Suet Rendering

Suet is the fat from around the kidneys. It is more saturated than other 
fat. Its melting point is in excess of 110 degrees, making it hard to clean 
up if your hot water isn't very hot.

There is no reason not to render a lot of suet at the same time. It keeps.

Dice the suet into pieces smaller than walnut size. This is a lot of 
cutting, but the small size works best. I cut off as much as possible the 
bits of meat, and fibers that aren't suet.

The boiling of suet takes a long time. Many hours. It does not melt easily. 
I would start it early in the morning.

Use a stainless steel pot with a thick bottom. Start with a small amount of 
added water. Stir often, especially in the beginning. It will become a 
liquid with lots of solid pieces floating in it. After a while a few pieces 
may stick to the bottom, if there are one hour gaps between stirring. I 
have put in too much water, and let it simmer (always the lowest possible 
flame) overnight, but too much water just lengthens the process.

The liquid does get a little yellow. I figured it came from the stuck 
pieces. One wrote that sometimes grass fed animals produce yellowish fat. I 
have only rendered grass-fed bison from North Star Bison.

People suggest rendering twice. The last time I did render twice, and it 
speeds up the process. Your goal is no moisture at all. This is key for 
preservation. The signal that you have reached this is the lack of small 
gas bubbles coming up from the bottom. This is moisture converting to 
steam. They seem to never end. I figure they are slowly coming out of the 
chunks of non-fat. One thing I also did last time was to insert my stick 
blender in the mixture to chop up the chunks. Be careful not to pull it out 
and splatter hot fat all over. If you do two renderings, the first 
rendering would be done before the bubbles stop. Then heat again until all 
bubbles are gone. No need to strain a second time.

One uses a thermometer to ensure that she is not overheating. I don't see 
the point if the flame is at the lowest and you stop after the bubbles 
stop. She writes "When I'm rendering suet, and the water is nearly gone 
(bubbles very small) I start checking the temperature with a cooking 
thermometer. As long as there is water in the fat, it won't get far from 
212 degrees (less at higher elevations). As soon as the water is gone, the 
fat starts heating up. I remove it from the burner before it gets to 225 
degrees. That way I'm sure that it is done, and still haven't overheated it."

For straining I first used a very fine strainer and put a piece of cheese 
cloth in it. Not sure why the cheese cloth was needed, but everybody seems 
to use it. Since the strainer was much smaller than the volume of chunks in 
the boiling pan, I held back the chunks with a spoon and only poured out 
the liquid that came out easily. Not particularly efficient. I have since 
switched to using a chinois*. And I no longer use cheese cloth. Since the 
chinois has a tall aspect ratio I use a tall stock pot underneath. I don't 
use the wooden pestle that fits in the chinois, but a large spoon to press 
the junk against the sides.

I store my rendered suet at room temperature. It is now stored in one of my 
good pots. Ideally some molds exist to pour into. Some have suggested mini 
loaf pans, but I haven't tried them.

* Go to: 
http://bridgekitchenware.com/cgi-bin/scodb.cgi/s=bridge&uid=&a=c&c=&n=Contents/ 
and do a search on chinois. They have three.