A. discovered during shearing that one of the sheep that had been sold to us as a bred ewe was, in fact, a wether. That is, a castrated male sheep.
A. found the silver lining, though. His exact words were, "What the hell? This thing isn't going to give me a lamb. Oh well. We needed more meat, anyway."
After the fleece was removed, all we had to wait for was appropriate butchering weather. When we woke up to 34 degrees with clouds today, A. decided the time had come.
The wether was duly killed, gutted, skinned, and hung up in the shed to age for a few days. As A. was gutting it, he discovered this sheep had a great quantity of fat around its kidneys, known as leaf fat. This fat is the best, purest, and mildest tasting fat on an animal, and A. was very excited to see it.
He proudly bore in a big pan of fat and deposited it in the kitchen.
Based on a lot of past experience, I knew that the best course of action was to render it immediately, lest I end up trying to store an unwieldy pan of fat in my refrigerator.
So I immediately cut it up and put it in my cast-iron dutch oven to render.
Cubby was very interested in this and hovered over the pan. "Can I make a candle from it?" he asked.
Huh. Can you? Well, I didn't see why not. I mean, I know people make candles from beef tallow, which is very similar in consistency to sheep tallow. So I quickly looked up a few sites about making tallow candles, and we made one in a jar.
All you have to do is render tallow*, pour it into a jar into which a wick has been suspended, and let it harden.
You can buy wicks online (of course), but I already had cotton kitchen string, so we used that. I saw on one site that soaking the string in a solution of water, salt, and boric acid makes it burn slower and more evenly, but we didn't have the boric acid, and our wick worked just fine as is. All we had to do was drop the string in the melted fat and put it in the freezer to harden and get stiff so it would be straight.
The hardest part was getting the wick to stay up straight in the jar. The top of the wick is wrapped around a pencil that is placed over the top of the jar. A dab of hot glue was recommended on the bottom of the jar to hold the wick straight. I don't have a hot glue gun. The best I could do was some bright blue Elmer's with glitter in it.
It sort of held the wick, but there was a lot of minute adjustments, dropping the thing entirely and starting again, many, many times (plus, I must admit, some cussing--it was really frustrating) before I decided it was good enough and let the tallow harden.
After an hour or so in the refrigerator, we tried it out. And lo and behold, it burned.
This little light of mine . . .
Yes, my wick is still not straight, but nonetheless, we burned the candle all through dinner. Despite the frustration with the wick, it was fun. Maybe next we'll try making a dipped tallow candle. We got nothin' but time, and there can never be too many lights in the darkness.
* I didn't use A.'s precious leaf tallow. We still had some regular old fat from the wether we butchered last spring, so I used that.
Quarantine survivalists for the win!
ReplyDeleteHere I braved Trader Joe's where they only let 10 people in the store at a time. The line was long, but it moved quickly. I guess most people were fast shoppers. The store was well stocked. They even had plenty of toilet paper. I didn't buy any, we already have enough to last for at least 3 weeks. Having enough food is a priority over TP.
I'm curious...does using the tallow let the candle burn faster than wax or slower? Or pretty much the same burn time?
ReplyDeleteInteresting project!
Linda.
Good use for older fat! School time.
ReplyDeleteLinda: I've never burned a jar candle before, so I'm not sure. It didn't seem to burn and use the tallow overly quickly, though.
ReplyDeleteOut of curiosity, I looked up sheep tallow via Google and found that people claim it is a wonder material for (a)skin; (b)softening and protecting leather; (c) emergency candles; (d)coating carbon steel to protect it against rust; and cooking, of course.
ReplyDeleteI find, however, that I have no overwhelming desire to treat my aging skin with sheep fat. I may come to it.
Hey there, thought I'd mention if you tie a small washer or perhaps a nut to one end of the string it will provide weight to keep the wick on the bottom and help keep it straight
ReplyDeleteCool project!
MiL: That's funny, because the next thing I wanted to try with it was one of those whipped skin balms. Supposedly all you need is the tallow, some olive oil, optional essential oils that I would omit because I don't have any, and then whip it with a hand mixer till it's kind of airy. Given the aridity of our climate, any ultra-moisturizer is worth trying. Particularly and almost free one.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous: Thanks for the tip.
I think that whipping would make all the difference--almond oil would be nice if you could find it (they stock it here, so maybe I could get you some). I know I've mentioned how the meat cutter at Durgin Park had the smoothest skin on his hands from handling all the prime rib roasts. Even though I am completely isolated, I'm washing my hands so frequently and so thoroughly that ultra-moisturization sounds good. Even heavy-duty hand cream is falling short.
ReplyDeleteCool idea and activity during this "what can we do" time. Yay Cubby, yay you!
ReplyDelete