The deer are getting a little too comfy eating old apples, so it’s a good thing we planned on pressing cider on Sunday. We’ll have a bottle or three to freeze for sure:
In addition to our apples and those my Dad grew, we got some apples from a nearby orchard that had been closed a couple years. ( Beautiful place too, and was doing a great business until New York’s fucking laws and regs caused the owners to throw their hands in the air and move. I guess they’re selling it now. ) We got about 15 gallons or so of cider on Sunday: This was a family affair, including our sons’ girlfriends helping for the first time. I was laughing as I pulled in at my parents house and everyone was sitting in front of the barn. I got out of my truck humming “The Walton’s” theme song and asked if today was “Mary Ellen’s quilting party too. When we were done we divided it up and everyone got what they wanted. Ours is in the freezer for later this winter.
Can't believe I only started doing tallow rendering this summer. It's become a daily task now. People loooove tallow products for leave on skin care products. It makes great soap, too, but I get more buck for my bang making whipped tallow body butters and the like. The almost clear batch is beef tallow, and I probably have one more wash before I use it for products. The darker pan has bison tallow. It's just now starting to become deodorized but I probably have another 6 washes to go before I can use it. Bison tallow had a really interesting smell to it, somewhere between lamb and beef. I plan to make a face cream with the bison tallow along with aloe juice, rose hydrosol, and shea butter.
It’s also amazing for cooking. Makes for an especially tasty brisket when you soak it in tallow while wrapping it.
I’m lucky enough that my butcher sells it in 2lbs blocks for crazy cheap. So much easier than rendering your own.
Similar to tallow, I went on a whole quest to make leaf lard for my pie crust. I struck out at two grocery stores and three butchers before finally just reaching out directly to a pig farm.
A few times a year I do a short road trip to a few small rural butchers that have amazing goods. I’ll buy boxes of home made sausages, jars of super hot horseradish, honey, etc, all made by amazing @bewildered types that you just can’t find in local stores.
I rendered the lard myself, but I couldn't find anyone who even carried the fat I needed until I went directly to the source with whole pigs.
I'm in an ag area and a lot of people either raise their own meat or buy wholes and halves annually. I just have to keep asking around and talking to people and put my feelers out there. All sorts of suet is available and it's a waste product. People love helping me out and lessening their waste. No one wants to raise an animal for food and waste a huge part of it if they can help it. I get beef trimmings from a cafe regularly. I got the bison suet from a coworker whose family was slaughtering. I'm getting a batch of beef leaf fat from a friend whose dad was having his cow processed. The guys at the site I interact with daily have their ears open for me, since their families slaughter, and the one guy is actually a hunting guide. I'm really really hoping to get some sort of game suet like bear or elk, but many game animals are lean so we will see when that turns up for me.