Melting Suet (1 Viewer)

[Floatflyer]

I have been bringing suet from the US to Baja for several years now and have had great success. I was running low and asked a friend that was returning to Baja and volunteered to bring things down that I needed. A case of 1"x4.5"x4.5" suet, any flavor was asked for. She said she couldn't find any like I wanted!! My mistake was not ordering the suet online and having it delivered to her address, live and learn, grrrrrr.

Now I am being forced to make my own. I have bought some plastic bags of Manteca de Cerdo, which is a soft white material, I believe it is pork lard. I also prepped a smorgasboard of seeds, nuts, raising, peanuts, etc and put a couple of packages of the lard in a pot. It melted down quickly and cleanly, basically a clear liquid. I cooled it down to room temp and it was still very liquid. I was concerned it would harden without the dry ingredients being added so I added them!! Sunk to the bottom, sigh.

I then put the pot in the freezer and within 10 min it was starting to thicken up, I then stirred the dry ingredients which were on the bottom and they started to stay in "solution". Another 15 min and I restirred everything and nothing was liquid and all looked good. I then spooned my brew into used plastic suet containers, put some Saran Wrap over the top and put everything in the freezer.

This morning I put a cake in my wire suet holder and put it out. The cake was quite hard and within an hour it had softened enough so that about 1/2" of it was going thru the bottom of the holder!!!! I took it down and put it back in the freezer.

NOW what do I do to make these things hard enough to stay solid??? It is only getting to the low 70s here and the cakes are not in direct sunlight. Please help me, I am very disappointed and somewhat frustrated. Thanks, FF

 

[Floatflyer]

Well, I guess none of the 50 people that looked at my post has any suggestions? I took my 4 homemade cakes and remelted them twice more with trips to the freezer in between meltings. I was told this might help to harden the cakes up. I also added more corn meal and some flour, again, in an attempt to harden the cakes.

This am I put out a cake and within an hour the cake started to soften and ooze thru the wire holder. Put the cake back into the freezer and will now just take a pice of the suet and place it for immediate consumption till they are gone.

I guess I will try and render beef fat and strain as I have read on other receipes UNLESS I get some quick info on how to harden suet.

 

[Swifty49]

I refill coconut shells with a melted lard and seed mixture but, even in the UK, I only do it in winter as it becomes too soft in the summer.

Proper suet, is hard, white, beef fat and is the best thing for fat cakes/balls as it has a higher melting temperature than lard. I will have to ask my local butcher about how to melt/render it so I don't just end up burning it.

 

[Floatflyer]

Well Swifty, I am in agreement with your comments. I am now just trying to get rid of my 4 suet cakes, I put out one and it can get pecked on for about an hour before it starts to drip.

Yesterday I visited a market with a butcher shop and inquired about getting beef fat, hoping for fat from around the loin or kidney area. He looked around and said none at this time. Since I live an hour away, I will ask him or another market in advance for them to save me a few kilos and will have him grind it up and give that a try. Seems that some kind of a "dutch oven" arrangement is needed to melt down the fat. And so it goes, sigh.

 

[Kits]

I think any homemade suet cake will melt in the warm weather, sadly. While it is more satisfying to produce them yourself, you may have to rely on commercial cakes.

 

[Floatflyer]

I am afraid you are correct. The problem is that I am 1,000 miles from being able to buy commercially made suet cakes AND nobody is driving south this time of year, some(fools) are actually heading NORTH to freezing temps.

 

[Floatflyer]

Kits, I am afraid you are still correct. This is an update from my first attempt. I went to a butcher and got some fat trimmings and then asked him to further trim ALL the red meat from the fat. I got almost 2 kilos of fat and had him grind it. Looked absolutelylovely.

I then got out my fish taco burner, put my wok on it and put water in the wok. I then put the water holder from my smoker in the water, put the fat in the water holder and turned on the flame. The fat melted rather quickly but left lots of stuff that resembled ground beef. I drained off the liquid into a container thru cheesecloth.

I then set the liquid aside to cool and as it cooled it started to firm up. I had all of my special ingredients ready and mixed and when the suet was able to suspend the seeds and stuff, I spooned this into the suet and stirred completely. I then placed the suet/seed mixture into empty commercial suet cake containers. I then put the suet in the refrigerator after it had reached room temperature and an hour or so later the suet was nicely hardening, I was STOKED.

This morning I got up and checked and the suet cakes were as hard as the commercial ones I had previously bought, great day!!!! I put one into a wire holder and put it out in the usual location. I then worked on other things and an hour or two later my wife said the suet cake was dripping. I examined it and sure enough, it was getting too soft and dripping.

I am now at a total loss of what to do, IF ANYTHING CAN BE DONE???

Thanks, FF

This morning the suet

 

[DownyWP]

Can you get something like rolled oats, cornmeal or All Purpose Flour?

 

[Bird_Bill]

Wondering if some type of gelatin is used as a binder to give better heat resilence. Jell-o type products not whats in mind. Think stuff is used for canning, dont know how to search for it, or whether its "bird safe".

Sure its a pain FF, at least your doing well with the safe approach.
Just no info out there on it.

 

[Floatflyer]

It has been cooler lately, high 60s and mid 70s. I have been putting my latest suet cake out, after storing it in the freezer overnight, and it really isn't dripping much at all, but it is very soft. I am wondering if I increased the amount of cornmeal and flour in the next batch and see if that works any better. There is just a glimmer of hope and that is still because I have no other choice.

On a second thought, I am going to take one of the packages of Manteca de Cerdo, my first effort suet, and just open the package and add some seed and stuff and then put it into some kind of container and see what happens. Since the package it's self isn't refrigerated and it stays in a soft but stable state, maybe that will work. And so it goes, sigh.