crystallized bear oil

[Rifleman1776]

While digging around in some of my plunder today I came across a silver capped bear claw. But the claw was very dried out and looked sickly pale. Wanting to revive it I figured some kind of oil treatment was the way to go. For the 'h' of it, I reached for a small bottle of bear oil that had been on the shelf with much of my other 'stuff' for decades. On opening I could see that what was in there had crystallized and only about half filled the bottle. Don't know where the other half of it went. Put back on shelf. Will check it out again sometime about three more decades from now. Wouldn't want to waste it. BTW, I treated the claw with some neatsfoot oil. Doing much better now.

 

[necchi]

Yeah, well, things can be subject to many changes during decades. Like a germ or bacteria perhaps?
You might just have a valuable lesson to share with the local Universities biology class 101 when they talk about Louis Pasteur and his discoveries.

 

[BrownBear]

I can't imagine how it crystallized. But I'm not a chemist and my oldest bear oil is only about 35 YOA. And there's about a pint of it in the container. And it's almost certainly a different species of bear. Still, I kinda wonder what a little heat, maybe not more than hand warmth, would do to the crystals.

 

[Rifleman1776]

I plan to try warming it carefully in a pan of water. FWIW, I have two bottles, the other is sealed with foil, is about the same age and shows no signs of changing other than has gone from clear to cloudy-ish. I don't use the bear oil for patch lube because of limited availability to me and I have other concoctions that work fine.

 

[Smokey Plainsman]

Hey, honey does that and bears love honey. Maybe the bear in question just ate a lot of honey and the properties transferred to the bruin’s fat?