I have made exactly one production run of bear fat by myself and helped with another single batch some years ago. The older attempt gave a brown, foul smelling mix of grease and oil. We hurried the first attempt. It was not well trimmed and rendered in an open cast iron skillet at way too hot a temperature.
Last year my neighbor casually mentioned the bear club had got one up the mountain from my place the night before. This is where I am going to retire, so I only get limited time there. While talking I found out they just toss the fat from each bear they git. So he got me 3-4 gallons of fat and I rendered several batches over the next week. It came out perfect. Looks like Crisco, snow white in color and has absolutely no odor. There are no doubt some short cuts can be taken, but I did not know where to cut corners and where not to, so stayed conservative in the processing. I would much rather make a high quality product than save a bit of time and have to settle for something less. The fact a friend and I had screwed the pooch on the first try made me more conservative.
Very carefully trim all skin, hair, meat, etc away from the fat. I was very careful to eliminate possible contamination.
Cut the fat into 1 inch chunks max. Even smaller is better. It cuts easier cold, even partially frozen. Rinse the fat with water to get any stray hairs and flesh washed off. Put it into a crock pot that has a LOW setting. Fill full, then add a cup or a bit more of clean water. The water is to keep the bottom of the pot wet until there is some liquid built up so the fat won't scorch and turn the grease brown. If you are married, and want to stay that way, put it on your porch or in your garage to keep the greasy odor out of the house. Set it on LOW and go to bed. It will be slowly boiling the next morning and all the water will have evaporated. I found 10-12 hours in my crock pot rendered the majority of the fat.
I set up an aluminum colander lined with coarse cheesecloth set above a 2-3 quart wire canning strainer lined with an old tee shirt. I put mine up in pint Mason jars with canning lids. I ran the jars through the dishwasher with a heated dry cycle to sanitize like I do when bottling home brew, and took them hot from the dishwasher. Put one under the strainer, set the colander on the strainer, and begin dipping out the melted oil. Leave a bit of headspace in the jar. Rinse and repeat. If you have help, have someone change the jar then apply the sanitized lid and ring immediately. I took the filled jars inside and heated them in the microwave until around 200 F and then canned them.
When the crock pot is about empty, gather the cheesecloth and wring it into the colander, then wring the tee shirt into a jar. Any extra liquid , including what fell in the drip pan, goes back in the crock pot. Cull any solids that are discolored (missed hair and meat mostly) and put all the semi-solid fat from the colander back in the crock pot. Work it over with a potato masher until it is like porridge , add more fat chunks and start tomorrows run heating. I originally tossed the unrendered fat away after one night in the crock pot. I realized there was still a lot of good stuff in there and now recycle it back in the pot to render some more the second day as needed. Less to recycle if you cut it in smaller pieces t start with.
Each jar I made sealed just like I was canning beans from the garden. I refrigerated it after opening. I am sure there are other ways to do this or variations that are easier and quicker. Still, this is not labor intensive and was highly successful, so I doubt I will change a thing this fall. First batch, first day, and just got into the canning jars.
