is good for rendering fat, too. But I haven't tried that.

Ok, thanks a lot Batgirl!

Maybe I mistook the steam from the smoke, because my suet was on really low heat...How do you distinguish the steam from the smoke? The smell, the color?

And also do you know the smoke point of suet?

Smoke smells different than steam. You can also hold your hand above the pot, if it's steam, your hand will feel moist after a couple of seconds or so.

The boiling point of water is 100 C (212 F). The smoke point of most oils is above 325 F (I don't know the conversion to C off the top of my head). If your mixture is boiling and giving off steam/smoke and its around 100 C, it's steam. If it's significantly higer, it might be smoke.

Good luck.

Thanks a lot...very helpful info!

One question.....ok maybe 2 questions.....or 3.......LOL!!

Where does one get the fat for making the pemmican?

Is there any type of animal fat that is better then the other for making pemmican or can you render any type of animal fat?

I'm interested and would like to attempt to make some pemiican.

Best source: the butcher!
The only fat I've tried is beef suet, but I'm sure there are others...