Making Hand Dipped Tallow Candles

Making Tallow Candles

Eynon and I made tallow candles today. Without going into great detail on the history of candles, suffice it to say that tallow candles were in common use as a source of light in 14th century England. Tallow is made from rendering suet, which is animal fat. You can get suet very cheaply at your grocer.

Talk to the butcher if you do not see any. Generally, they throw this stuff out, but if they know you want it they will put it out every week until you stop buying it. It is used for soap making too, so they are accustomed to seeing the occasional customer looking for it. The chunks of suet can be frozen and keep for a very long time. When you have enough, you can render it. In a large stock pot, heat the suet until it starts to melt. There is an odor to rendering suet. It didn’t bother me or Eynon, but my daughter didn’t like it at all.

As the suet begins to melt, you will find stubborn bits of gristle that just wont budge. Inside those masses of gristle are precious pockets of tallow. To get at them you will have to break up those masses. I use a pampered chef potato masher, which we affectionately call the “kitchen mace”. It works wonders. Break up all of the large chunks into smaller bits and continue to cook. You do not need high heat, a low simmer will get the job done. When most of the suet is rendered, you will be left with a soup of   bits of gristle and meat in your tallow. Strain those bits out with a straining spoon. The smaller bits can be removed by pouring the tallow through a sieve. When all of the bits are removed, you have tallow. The better you strain, the clearer it will be. It may look yellow to golden brown in liquid form, but when it cools it will harden into an off white wax. If you are ready to dip candles, then you can go ahead to the next step, if not, pour the tallow into plastic Tupperware bowls to freeze until you are. Let it cool to 100-120 degrees before doing that though, so you don’t melt your Tupperware and make a mess.
When you are ready to make candles, you need to gather a few things. You’ll need wicks. Yes, you can braid your own, but that is a lesson in itself. They can be had at Michaels, Pat Catan’s or other craft stores. I got 100 yards for 16 dollars. You will also need some clothes hangars and some small machinist nuts. I used 3/8 or 1/4. The nuts are tied to the bottom of the wick, the wick then is tied to the hangar. I tied four wicks to a hangar. You will need a surface that is covered with plastic to protect it from dripping wax, and a bar to hang the hangars from. The rest is about patience. You dip the wicks in the wax, let them drip into the pot, then hang them to cool. After 5 dips or so, the wax will be thick enough that you can cut the nuts off of the bottom of the candles. Just keep dipping until you have a candle as thick as you like. We found that a good temperature for the tallow was 110-120 degrees. Interestingly, the temperature of the room you hang the candles in has a large part in how smooth the candles will be and how fast the wax will build up. When we dipped candles on our covered porch at 50 degrees the candles were fast and smooth. This week, when the temperature rose to 60 inside the porch the candles took longer to dip and were a bit more rustic looking. If the temperature of the tallow drops too low, reheat it for a bit. If it is too cold, it will clump on the candle. These candles are best stored in a cool dry place, wrapped in linen or butcher paper. The will get soft in high heat. If you want a candle that will handle higher heat, consider adding a portion of paraffin or beeswax to the tallow.
After test burning the tallow candles I can only surmise that the stories I have heard of smelly candles with thick black smoke must have been made from some poorly rendered suet. These candles burned wonderfully, and while they did have a smell that was not like a wax candle it was far from offensive. There was no smoke that I could see at all. The only negative aspect of the candle at all was how quickly it burned. The candles are just about 3/4 inch diameter and burn three inches per hour, making for a 2-3 hour candle at best. Still, a lovely light for a vigil tent made just the way they would have in 1355!