 Helter Smelter One bright and shining Saturday morning I awoke and realized the time was right, so I gathered the necessary components and prepared to render down a turkey-sized clump of suet. In last weeks column I had written off the idea of using the indoor kitchen stove because I wanted to keep the smell outside. I was still undecided about whether to make a small wood fire in the pit out back, or use the butane camp stove. To my amazement I found the hiding spot of the camp stove and the butane bottle right away, and this convinced me that the camp stove was the way to heat the clumps of suet. Rendering is a messy job so the outdoor metal table would be the ideal working surface. That outdoor table could take the heat and would not be harmed by the occasional spill of hot melted fat. Almost every utensil I used would eventually end up coated with grease so I endeavoured to employ a minimum number of tools. An old, large, stainless steel pot made an ideal container and my stirring stick was a sturdy piece of wood which I eventually discarded in favour of a metal poker. I needed a hatchet to chop the large piece of suet into smaller pieces and, of course, a chopping surface. Suet as it comes from the butcher is fairly dry and somewhat brittle, and when struck tends to chip and fly. For my chopping surface I chose a large-diameter circular, plastic snow sled. Its raised rim would act as a barrier to flying suet. After the raw suet was chopped into bits and put in the pot, I lit the propane stove and started my vigil. I soon learned that patience would be a big part of the process. Luckily, I worked right beside the lilac bush where the Chickadees visited the feeder, so between bouts of lifting the lid of the pot and prodding the hard suet chunks, I could watch the birds come and go. The camp stove burner was set low as it could go to avoid scorching the unmelted suet but an hour later I was still waiting and no significant melting had occurred. I continued to wait and bother the suet. Finally I watched a skim of melted grease begin to form under the hard chunks of suet. We were in business - rendering was occurring. A lot more time passed. Finally the contents of the pot reached the point where stirring was possible. Within two hours the contents were more liquid then solid. It was time to find some containers for the liquid fat. I found the containers and arranged them on the metal table. I stirred and waited some more convinced that at some point all the suet would liquefy. However that event did not happen. I turned up the heat. I stirred some more. No matter how hot the fat became there appeared to be pellets of curd-like suet that would not break down into liquid. Perhaps I could pour off that which had melted. I could see that a strainer would be needed to catch the non-liquid portion of the suet during pouring so I placed a small screen-bottomed box I used for soil sifting over the first empty margarine container and poured the hot fat through. The screen became clogged long before the margarine tub was full so I flipped the solids back into the pot and poured again until the screen was blocked. When it was full I flipped the solid material back into the pot and resumed cooking. In this manner I slowly filled three of the smaller margarine tubs. Despite further cooking the remaining mush would not render so I decided to pour it as it was into two other containers. This done I turned off the stove and looked about me. I had five margarine containers of rendered suet to show for my two and a half hours work and just as expected I was standing in a landscape of greasy implements. Not only that, fat congealed on the grass, and the ground, and the table, and anything else in the general perimeter of the stove. With visions of this delectable scent attracting a bear to the yard I scrubbed the pot, the table and the stirring implements with soap. I did not bother with a few things such as the screen and a wooden board used as a table for pouring. I did not want the Gray Jays getting into the hot fat so I placed two wire hand baskets over the rendered suet and left it to cool on the metal table. Then I went inside to assess my accomplishments. The extensive clean up and length of time I spent rendering had me immediately saying ‘never again.’ At one point during my ruminations I even totally swore off using raw suet and instead imagined using shortening or lard. However, the ease of storing rendered suet, and the ease with which birds could chip bits of it off, and the simplicity of putting out a molded clump softened my stance. Soon after my suet rendering experiment, a bear visited the yard and took my biggest clump of rendered suet. As I have done in past years when the bear comes around, I reduce the number of feeders during the day and bring them into the mud room at night. Feeding hard-won rendered suet to bears is like throwing pearls before swine. To e-mail Tom CLICK HERE To look at previous column CLICK HERE |
