Rendered animal fat typically has a shelf life of 1-6 months, a year if you’re lucky. In my frantic research I recently discovered a method of storage that extends fat’s shelf life to 3+ years.
This is good news!
The only hitch is that this method is dependant on an unsustainable resource: canning jars and lids. Still, if you have too much fat to immediately consume or want to put some away in the proverbial `larder`, this method is super cheap and requires almost no extra energy. One simply pours freshly rendered, burning hot liquid fat into a jar, plops the appropriate sterilized lid on, fastens and it seals itself. It`s just simple hot pack canning.
Here are more detailed instructions:
Wash and sterilize your jars, have lids at the ready in a pot of hot water. Pour your burning hot, liquid fat into jars, avoid getting it on the rims - clean them off if you do. Leave a half inch headroom. Place lids on jars and fasten with screw tops. They should seal themselves as they cool. You are done, this is awesome.
Why don`t you need to pressure can fat?
Because botulism, the main reason for pressure canning, requires water to exist. Pure rendered fat is just that, 100 percent pure oil. No water, not at risk for botulism.
Why does it extend the shelf life of fat?
The main factor that causes fat to degrade (go rancid) is exposure to oxygen (oxidation). When a jar seals, the oxygen in it is displaced through a vacuum effect. One of the main factors that spoil the fat is significantly reduced.
So far I have just canned some ghee this way; hopefully someone out there is as excited about this as me……
11 comments
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October 20, 2011 at 12:23 am
claude in québec
Great article !!
Have you tried rendering Deer fat ? We have some and do not know if it is paletable?
The French Canadian way, in the old times, was to keep the lard in salt.
If it goes rancid, you can recuperate it: read it in the book “Country Living”, in the soap making section.
October 20, 2011 at 4:24 pm
lonnie
thats sweet, too many jars of rancid fat have happened.
deer fat is delicious. I use it to make pemmican with dried deer meat and dried berries, and as a cooking oil for high heats (frying). deer fat french fries…
October 22, 2011 at 5:17 pm
Ben!
Hi Claude,
Deer fat is often referred to as ‘tallow’ and is edible, although not everybody likes it. I like lonnie’s use for deer fries.
thanks for the post miles, see you in december.
ben
November 12, 2011 at 9:18 pm
max
thanks miles, this is huge! I’ve been dumping several quarts of spoiled fat lately… shame! I’ll try it.
but wait.. what about the bot–tox? fat is low acid (presumably) so is there any risk? I did as much research as my impatience allows and found that it may be a risk, especially if you happen to allow some small amount of ‘impurities’ in there, like some meaty bits.
It’s humourous to read botulism info on the web. Like this one guy, in the same sentence overstates the fear, confuses the spore issue with the toxin issue and then says to giver if it smells and looks fine.
“[–]TrueAmateur 3 points 9 months ago
…whiles its true that cooking it will destroy the spores if they have already produced the toxin you cant deactivate the toxin with heat. botulism is a concern but its not a big deal unless you are doing things like storing garlic in oil at home. if its not bubbly and it smells ok i say go for it.”
*cooking destroys toxins, but not spores, and it can smell like the best shit ever and it’ll drop you like your best shit ever.*
**not that this happens very often, despite there being an overwhelming majority of idiots amongst the human population. Although most aren’t doing cool things like rendering fats…
I tend on the side of ‘givin’er’, but I do take my botulism seriously. And if when I do this ‘fat canning’ I’ll make sure to use it to cook things, to destry any potential toxins.
As I thought up this plan, it occured to me that fats can exclude oxygen in many circumstances, creating the anaerobic conditions required for botulism, whether canned or not. So, if fat is stored for any lenght of time, does this mean there could be a risk-o-death? And what about pemmican. There’s a case of spore laden low acid foods stored in oxygen excluding fats… could this kill us?
Miles… if you would be so kind as to answer this question for us… hey where’s the ‘donate’ button on this website? Youre giving this shit away for free??
Sorry for the uninvited essay on your blog, Miles…
November 12, 2011 at 10:35 pm
goingferal
Hey Max! Good question, my research provided the following insights on botulism risk re-canned fat; I am not a biologist, but this is what I came out with:
Like I mentioned in the post, rendered fat does not contain water, making it inhospitable to the botulism producing bacteria. As you mentioned, storing rendered fat under any circumstance should cause botulism to develop, if it thrived in rendered fat. It provides an anaerobic environment whether canned or not. To me this realization seemed like proof of the above hypothesis. Canning would not seem to make a jar of rendered fat any more anaerobic than it already is, except the very surface. It simply vacuum seals it to protect against oxidative damage.
Also, people have been doing this (not so much recently) since canning came into play. I didn’t find any reports of people getting botulism from it – though perhaps they were using it for cooking?
Here is a question for you – if storing rendered fat without canning doesn’t cause botulism to thrive, why would creating a seal foster it??
And a solution if you are afraid of the botulism toxin: lightly re-render your canned fat after opening the jar, simmer it 15 min+. And yea, any fat you want to can should be strained and rendered quite well, uncovered, to evaporate any water during processing – grade A stuff.
Donations button – good idea!
November 17, 2011 at 2:08 am
max
oh werd… i missed that water require for bot-tox part… and yeah if canning is scary then so is not canning! I’ve been not-canning fat for years without any fear! Sounds good to me. A good reminder to render well… it’s hard though, I almost always get a little sediment, and given long enough, it goes moldy… tips?
I like the re-render idea to rest assured. One time I hot packed a bunch of pighead broth with the idea that it would be safe from regular food degrading elements but not from botulism… I labelled it as poisonous unless boiled for 15 mins… I followed those instruction every time I cracked a jar… I’m still alive! I wonder if you can can anything this way?
Can we sponsor you to undertake a primitive canning exploration? How can we can without glass and metal?
Can I donate a jar of chicken fat through your website?
Go Miles!
November 12, 2011 at 10:39 pm
goingferal
a good link: http://2footalligator.blogspot.com/2010/06/making-ghee-and-canning-butter.html
February 14, 2012 at 11:46 pm
Billy Maxwell
The old mode of keeping your fat air tight is to use intestine or a heart sac. Sausage anyone?
May 10, 2012 at 1:07 am
Amy Mckenzie
I’ve made some excellent soap from rancid lard and tallow both. I packed a batch of lard in old coffee cans with the plastic type lids my first year making it and it kept for almost a year, but then went off. Since then I’ve been using the mason jar technique (past 3 or 4 years) and it works perfectly. The old jars with the rubber seals are the best for this as they are re-usable. Also keep in a cool dark place! Like your root cellar, it helps a lot.
November 20, 2012 at 1:10 am
Heather
Fats are made of fatty acids. This being the case, I’m not so sure that properly rendered fats ARE low-acid. That was what occurred to me after I got over my surprise at pressure canning being unnecessary for fats.
November 20, 2012 at 1:12 am
Heather
btw, there are reusable mason jar lids available. The brand name is Tattler. So far, I haven’t used any of mine more than once (I only got them a few months ago), but they do seal nicely, and others canned with the same seals repeatedly in order to write reviews and think they work well.