Suet to Tallow

[CelticPrint]

Picked up 2lbs of suet, rendered it down to 12oz's of tallow. If you've never tried to make your own tallow it's this simple. Grab a pound or two of suet from the market, ask your butcher if you don't see it out in the case. Clean off any parts that look ragged, fleshy or bloody. Chop into cubes and place into a small crock pot with 1/4 quarter cup of water and set it to low. The water is just so the crock won't shatter and will evaporate out. After a few hours and a few stirs you will see most of it rendered. Some recipes say to wait until the fat turns crisp and brown, to me that's over cooked. Once a few hours have gone by and a fair amount has rendered out pour it through cheese cloth and sieve. It will be yellowish as a liquid but dry and harden to a white waxy look. This alone is now tallow and will keep for a very long time if sealed in a jar even at room temperature. I'm just throwing this out there because even though I over paid for the suet I still saved 3 times the money I would have spent to order pre made tallow. If you know a butcher or do your own butcher work the savings will go even further. I plan to mix a test batch with bee's wax to make a dubbin of sorts, if anyone has any advice on ratios I'd appreciate it.

[Matt S]

I've mixed my own dubbin before but never rendered tallow. Maybe I ought to visit my local butcher...

I think the normal English mix for dubbin is equal amounts of tallow, beeswax and neetsfoot oil. It works well. I've also tried equal amounts of wax and tallow, and mixing in a little rosin too. I've been using Fiebing's Aussie for a while, which is basically dubbin. It has lanolin which supples up the leather real well and smells pretty good too (which tallow doesn't always). There's no rocket science behind it, most mixes work.

[CelticPrint]

Ordering some Lanolin now, never used it on leather but we use it on our hands up in here in the mountains and it definitely lays down a solid protective barrier on skin so I'll try it in a few blends. I was worried rendering tallow in the kitchen, thought it might make the whole house smell gamey but there was little to no smell and the finished product barely has an odor to it. Neetsfoot always seems to be a solid go to from every thing I've searched so I'll grab some of that tomorrow, strangely I've never used it, always just used mink oil because it was the first thing given to me.

I used the tallow alone on a test piece of 8oz veg tan 2 inches by 8 inches. Rubbed it in and set it down, came back 5 minutes later and the leather was extremely supple and could be bent and twisted with ease. I will experiment with blends tomorrow. One of the reasons I always save my scraps from making projects is to test all these blends. Not sure I have access to rosin but since I'm obviously on the computer I'm sure I can find some. I've heard use of pine tar as well and I can get that from the back yard.

[Matt S]

8 hours ago, CelticPrint said:

Ordering some Lanolin now, never used it on leather but we use it on our hands up in here in the mountains and it definitely lays down a solid protective barrier on skin so I'll try it in a few blends. I was worried rendering tallow in the kitchen, thought it might make the whole house smell gamey but there was little to no smell and the finished product barely has an odor to it. Neetsfoot always seems to be a solid go to from every thing I've searched so I'll grab some of that tomorrow, strangely I've never used it, always just used mink oil because it was the first thing given to me.

I used the tallow alone on a test piece of 8oz veg tan 2 inches by 8 inches. Rubbed it in and set it down, came back 5 minutes later and the leather was extremely supple and could be bent and twisted with ease. I will experiment with blends tomorrow. One of the reasons I always save my scraps from making projects is to test all these blends. Not sure I have access to rosin but since I'm obviously on the computer I'm sure I can find some. I've heard use of pine tar as well and I can get that from the back yard.

I visited a traditional tannery last year, they had a grease tank the size of a station wagon basically full of tallow with a gas burner underneath it. They would dip entire sides or backs in the thing.

I've been playing with pine tar on my boots lately too -- a 50-50 mix with dubbin (Fiebings Aussie). Traditional Finnish mix (though they put pine tar in everything it seems). Warm, slather on, leave to soak then rub off with a rag. Had to be my "outdoors only" boots as while the smell is pleasant the more sensitive members of the household object to such a strong scent in the hall.

As I say I tried the rosin years ago, don't think it did much.

[NVLeatherWorx]

I too make my own blend but have never used Tallow in the mix; just use pure beeswax, pure Neatsfoot Oil (you want to stay away from the Compound varieties), and pure Cocoa Butter in my blend.  When I was stationed in Germany and on Border Patrol along the Iron Curtain we used to waterproof our boots with lard (pig fat); got the idea from our West German counterparts who said it was an old Farmer's blend and it worked like a charm.  It also gave the leather more of an insulating property than it already has so not only were our feet dry they were also warm and when you are walking around in the countryside in thigh high snow that is a very good thing to have.