My wife don't understand me

[Mad L]

My wife don't understand some of the things I do. She don't understand why I haul boiling buckets of water into the bathroom to mix up black walnut dye, she don't understand why I cut the wings off our turkey and boil out the wing bones, she don't understand why I melt bee's wax and brewer's pitch on the stove...and before I met her she probably would not have understood why I kept dead rats and mice in the freezer either (but that's a different story).

Well, I just got my first bottle of Bear Oil and she don't understand why I want to put it in the refrigerator....
So my question is: Do I need to keep Bear Oil in the refrigerator so it will last?

Normally I use TOW's Mink Lube and love it, last year I got hold of some Shenandoah Valley lube & cleaner and love it even more except I can't pre-lube with it as it dries out so quick (but sure makes cleaning much easier when I get home). And yes, I Spit Lube too, my concern here is making Bear Oil last until I can use it all.

This Bear Oil don't seem to dry out like Shenandoah Valley but while not a 'cleaner' I want to give it a good try, maybe get some more next year if I like it.
BUT our weather here has just turned HOT and I don't get out to shoot as much on 95 to 100+ degree days as I do in the Fall, Winter, and Spring.

So, to make sure my little bottle of Bear Oil last me through the Summer, do I need to keep it refrigerated?

I once heard that 'rancid bear grease' makes an excellent mosquito repellent, "it may smell bad to us but it smells worse to the mosquitos".

Oh, and let me add that 'out back in the shed' is not an option; some of us are not graced with house and a garage and a back yard on a ten acre spread, some of us live in them modular dwellings stacked on top of our neighbors.

 

[Phil Coffins]

Being a natural product that can spoil I’d refrigerate a small bottle and freeze the bulk of it.

 

[Mad L]

I hadn't thought about freezing it and it does seem 'a little goes a long way' just like the Shenandoah lube
Any idea about how log it will keep, roughly speaking?
Also, does it expand when frozen? It's in a glass jar...

 

[Bob McBride]

Women aren’t meant to understand us. We are as different as typewriters and Wildebeests. If you understand your wife, one of you are some kind of off script. It seems to me.

 

[Mad L]

Well, I have NO IDEA what is in all them bottles and jars in the bathroom and hall closet...and I don't dare ask!

I just want to keep this stuff until I get a chance to use it, and not get thrown out for 'an experiment gone wrong'.

I know TOW's mink Lube I can pre-lube weeks ahead and when I pull my tin out they are still good and fresh. I have some I lubed over a month ago and they barely harden....this Bear Oil however is pure so I don't know yet what to expect over time...

 

[Winchester97]

Just let it go rancid. Will keep skeeters and wives away.

 

[billraby]

Women aren’t meant to understand us. We are as different as typewriters and Wildebeests. If you understand your wife, one of you are some kind of off script. It seems to me.

She can't seem to understand why I would rather get the workshop set up instead of doing yard work.

 

[gunnyr]

Not many wives understand anything we do when it comes to muzzleloading.
gunny

 

[Mad L]

Well that is why I posted here, to find out out from those who have handled Bear Oil with experiance. If i thought my wife knew then i would have just asked her, and she would not have just asked me "WHAT Experiment have you got in the refrigerator now?!?".

Also, the person I got it from did not mention "refrigeration" but did say it was "Not food quality". However I just read from another who just got a "New batch of black bear oil just in" and they Do say to keep it refrigerated....

 

[Mad L]

Okay, so here is where I am at now:
I have never handled home rendered animal fat before; I do remember me father always saving the Bacon Grease in a jar on top of the stove. It would turn white and thick, he would scoop some out when needed on the griddle or cast iron pan and when he made more bacon he added the grease to his jar. It was like a Never Ending Jar. I never knew him to toss it out because 'it went bad or rancid'. I never knew anyone to toss out Crisco Oil because it 'went bad'.

Now I have one small jar of Bear Oil on the refrigerator and the rest in the freezer. Both have already turned a thick white color (they were clear when I put them in).
I assume I put the small jar out the night before using? Or maybe soak in a bowl of warm water to turn back into a 'fluid' again?

 

[excess650]

Your bear oil should be free of salt which is NOT true of the bacon grease you mentioned. A bottle in the refrigerator should be of no concern. Its not an experiment, its already processed and refrigerating just increases its longevity like everything else in there....I would expect your bear oil to act much like the mink tallow that you've already used, so no issues with hardening or evaporating.

Vegetable oils will go bad in time, some more quickly than others. Too, they may not remain liquid in the cold. I was using some "expired" palm oil as patch lube and it was great provided the temperature was above 50F. In freezing temperatures it was not useable.

 

[hrt4me]

seems as if it would be simpler to just Eject and find a new wife or be happily single to do whatever one pleases... life is much too short to not do whatever you want, to be tied to a proverbial 'ball-and-chain', to have to suffer doing things you do not want to do, etc. We all make our choices, however, and choices naturally have consequences

 

[jefair1]

I would allow an inch on top to allow for expansion when you freeze it.

 

[OhioHawkeye]

Being a natural product that can spoil I’d refrigerate a small bottle and freeze the bulk of it.

Totally agree. But I've had a bottle of bear oil for 20 years sitting on top of the safe. It is still sealed with beeswax around the cork, the friend who rendered it passed away about 5 years ago. So I may never open it. But it still looks good. If I do open it, I'll do this.

BTW, you can always find my olive oil in the fridgewith a very small glass bottle near the stove.

.... If you understand your wife, one of you are some kind of off script. It seems to me.

I guess this woman is off script. But, I've been told that before.

(Cuvil Engineer by education w sub in Architecture, Retired Firefighter and Paramedic, so yea, I'm not normal to the 1950's leave it to beaver standards)

 

[Britsmoothy]

Well I aint telling mine she is a wildebeest!

How about experimenting with melting some beeswax into it. It may stabilise the bear oil.
Put it in a pellet tin and wipe your patches in it.

 

[tenngun]

Old joke had Adam asking God why Eve was so sweet, God said so you would love her
‘Why so beautiful? So you would want her. ‘Why so stupid?’ So she would love you!
Al Bundy said ‘don’t try to understand women. Women understand women and hate each other’
Sherri Wannamacher wrote women in buckskinning in the first book of buckskinning and it will make you chuckle
I’ve never had any bear oil, but have lard and mink oil I’m sure is rancid but still works fine. I might not want to cook in the lard but it greases patched wads and lock surfaces and insides of clean bores real well.
Freezing seems like a good idea.

 

[Griz44Mag]

My wife don't understand some of the things I do.

You have now joined the ranks of the exclusive and secretive "My wife just doesn't understand me club"
You member number is 126,465,277.

 

[McClura]

I have rendered Bear oil from fat of a nice black bear and most of it is in the refrigerator since 1992 and I have one of those old small baby food jars on my work bench that has been there since 1992, when I rendered the bear fat. I use it for finish on my Osage Selfbows and sometimes on some arrows just for fun.
I have used it some for shooting but I would rather shoot with patches saturated with the Moose Milk cleaner/shooting patch recipe. When I make up some round balls in a loading block for hunting I use mink oil or Frontier Patch lube so the patches will not dry out.
I have some more just given to me last fall from a 300# Black Bear taken in SE Oklahoma that was rendered and it's in the freezer for finish on my bows when I need it.
Mike

 

[troy2000]

Not many wives understand anything we do when it comes to muzzleloading.
gunny

Or anything else. I don't remember what the wife was getting on me about a few years ago, but eventually she worked her way down to, "well, if you had the kind of hobbies normal people have..."

I gave up even trying to answer her right there. Because if guns, Jeeps, woodworking, boating and outdoor cooking aren't 'normal' for a guy, then I have no idea what is....

















'

 

[FishDFly]

Why don't you involve her in your sport and then she might?