How to Make Beef Tallow at Home: Step-by-Step (Slow Cooker, Oven, Stove)
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To make beef tallow, cut cold beef fat into 1-inch pieces, melt it slowly at 225 to 250 degrees Fahrenheit in a slow cooker or oven for 3 to 6 hours, strain the clear liquid fat through cheesecloth, and let it cool until solid. One pound of kidney fat (suet) makes about 1.5 cups. Refrigerate it.
That is the whole process, and it is easier than most guides make it sound. The part that takes judgment is the fat you start with and how hot you let it get, because those two things decide whether you end up with clean, mild tallow or a jar that smells like a roast. We know because Gabrielle rendered the first batch of our balm on our stove, and the first attempt went badly enough that we could not give it away. Below is the method that works, the choices that matter, and what to change if you want tallow for skin instead of the frying pan.
How do you make beef tallow at home?
You need about 3 pounds of beef fat, a slow cooker or heavy pot, a fine-mesh strainer, cheesecloth or a coffee filter, and clean glass jars. Active time is about 20 minutes. The rest is waiting.
- Chill the fat. Put it in the freezer for 30 to 60 minutes until it is firm. Cold fat cuts cleanly and does not smear.
- Trim and cut. Cut off any red meat, blood, or gristle, then cut the fat into pieces about 1 inch across. Smaller pieces render faster and more evenly. A meat grinder works too.
- Add a little water. About half a cup of water per 3 pounds of fat keeps the first pieces from scorching before enough fat has melted to cover the bottom. It evaporates during the render.
- Melt it low and slow. Set a slow cooker to low, or an oven to 250 degrees Fahrenheit, with the lid off or cracked. You want a gentle shimmer, not a boil. Stir every 30 to 45 minutes. Plan on 3 to 6 hours.
- Know when it is done. The liquid is clear and golden, and the leftover pieces (cracklings) are brown, shrunken, and sitting at the bottom.
- Strain while warm. Pour through a fine-mesh strainer lined with cheesecloth into a clean glass jar. Wait a few minutes after it comes off the heat so you are not pouring boiling fat into glass.
- Cool uncovered, then lid it. Let it come to room temperature with the lid off so condensation does not drip back in, then seal it and refrigerate.
Slow cooker, oven, or stove: which method is best?
All three work. They differ in how much attention they need and how easy it is to overheat the fat.
| Method | Temperature | Typical time | Attention needed | Scorch risk |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Slow cooker on low, lid off | Roughly 200 to 250 degrees Fahrenheit (varies by model) | 5 to 8 hours | Stir every hour or so | Low |
| Oven in a covered or open Dutch oven | 250 degrees Fahrenheit | 3 to 5 hours | Stir once or twice | Low to medium |
| Stovetop, lowest burner | Depends on the burner | 2 to 4 hours | Stir often | High |
If the tallow is going on your skin, use the slow cooker or the oven. A stove burner is the easiest place to overshoot the temperature, and heat is what gives tallow its beefy smell. That is exactly how we ruined ours.
Can I use any beef fat to make tallow?
You can render any beef fat, but the results are very different. Where the fat comes from changes the hardness, the smell, and how much you get.
| Type of fat | What you get | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| Suet (hard fat around the kidneys, also called leaf fat) | Firm, white to cream, mildest smell, highest yield | Skincare, balms, baking, frying |
| Back fat and general trimmings | Softer, more beef flavor, more cracklings to strain out | Frying and roasting |
| Brisket or steak trimmings with meat attached | Strongest smell, lowest yield, more impurities | Cooking only |
| Ground beef grease or cooked drippings | Already heated, mixed with browned bits | Not worth rendering again, and not for skin |
You can also render marrow bones, but the yield is low for the work involved, so we would not bother. If you are asking whether any fat will do for skincare, the answer is no. Ask your butcher for suet, and ask for grass-fed and grass-finished fat. Grass-fed alone can still mean the animal was finished on grain.
How much tallow does 1 pound of beef fat make?
Clean suet typically gives back 70 to 80 percent of its weight as tallow, which is about 1.5 cups of liquid fat per pound. Trimmings with more meat and connective tissue give less, closer to 50 to 70 percent. So 3 pounds of suet makes roughly 4 to 5 cups, enough to fill four or five 8-ounce jars.
Why does my tallow smell like beef?
Almost always it is one of three things: the fat got too hot, there was meat left on the fat, or the fat was not suet. Overheated tallow smells like a roast and the smell does not fade with time. Our own stove batch is the example. It was fine to look at and impossible to use on skin, and no amount of lavender fixed it.
To reduce the smell, trim harder, use suet, keep the heat at or below 250 degrees Fahrenheit, and strain through a finer filter. Some people also do a water wash, where cooled tallow is re-melted with water, cooled again, and the clean disc is lifted off the water and sediment. It costs nothing to try. Several home cooks report that salt in the water adds no benefit, so plain water is enough.
How do you store homemade tallow, and how long does it last?
Keep it in a clean glass jar with a tight lid. Most home guides put refrigerated tallow at anywhere from 3 months to a year, and frozen tallow at up to two years. The cleaner your strain and the less water that ended up in the jar, the longer it lasts. Rancid tallow smells like old crayons, paint, or stale oil. If you smell that, throw it out. Mold or any pink or green spotting means the same.
Is it worth it to make your own beef tallow?
For cooking, yes. It takes about 5 hours that are mostly unattended, the fat is cheap, and you end up with a frying fat that is stable at high heat (tallow's smoke point is around 400 degrees Fahrenheit). Expect your house to smell like beef while it renders.
For skincare, it depends on what you want. If you enjoy the process and use the tallow within a couple of months, a small kitchen batch is fine. Be clear-eyed about the tradeoffs, though. A homemade batch has no stability testing, no batch records, and no protection if a bit of water or food residue ended up in the jar. Those are fair criticisms from dermatologists, and they are the reason we stopped making ours in a kitchen. If you would rather skip the rendering, we compared real jars in Best beef tallow for skin.
How do you make beef tallow for skin?
Start with grass-fed, grass-finished suet, render it at 250 degrees Fahrenheit or below, and strain it twice, once through a mesh strainer and once through a coffee filter or fine cloth. Let it cool fully, then whip it with a hand mixer for several minutes until it turns pale and fluffy. Adding an oil helps. Our balm is roughly 4 parts tallow to 1 part organic jojoba oil before the other ingredients, and jojoba is what keeps whipped tallow from feeling waxy.
Keep home batches small and use them up. Use a pea-sized amount at a time. If you are not sure tallow suits your skin, read Beef tallow for skin: benefits, risks, and what we learned making it first, and Does tallow clog pores? if your skin runs oily.
Is tallow the same as lard?
No. Tallow is rendered beef (or sheep) fat. Lard is rendered pig fat. Tallow is firmer and has a higher melting point, which is why it holds up better in frying and whips into a more stable balm. Crisco is neither. It is a vegetable shortening.
How unhealthy is beef tallow?
Beef tallow is about half saturated fat by weight, with most of the rest being monounsaturated fat. Health guidelines such as those from the American Heart Association recommend limiting saturated fat in the diet, so tallow is something to use in moderation if you cook with it. Topically, saturated fat is not the concern. The usual issues are pore-clogging on oily skin, rancidity, and scent.
Where do you get beef fat for tallow?
The butcher counter at a grocery store is the easiest place. Ask for suet or kidney fat by name, and ask whether it is grass-finished. Local ranchers and farmers market beef sellers often sell it for very little. Buy it frozen if you can, since it is easier to cut and less likely to have spoiled in transit.
What we learned from making it
Heat is the whole game. The batch we could not give away was a stove batch that got too hot. When we moved to a manufacturer, the first thing we asked about was temperature control. Their process melts the tallow at 120 degrees Fahrenheit at most and adds the oils below 100 degrees.
Whipping takes two rounds. A soft-peak texture needs the batch whipped, rested overnight, and whipped again. Skip the second round and you get something closer to a dense cream.
Climate changes the texture. The same batch is noticeably softer in a North Shore summer than at Jon's family's place in Colorado. If your homemade tallow is hard, it is probably just cold.
What if you would rather not render it yourself?
That is what we figured out about ourselves. Our Whipped Tallow Sun Balm is 64.7 percent grass-fed, grass-finished US beef tallow, 17.2 percent organic jojoba oil, 16.3 percent non-nano zinc oxide, and small amounts of organic vitamin E, rosehip oil, and lavender oil. It is a daily balm for face and neck with mineral sun protection built in, and it comes ready to use in an amber glass jar. If you are weighing it against plain tallow or a regular lotion, Tallow vs regular moisturizer lays out the differences, and our FAQ covers what we get asked most. It is the two of us, and we read every email.