Beef tallow prices page

[alexkharden]

Is $18 for seven pounds of tallow a good price? I don't know if it's grass fed or not?

[Marll]

Seems a bit high to me. A local butcher gave me 56lbs of suet for free just by calling and asking them. I trim the suet and turn it into tallow by rendering it myself. It makes a GREAT cooking oil, far superior to just about anything else I've used, and certainly MUCH cheaper than coconut oil.

[alexkharden]

Awesome. Thank you. I'll have to call here locally and see what I can find!

[alexkharden]

Ok, apparently there is only ONE butcher here locally. Sigh. Anyway, they said they don't give away anything. Go consumer America! They do sell both suet and tallow for $.79 a pound, though. I asked if grass or grain fed, and the lady told me they're grass fed their whole life, up until they go into the "chute", and then they're fed grain during that process. I'm guessing that's the last step before slaughter. I'm not sure how long that process lasts, but I can't imagine it lasting so long that the grain would even have the time to digest and turn into fat, unless I'm mistaken. So it seems like I have found a local source of grass-fed tallow for $.79 a pound.

Is that a good price?

[noodletoy]

does this butcher sell lots of other grass-fed beef parts?

yes, that's a good price.

[PeaceCorpsCaveMan]

My understanding is that it is what a cow is fed in the last stage of life which determines the o3/6 ratio in its fat. Correct me if I'm wrong. I too have gotten suet for free just by asking my butcher and being a loyal customer. However, it's pretty messy and time-consuming to cut out all the vessels and blood and chop it into little pieces and render it, but it's worth it if it's the only way to get that sweet sweet white gold because you can render a ton of it at once that never goes bad.

[alexkharden]

From my understanding all of the beef is the same source as the tallow, so 95% ish grass fed. I'm so glad that's a good price:-) As mentioned previously, I'm not at the upper end of the financial food chain, so even if I can't afford the 4 and 5 dollar a pound prices of beef, I can start doing my cooking with tallow and still reap the benefits:-)

That raises another question, is tallow that was rendered by the butcher better, worse, or the same as tallow rendered at home from suet? If the price per pound is the same for both, it seems like it'd be better to get the tallow. Less work and more tallow (since ten pounds of suet won't render out ten pounds of tallow).

[Marll]

Not sure what method the butcher uses for making tallow, but if they are the same price, I'd just go with tallow unless you want to learn to render yourself.

Really it's not hard. The method I've found that works great is to cube the suet, put it in a cast iron dutch oven and cook over medium heat until you've got cracklins floating on the surface. I skim those off and run the tallow through a paper towel to catch any residual chunky/sediment and keep it in a bucket with a lid or mason jars. The tallow should keep at room tempurature basically forever if it doesn't have any flesh to contaminate it.

[bob loblaw]

Ok, apparently there is only ONE butcher here locally. Sigh. Anyway, they said they don't give away anything. Go consumer America! They do sell both suet and tallow for $.79 a pound, though. I asked if grass or grain fed, and the lady told me they're grass fed their whole life, up until they go into the "chute", and then they're fed grain during that process. I'm guessing that's the last step before slaughter. I'm not sure how long that process lasts, but I can't imagine it lasting so long that the grain would even have the time to digest and turn into fat, unless I'm mistaken. So it seems like I have found a local source of grass-fed tallow for $.79 a pound.

Is that a good price?

It's likely this is CAFO beef fat, so beware. It's probably got tons of toxins in the fat and a bad Omega ratio. Remember, ALL cows are grass fed up until they are "beefed" up at the end of their life. The longer they are grain fed, the worse they get. If it's not grass fed their whole life, it's very likely they were grain fed a LOT before they were slaughtered. (If you are not selling grass fed, it makes no sense to NOT fatten up your cow on grain.)

US Wellness sells grass fed tallow for about 8 bucks for 2 pounds. Pretty expensive, but I find it lasts a LONG time.