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bear grease as lube
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adbranaman
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I've always heard that bear grease is the best , but since we don't have bears here in Indiana I just couldn't tell you.I know I'd rather use animal grease then the petrol type as it doesn't foul up the barrel near as bad.
I think you have something there....now, I haven't tried this as yet but the greasyest critter I know of aside from a bear is a possum. Those critters are about the easiest things to trap I have ever seen...might be worth a try, imo. Plus, they are good eatin, imho.
Howdy Folks -
yup, bear grease is amazing stuff. You can use it as bullet lube - melt and pour over your patches, let cool, scrape off the excess.
You can use it for cooking. You can use it as the base for many traditional salves and balms.
Not that many folks save their grease and render their lard anymore, so for your further edification, I present the following:
[url] http://www.hugs.org/How_To_Render_Lard.shtml[/url]
Title: How To Render Lard
Categories:
Yield: 1 Servings
Grind pork fat or chop into small pieces. Put into a large roasting pan and bake most of the day in a slow oven. Squash fat occasionally with a potato masher. Let it cool a bit. CAREFULLY strain through cheesecloth and then pour fat into jars.
Cover and store in a cool place or better yet in the icebox. Save the browned cracklings and use for flavoring as you would bacon.
another site shows needed details:
To render bear fat, set fat in a 200-250 degree F oven in a large pan,
let set all day. Pour off into sealers. May be stored in freezer.
but here's the best:
[url] http://www.christianhomekeeper.com/tallow.html[/url]
Rendering is the process of separating animal fat from debris and water so that it can be used inbaking or soap making.
It is best to render small amounts of fat at a time in the kitchen. This process can be used for rendering 5 pounds of either lard (pig fat) or tallow (beef or sheep).
Place the fat in a large pot (stainless steel works best) and melt slowly to avoid burning, allowing about 30 - 60 minutes to heat. Slow is best, don't hurry or you may burn it.
Stir melting fat occasionally.
Cool the fat slightly and carefully run through a metal sieve to remove debris.
To the cooled fat, add twice as much cold water. Example: If you have 2 cups of melted fat, you would add 4 cups cold water.
Return to the heat, covered, and slowly boil it for 4 hours.
Cool again and strain through the sieve into a large ceramic, metal or plastic bowl.
Refrigerate over night. The cooked fat will have settled into two or three layers.
Invert fat and unmold into a plate in the SINK. On the inverted top will be two layers. One gelatinous and one grainy.
Scrape these off leaving the pure tallow on the bottom.
Wrap in plastic or store in rigid plastic containers in the refrigerator until used.
and finaly another more wordy site:[url] http://yoyo.cc.monash.edu[/url].au/~tif/lighting/tallow.html
Tallow is nothing more than purified animal fat, and has been used since ancient times as a source of fuel for light. Fat from cattle and sheep are the traditional fats of choice for tallow, with sheep fat purported to be the better of the two, but very difficult to obtain today. Beef fat can be purchased in Wegman’s pet section for 69 cents a pound already packaged ready to go.
Rendering, or the purification of animal fat into tallow, isn’t hard but will take a couple of hours. There is an economy of scale, with it being easier to make a lot of tallow than it is to make a small amount. It’s a bit messy, too; so it’s best to render a lot of fat into tallow all at once and store the surplus in your refrigerator for future use. It will keep for years.
How To Render Fat Into Tallow
Caution: Melting fat is dangerous and should not be done by children.
1. Buy some fat. If you’re starting out, I suggest around 5 pounds. If you know of an old time butcher, buy it from him. Otherwise, go to your supermarket.
2. Buy an old metal pitcher from the Salvation Army. Larger strain holes are better than small ones. Also buy a strainer made with wire mesh, not punched holes. These items are inexpensive and reserving them for tallow is easier than cleaning them.
3. There are only two places to render tallow; outdoors or in someone else’s kitchen! Outdoors with a single electric burner or propane stove is ideal.
4. Cut the fat into small pieces, and place as many as will fit into the pitcher.
5. Put the pitcher into a pot of hot water, and place on your stove. Bring the pot of water to a boil. As the fat melts you will be able to add more pieces. This is a slow process. Avoid the temptation to place the pitcher directly on the stove! The higher temperature will indeed melt the fat faster, but it will also fry it, creating thousands of little burnt pieces that will be difficult to remove and may result in the fat catching fire.
6. Stir your fat with a chopstick. When you can’t add any more fat and it looks like the solid pieces have melted as much as they are going to, pour the liquid through the strainer into a large bowl about half full of hot water. Give the greasy pieces to your neighbor’s dog and send him home quick!
7. The molten tallow will form a layer on top of the water. Allow it to cool into solid, whitish tallow, and slice it free from the bowl. Don’t forget about the water underneath it!
8. Examine your tallow. You will observe solid impurities stuck in the bottom of the tallow, as they are heavier than tallow but lighter than water, so they become trapped there as the tallow solidified. Scrap the bulk of these away with a knife.
9. Put your chunks back into the pitcher and repeat! Each time you do this, your tallow will become whiter, harder, and less smelly. As a rule, I render my tallow three times.
10. After your final rendering, melt the tallow in the pitcher again. You may either use the tallow for a project, or pour it into a muffin pan and allow to cool into ingots. To release the solid ingots from the muffin pan, run hot tap water onto a single ingot with the pan upside down over a bowl of cold water. The ingot will suddenly drop free and fall into the cold water. Dry with a paper towel and store in your refrigerator. They will last for years and can be remelted.
------------
I could surely use a pint or two of bear fat!
Newhouse, would you be willing to trade? perhaps some lead ingots or cast roundball?
best
shunka
yup, bear grease is amazing stuff. You can use it as bullet lube - melt and pour over your patches, let cool, scrape off the excess.
You can use it for cooking. You can use it as the base for many traditional salves and balms.
Not that many folks save their grease and render their lard anymore, so for your further edification, I present the following:
[url] http://www.hugs.org/How_To_Render_Lard.shtml[/url]
Title: How To Render Lard
Categories:
Yield: 1 Servings
Grind pork fat or chop into small pieces. Put into a large roasting pan and bake most of the day in a slow oven. Squash fat occasionally with a potato masher. Let it cool a bit. CAREFULLY strain through cheesecloth and then pour fat into jars.
Cover and store in a cool place or better yet in the icebox. Save the browned cracklings and use for flavoring as you would bacon.
another site shows needed details:
To render bear fat, set fat in a 200-250 degree F oven in a large pan,
let set all day. Pour off into sealers. May be stored in freezer.
but here's the best:
[url] http://www.christianhomekeeper.com/tallow.html[/url]
Rendering is the process of separating animal fat from debris and water so that it can be used inbaking or soap making.
It is best to render small amounts of fat at a time in the kitchen. This process can be used for rendering 5 pounds of either lard (pig fat) or tallow (beef or sheep).
Place the fat in a large pot (stainless steel works best) and melt slowly to avoid burning, allowing about 30 - 60 minutes to heat. Slow is best, don't hurry or you may burn it.
Stir melting fat occasionally.
Cool the fat slightly and carefully run through a metal sieve to remove debris.
To the cooled fat, add twice as much cold water. Example: If you have 2 cups of melted fat, you would add 4 cups cold water.
Return to the heat, covered, and slowly boil it for 4 hours.
Cool again and strain through the sieve into a large ceramic, metal or plastic bowl.
Refrigerate over night. The cooked fat will have settled into two or three layers.
Invert fat and unmold into a plate in the SINK. On the inverted top will be two layers. One gelatinous and one grainy.
Scrape these off leaving the pure tallow on the bottom.
Wrap in plastic or store in rigid plastic containers in the refrigerator until used.
and finaly another more wordy site:[url] http://yoyo.cc.monash.edu[/url].au/~tif/lighting/tallow.html
Tallow is nothing more than purified animal fat, and has been used since ancient times as a source of fuel for light. Fat from cattle and sheep are the traditional fats of choice for tallow, with sheep fat purported to be the better of the two, but very difficult to obtain today. Beef fat can be purchased in Wegman’s pet section for 69 cents a pound already packaged ready to go.
Rendering, or the purification of animal fat into tallow, isn’t hard but will take a couple of hours. There is an economy of scale, with it being easier to make a lot of tallow than it is to make a small amount. It’s a bit messy, too; so it’s best to render a lot of fat into tallow all at once and store the surplus in your refrigerator for future use. It will keep for years.
How To Render Fat Into Tallow
Caution: Melting fat is dangerous and should not be done by children.
1. Buy some fat. If you’re starting out, I suggest around 5 pounds. If you know of an old time butcher, buy it from him. Otherwise, go to your supermarket.
2. Buy an old metal pitcher from the Salvation Army. Larger strain holes are better than small ones. Also buy a strainer made with wire mesh, not punched holes. These items are inexpensive and reserving them for tallow is easier than cleaning them.
3. There are only two places to render tallow; outdoors or in someone else’s kitchen! Outdoors with a single electric burner or propane stove is ideal.
4. Cut the fat into small pieces, and place as many as will fit into the pitcher.
5. Put the pitcher into a pot of hot water, and place on your stove. Bring the pot of water to a boil. As the fat melts you will be able to add more pieces. This is a slow process. Avoid the temptation to place the pitcher directly on the stove! The higher temperature will indeed melt the fat faster, but it will also fry it, creating thousands of little burnt pieces that will be difficult to remove and may result in the fat catching fire.
6. Stir your fat with a chopstick. When you can’t add any more fat and it looks like the solid pieces have melted as much as they are going to, pour the liquid through the strainer into a large bowl about half full of hot water. Give the greasy pieces to your neighbor’s dog and send him home quick!
7. The molten tallow will form a layer on top of the water. Allow it to cool into solid, whitish tallow, and slice it free from the bowl. Don’t forget about the water underneath it!
8. Examine your tallow. You will observe solid impurities stuck in the bottom of the tallow, as they are heavier than tallow but lighter than water, so they become trapped there as the tallow solidified. Scrap the bulk of these away with a knife.
9. Put your chunks back into the pitcher and repeat! Each time you do this, your tallow will become whiter, harder, and less smelly. As a rule, I render my tallow three times.
10. After your final rendering, melt the tallow in the pitcher again. You may either use the tallow for a project, or pour it into a muffin pan and allow to cool into ingots. To release the solid ingots from the muffin pan, run hot tap water onto a single ingot with the pan upside down over a bowl of cold water. The ingot will suddenly drop free and fall into the cold water. Dry with a paper towel and store in your refrigerator. They will last for years and can be remelted.
------------
I could surely use a pint or two of bear fat!
Newhouse, would you be willing to trade? perhaps some lead ingots or cast roundball?
best
shunka
Last edited by a moderator:
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Only lube I use in my hunting loads is bear grease. :thumbsup:
sure i will trade you shunka,send me your addressand let me know if you want black bear or grizzly, the grizzly is much better apparently as it is a lot cleaner and makes FAR better poulstry lard than black bear according to my wife. she does know. i just needed to know how to make it in its clearest liquid form.
Not to rain on anybodies parade here but before ya go tradeing or selling any bear parts(even the fat) I would check on the laws regarding such.Rules Across state lines down here is crazy enough , I can't even imagine across national borders. Could bring ya a world of financial hurt if the wrong people got involved.ie the Feds YMHS Birdman
Guest
Newhouse, I just rendered some bear fat last weekend. Here's what I do. cut the fat into small cubes, I aim for 1" or so. try to keep the pieces reasonably similar in size. It helps. Useing a propane camp stove IN THE GARAGE (outside if it's warm enough), put the pieces in a good size pot. Try not to fill the pot much over 1/2. Put on the stove, I stir occasionally. When the fat is done, you'll have a light colored oil with the cracklin's floating in it. Take a big spoon and spoon out the cracklin's. Then, I pour the oil tru a steel colander with a piece of paper towel to strain into another pot. as I'm cooking the next batch I wait for the ouil to cool a bit then pour into ice cream pails. DON'T POUR DIRECTLY INTO ICE CREAM PAILS. it will melt the pail and you'll have hot bear oil EVERYWHERE. don't ask how I know this. Not much to it.
Cody
BTW, never used grizzly fat. there's a fair few around but I think they would be reluctant to give up their fat and you can't shoot'em. Black bear fat is fine.
Cody
BTW, never used grizzly fat. there's a fair few around but I think they would be reluctant to give up their fat and you can't shoot'em. Black bear fat is fine.
ah, point well taken, Birdman, thanks.
I will check on the rules and regs (esp international!), and will call the folks I know who have handled such in the past.
I don't want to be sendin' myself and newhouse from the fat into the fire :grin:
best
shunka
I will check on the rules and regs (esp international!), and will call the folks I know who have handled such in the past.
I don't want to be sendin' myself and newhouse from the fat into the fire :grin:
best
shunka
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Wheres the oil? The above recipes are for fat but I see no mention of oil, which is what I want. Still unsure about the best way of rendering oil.
rabbit03
50 Cal.
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Hi Shunka thanks for posting the recipes I appreciate it. I am about to be rendering some fat of my own here
[url] http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b206/rabbit03/hog005.jpg[/url]
Hog Lard--- The better lube!
Remember to pound the bejesus out of em'
rabbit03
[url] http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b206/rabbit03/hog005.jpg[/url]
Hog Lard--- The better lube!
Remember to pound the bejesus out of em'
rabbit03
Last edited by a moderator:
When I did it earlier this fall I ended up with just what Cody said, a pot full of oil and cracklins. I scooped off the big pieces and then ran it through a fry oil filter I got from Cabela's for cleaning turkey frying oil (think giant coffee cone filter in a funnel). Ended up with 19 quart mason jars of oil that I'm waiting for colder weather to settle out the grease. Then I'll pour off the oil and scoop the grease and start mixing. I've been told 20% bees wax makes a great patch lube, time will tell.
Jon
Jon
Hey Swamp, after ya cook the fat down and skim it and all the other stuff, let it cool some then let it set awhile in glass jars. With bear fats it will separate into two layers at room temp(at least it has for me). The lighter(clearer looking) oil will gradually come to the top and the heavier parts will drop.This may take a day or two or longer be patient. Take a turkey baster and carefully suck the oils off the top n place into another container. Whats left can be used mixed with bee wax for leather dressing or anything else ya want to use it for. The oil can be used as is on yer gun or for cooking if ya want or have enough, supposed to be good in bisquets. Least wise thats what I have done in the past, YMHS Birdman
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I'd like to have some of that bear fat Newhouse. Heck with the regs, we need patch lube !! Just put 'Kitchen Stuff' on the package and send it my way !! Just make sure it's hard froze before you ship it. Contact me off list at [email protected] as we'll figure out something you'd like to have in trade for it.
They say speeding is illegal, but we all do it anyway. Give me a yell Newhouse .....
Ohio Rusty
They say speeding is illegal, but we all do it anyway. Give me a yell Newhouse .....
Ohio Rusty
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Sweet! I have now made my own Bear oil. :thumbsup:
This jar has set for a day and I can see oil at the top.
This jar has set for a day and I can see oil at the top.
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Making some progress now!
And a few bottles I've put up ready for use. :thumbsup:
And a few bottles I've put up ready for use. :thumbsup:
Lookin' good. How long did it take you to render it into oil?
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I cooked it the 18th of Nov and put the jars in the fridge. Wrong thing to do as it got me no where. Took the jars out and set em on a shelf couple days ago and now can really see the oil comming to the top.
