As you might have heard, on Saturday 7th February we held our first FATraiser event at MU (Eindhoven). During the event we invited you, the public, to pledge your fats, and become a shareholder in the worlds first, community built FATBERG. Those of you who plan to join us by pledging your fat for the creation of the FATBERG might like to go the extra mile, contributing your own rendered fat.
Rendering is a process that transforms [waste] animal tissue into valuable material by simultaneously drying the material and separating the fat from bone and protein. The most common animal sources are beef, pork, sheep, and poultry. Rendered fat then is fat in its purest form. With the creation of FATBERG we have been regularly rendering a variety of animal fats, creating a malleable material for use in its production. Rendering is a relatively simple process that can be easily done at home.
To render fat you will need:
• Large Soup or Stock Pot
• Fat – try beef, pork, duck or any other animal fat.
• Water
• Patience
There are a number of recipes and instructions online, and the steps below are a mix of both what we’ve read and experienced ourselves. There are two basic ways to render fat: dry rendering and wet rendering. Both methods are similar and can be done on a stove top. With FATBERG we have focused on the wet rendering method, so as to lesson the risk of burning the precious fat. Wet rendering simply refers to the addition of water to the pot. The amount of water doesn’t really matter as it will evaporate over time.
1. To start, first you should trim off any excess pieces of flesh, sinew or muscle – you don’t need this and it can cause the fat to spoil.
2. Second, you should cut the fatty tissue into smaller pieces. We sometimes use a meat grinder to do this and speed up the cooking process, but cutting the tissue up into smaller pieces will do.
3. Throw all the fat into a large stockpot and heat slowly over medium heat, with the lid on top. Don’t be tempted to whack the heat up high to speed things up. Lard burns fairly easily, which will discolour your rendered fat, cause a “smoky” scent and yellow tone. Keep things slow and low.
4. You will need to monitor the fat, stirring occasionally so that the cracklings don’t burn.
5. Your rendered at is ready when the fatty chunks have released their fat content. You generally spot this when the chunks turn crispy and float on the surface. At this point we carefully pour the molten hot fat through a metal sieve into a glass pyrex jug or bowl, to remove any residual crackling before letting the rendered fat cool. And that’s it.
Your highly saturated final product will stay in pristine condition almost indefinitely so don’t worry about it going rancid. We recommend you store your fat in an airtight container away from natural sunlight, ready and waiting for berg building.