Tallow?

[Cobweb]

I was wondering if anyone has made tallow for lamps?

Reason being, at the Viking meet up, Wayland had some excellent lamps but used veggie oil in them. I like this idea but for bush-meets it could be a bit messy so I was thinking tallow might be a better option.

I vaguely remember my granddad having tallow lamps and the stuff he filled them with was pretty soft & lasted ages. I think he got the fat from sausages and meat he cooked, I can remember a cup next to the cooker filed with a white gooey substance with black and brown flecks in it... I don't know and can't remember exactly, this was many years ago now and I can't ask him.


If you have, please can you let us know how you make it and what it's made from. As I understand, it's not like lard, it's softer and melts more easily.

 

[smoggy]

As far as I know tallow is animal fat.....so your probably not far off...

unless anyone has more info, I suggest googling and or experimenting...

Im always interested in "alternate fuels" so will be watching here for any progress...

Smoggy

 

[ForestNH/VT]

Tallow is extremely easy to render. I buy large lumps of beef fat (suet) from the butcher - it is usually intended for use as bird food and quite cheap. Run it through a meat grinder or chop fine, then put in a Crock Pot slow cooker for a few hours on low until it melts. Skim off any solids that float, pour off the liquid and your done! You can also melt it twice to purify it further for use in soaps etc. It can be melted in a double burner as well, but a bit more fussy as you have to monitor the heat and water level. I have mine in glass jars and it has kept fine for over a year now. Check out chandler and soap maker's websites for loads of good info on rendering tallow. You can similarly purify saved up bacon grease, etc. I have a load of tallow that I rendered, "Just because" - now I have a use for it! Must find lamp plans. . .

FWIW
Forest

 

[Dave Budd]

about 6 years ago a friend of mine offered me a can of tallow that he had no use for. I took it off his hands and was told that it had been in his shed for about 15 years and that the guy he got it from had been sitting on it for some time.

I figured that it would be perfect for use as a quenchant when demonstrating as the Iron Age blacksmith (solid so transports well yet molten is a good fast oil). First trip out and before I had had the chance to use the box full I had decanted from the 25l container of fat, I needed to fry some eggs for breakfast. I forgot the cooking oil and so used the tallow It tasted fine and I'm still alive!

The boxes full that I use for quenching blades are nasty, but the smoke that comes off diminishes with repeated burnings. The rest of the can is just as 'sweet' smelling as it ever was

 

[wingstoo]

Try toolstation.com they will have some in their plumbing section, Or try this:-

How to Make Tallow Wax

Step1
Purchase 5 pounds of ground animal fat from a grocery store or local butcher. Tallow was originally made from beef or mutton fat, but pretty much any kind of animal fat will work. By the way, lard is the porcine equivalent to tallow.
Step2
Place the ground animal fat into a large cooking pot and cover with water. Add salt and turn on the heat. Heat the fat and salted water until the mixture is boiling. Then lower heat to simmer. Turn on the powerful fan to get rid of as much of the smell as possible.
Step3
Simmer fat for about ten minutes per pound of fat. If you choose to prepare less animal fat at a time, simply adjust the amount of water and salt and cook for less time.
Step4
Once the mixture has cooked long enough to render all the fat possible, you will find only meat and gristle chunks in the liquid. At this point strain the liquid with the colander so to separate the solids and discard the solids.
Step5
Pour liquid into a metal bowl and allow it to cool. As the liquid cools, the usable fat will rise to the surface. Once the liquid is at room temperature, cover the bowl with plastic wrap. Speed up the fat-rising process by placing the bowl in the refridgerator.
Step6
When the fat rises to the top and appears solid, it will be white and it will cover the entire surface of the liquid in the bowl. At this point, carefully release the fat from the liquid beneath it and rinse the fat chunks clean with cool water before storing it in plastic bags. Discard the liquid beneath the fat carefully; do not pour it down the sink as it will clog your drains.
Step7
Store clean fat chunks in plastic bags in the freezer. For your own knowledge, label the bags with the date you made the tallow and simply remove chunks from the bags as you need them for your soap and candle recipes.

Have fun

 

[Eric_Methven]

All the above are true and good, but the easiest is to either go to the butcher and buy a couple of blocks of 'dripping', or buy dripping from either Sainsburys or Tesco - where the marge and butter are shelved.

Eric

 

[smoggy]

Now you've sorted your tallow........

What lamp are you going to use....?

Smoggy

 

[Cobweb]

Thanks for the replies guys, that's such a great help, I'm hopefully going to make some this weekend.
As for the lamp smoggy, I'll probably try it out using a small dish I have handy and then if it all works out well, I'll make a wooden one out of a log or something using the charcoal burning method

 

[smoggy]

If you take a looksee on you tube...(somone posted a link to the Ray Mears collection)...Ray's arctic prog shows an Inuit making a modern metal blubber lamp for use in the igloo's.....I've also seen pics on the net of stone oil lamps..as I recall I googled images "oil lamps" you may gleen some insparation here.....looking forward to some pics...

Smoggy.

 

[Mike Ameling]

Grease lamps have a long history. And they vary from very simple to pretty elaborate hand-forged examples.

First - you can see a couple good scenes of Innuit/Eskimo's using a grease lamp for light
and heat in an igloo in the movie The Fast Runner by Zacharias Kunuk. They are using
seal oil/fat, and their "burner" is just a shallow pan/bowl that they keep tending/pulling
their seaweed wicks up along the edge of. The movie is in their native language, but
subtitled in English. A great historical look at the Eskimo life - especially out on the ice.

Here are a few pics of some small grease lamps that I made. Some are hand-forged with
spike hangers - based on surviving historical artifacts. And some were made from simple
kitchen table/serving spoons. The only thing you really need to do to modify the spoons
is bend that handle up and over to hang it. The "bowl" of the spoon will work OK without
any modifications. You do not need to neck in the "spout" end to narrow it.

Grease lamps were made to burn used left over cooking grease for light. It saved you the
time/trouble of heating/straining the used grease, and then hand-dipping tallow candles from it.

Fresh "fat" doesn't seem to work as well. It needs to be heated down at least once to
work well. And the size of your container needs to be kept small. The heat from your
burning wick needs to be able to heat/melt that grease - to keep it flowing up to your wick.
And your wick will burn above the level of the melted grease/oil. As your grease is used
up, more of your wick will become exposed and start burning. So constant attention is
needed to ... adjust ... your wick and grease level.

There is a Tavern of Inn variation of the grease lamps. They tended to be a square shallow pan with hanger. The corners were ramped up so that you could lay a wick in each of them. You lit as many of those 4 wicks as the amount of light you needed for the whole room. Most were designed to hang - so they cast what little light they gave off over a larger area of the room. But some were made to set on a table or the mantel of the fireplace.

Such simple "technology", and used over so many centuries.

Mikey - that grumpy ol' German blacksmith out in the Hinterlands

 

[Mike Ameling]

Yes, liquid veg oil works well in grease lamps. Yes, you do have to worry about tipping/spilling. But you also
have to worry about tipping/spilling when using tallow/fat/grease. The heat of the wick needs to MELT that grease
- so that it can flow up the wick to the flame. If it isn't "liquid" enough, it would not flow up that wick to feed the
flame. So you need to end up with liquid grease/oil either way.

One additional ... hazard ... to using used cooking grease. If your grease is from the bacon or sausage you fried
up that morning, your burning grease lamp will make it smell like you are frying bacon again. And that will often
attract assorted varmits - 4-legged and 2-legged as well! The smell of frying bacon travels an amazingly long
distance through camp. And those "camp dogs" will follow that smell and home in on your camp! Be prepared
for ... visitors!

Here are a couple pics of a Tavern or Inn grease lamp I made for a friend last week - with spike hanger/hook and a
little pick attached by chain for adjusting the wicks.

One further note. Do not expect the same amount of light from a grease lamp as you might get from a bee's wax
or parafin candle. The light will vary more - sometimes greater, sometimes lesser. And it will need much more
attention to the wick and the grease level to keep it burning well.

Mikey - that grumpy ol' German blacksmith out in the Hinterlands