Beef Tallow

[Briar Lee]

News today:

Steak n Shake announced that it is moving forward with the use of 100% all-natural beef tallow in all its restaurants. Steak n Shake has long been famous for its shoestring fries – and it will now fry them in the best way possible.

When fries were created centuries ago, they were made with tallow. “Our fries will now be cooked in an authentic way, 100% beef tallow, in order to achieve the highest quality and best taste,” said Chris Ward, chief supply chain officer for Steak n Shake.

Chief global development officer for Steak n Shake, Kristen Briede, stated: “The consumer wants the best and deserves the best. By adopting 100% beef tallow, Steak n Shake is delivering the best fries possible.”

By the end of February 2025, all locations will use 100% all-natural beef tallow.

Xxxxx

The old timers would store beef in large crocks with a layer of beef tallow on top, before refrigeration. They’d keep it in root cellars and the beef would last until the hottest weather.



My mother saved every drop of bacon grease and always threw the beef tallow to the dogs and chickens.

Aside from health concerns, will shoestring fries made in beef tallow taste good?

I’ll have to visit Steak and Shake to find out.

Does anyone use beef tallow to fry?

 

[OzPiper]

British chef, Rick Stein stands by beef tallow, or dripping as it’s called in Oz, for the crispiest potato chips

My grandmother always rendered excess pork fat to use in cooking.
A favourite childhood rice dish was a tablespoon of freshly rendered lard, an egg, soy sauce and lots of white pepper all mixed up with a large scoop of steaming hot rice.
A scant teaspoon of Marmite or Bovril if you’re feeling flash

 

[bullet08]

Good stuff. Now, bacon grease, there's a gold. After making bacon, I used to filter it through coffee filter and save them in a jar. When cooking, a good tablespoon will add a depth of flavor. Amazing addition when making weinkraut.

 

[VDL_Piper]

Staple in my home and has been for a long as I can remember, sits in an earthenware container in the pantry.

 

[Richmond B. Funkenhouser]

This is a good sign.

Fast food has gotten pretty plain.

In the south we used to fry every meal... Nowadays feminism has messed it all up.

 

[Briar Lee]

Good stuff. Now, bacon grease, there's a gold. After making bacon, I used to filter it through coffee filter and save them in a jar. When cooking, a good tablespoon will add a depth of flavor. Amazing addition when making weinkraut.

My father usually kept about a dozen sows, and we’d fatten some to have slaughtered, but common wisdom was a dairy cow was not fit for anything but dog food, and then only for other people’s dogs.

A dairy cow has to be bred and pulled out of production every so often.

And out neighbor had a beef type bull that bred one of my Daddy’s very few Jerseys, and the calf was worthless as a dairy replacement, and as a beef cow, as well.

So my father fed it out, and we butchered it.

It was terrible. Being Scottish my parents didn’t want to waste anything, so we had it tested at the county office, and they said it was safe, just had an off flavor.

My grandmother recalled canning beef, and so her and my mother tried canning a bunch of it, and it wasn’t much improved.

Finally we tried it as dog food, and if you mixed a lot of dry dog food, our dogs would eat it, but they were grateful when it was all gone.

There has to a producer of edible beef tallow on an industrial scale or else Steak and Shake could not pull this off.

But the cows used, are NOT “cutters and canners”.

 

[huntertrw]

McDonald's originally prepared their fries in beef tallow, but moved to a beef-flavored vegetable blend in response to the shrieks of the health police. They haven't been as good since.

As for Steak & Shake, beef tallow notwithstanding, in my opinion Sardar Biglari (founder and CEO of Biglari Holdings which currently owns them) has destroyed what used to be a great restaurant.

 

[troutface]

I vote for duck fat, but I'm guessing I'm in the minority.

 

[ssjones]

McDonald's originally prepared their fries in beef tallow, but moved to a beef-flavored vegetable blend in response to the shrieks of the health police. They haven't been as good since.

As for Steak & Shake, beef tallow notwithstanding, in my opinion Sardar Biglari (founder and CEO of Biglari Holdings which currently owns them) has destroyed what used to be a great restaurant.

right, Steak & Shake is all but out of business. We replaced a couple of their units on the PA Turnpike.
I hope S&S checked with their operators before making this change, see below. Based on past missteps, my bet is no, they didn't.

We used beef tallow for over 40 year, but the price in 2023 forced us to move to Soy. We always said that our french fries tasted slightly sweeter with tallow, but to be honest, I could barely tell the change (none of our guests at 40 units noticed). With our fried chicken and chicken tenders (fresh chicken), I could discern no difference.

The price between soy and tallow narrowed in 2024 but there is a bigger problem with tallow - what to do with the waste grease? The rendering industry is in disarray. Back in the 1980's, we used to get paid by rendering companies to pick up our waste grease (each restaurant generates 2-3 50 gallon drums per week)

On the East coast, Valley Proteins was the big rendering company. They had trucks that heated our barrels so they could be emptied. In 2022, they were sold to Darling Ingredients, the self-proclaimed largest provider of this service. They got rid of all the heater equipped trucks.

News flash - tallow gets hard, even in moderate temps (it came in a solid 50 lb block and leaves the world in the same format)

My restaurants immediately started complaining that Darling was not emptying our barrels. I observed a rendering truck with a big hose, trying to vacuum out the solid grease. Yep, that didn't work too well. Not getting your waste grease picked up is like not getting your trash picked up, a serious problem. This one coupled with a general lack of drivers has created a huge issue for us. Soy waste stays liquid longer so that helped significantly. But, this week, with temps in the teens, those barrels with Soy are hard as a rock. This just reminded me of one more restaurant headache I no longer have.

If you start seeing plastic pails all over your Steak & Shake, and then the rats that seek them out, enjoy your tasty fries. Once rats are around your dumpster, guess where else they are? Good luck Steak & Shake (our restaurant here has been shuttered).

Note to corporate offices - check with your operators before making decisions that effect the way you do business)

 

[ssjones]

Funny tallow story from 1980 or so. I always check dumpsters on restaurant visits, to ensure they are clean, dumpster doors closed and lids on the grease barrels. (sanitary issue, pest issue and a health dept violation)

On one summer morning in1980, as a young assistant manager (19!) I went out one morning to check the dumpster. I found the grease barrel lid off, from the night shift, again. I went to put the lid back on and noticed the slightest movement from the barrel. Looking closer, I could see a nose and two ears just breaking the surface. It was a cat, who had fallen in and was slowly drowning. I ran into get something to lift it out. I started lifting the grease ladden kitten and it leaped away, showering me with grease. I no back up clothes so I spent the day smelling pretty bad. The crew all laughed and the incoming night crew caught hell and had to scrub the dumpster pad.

 

[Bbailey324]

I vote for duck fat, but I'm guessing I'm in the minority.

I am with you on this one. A potato fried or roasted in duck (or goose) fat is about as fine as it gets.

 

[pantsBoots]

What're the odds it is going to be hydrogenated tallow?

 

[The Libertine]

I use lard for frying. My mother used to make candles out of beef tallow.

 

[Briar Lee]

Funny tallow story from 1980 or so. I always check dumpsters on restaurant visits, to ensure they are clean, dumpster doors closed and lids on the grease barrels. (sanitary issue, pest issue and a health dept violation)

On one summer morning in1980, as a young assistant manager (19!) I went out one morning to check the dumpster. I found the grease barrel lid off, from the night shift, again. I went to put the lid back on and noticed the slightest movement from the barrel. Looking closer, I could see a nose and two ears just breaking the surface. It was a cat, who had fallen in and was slowly drowning. I ran into get something to lift it out. I started lifting the grease ladden kitten and it leaped away, showering me with grease. I no back up clothes so I spent the day smelling pretty bad. The crew all laughed and the incoming night crew caught hell and had to scrub the dumpster pad.

It just had never dawned on hillbilly me, that restaurants used beef in their oil instead of pork.

When McDonald’s made the change from “animal fats” to “vegetable oils” I just assumed they were switching from expensive lard to cheaper Crisco.

The old tubs of RB Rice lard had a large hog on them, I was told because the customer would know it was all rendered pork fat.

All those cattle had to have their fat go someplace, and I had no idea it was for restararaunts.

Unless the rendering plant was careful, tallow would smell like death itself.

 

[Briar Lee]

The second ingredient in good, greasy fries is the potatoes.

Being Scottish we planted potatoes on the Ides of March (March 15) while the Irish planted them on St Patrick’s Day (March 17).

The potato planting was enough like gardening and not work, our fathers allowed our mothers and us kids to participate. Our mothers never got dirty planting potatoes though. They sort of supervised their men who dropped the sliced potatoes into hills.

Otherwise his ancestors could not be deep enough buried they should rise up early and get him, should he work his pretty wife and little children like slaves in the fields, serious.

Our fathers dug and harvested all the potatoes. That was farm work, plain and simple.

The best potatoes were “new potatoes” but when mature our fathers would put them in bins in the barn and cover them with lime.

Our mothers never made French fries, although good, greasy, soft fried potatoes (in lard) were a staple.

Now I know why. French fries must have always been fried in the tallow our mothers threw out to the dogs and chickens.

 

[FurCoat]

I never fell for the lard and tallow bad bs from lobbies, doctors, and politicians. I buy lard by the 5 pound block and save my bacon drippins. Other than that I keep a large amount of olive oil on hand.
I better stock up. As people realize they've been lied to all these years, imagine that, doctors and politicians lying to you, there is going to be a run on lard and tallow.

 

[dottlejockey]

I never fell for the lard and tallow bad bs from lobbies, doctors, and politicians. I buy lard by the 5 pound block and save my bacon drippins. Other than that I keep a large amount of olive oil on hand.
I better stock up. As people realize they've been lied to all these years, imagine that, doctors and politicians lying to you, there is going to be a run on lard and tallow.

Exactly. I save and use all tallow and bacon grease as well. In addition to being a family tradition, the carnivore diet i've been on since March last year makes it a must. Trading sugar/carb calories for quality animal fat has made a huge difference. So long as there's not a high sugar content in the diet, all the bs about animal fat is just that.

 

[RL Bucktails]

Good stuff. Now, bacon grease, there's a gold. After making bacon, I used to filter it through coffee filter and save them in a jar. When cooking, a good tablespoon will add a depth of flavor. Amazing addition when making weinkraut.

I made some bacon fat infused bourbon a while back. It was good.

 

[FurCoat]

Exactly. I save and use all tallow and bacon grease as well. In addition to being a family tradition, the carnivore diet i've been on since March last year makes it a must. Trading sugar/carb calories for quality animal fat has made a huge difference. So long as there's not a high sugar content in the diet, all the bs about animal fat is just that.

Reducing sugar intake is key. I just have the one vice with sweet tea.
I also like my bread but I've started making that myself.

 

[huntertrw]

I am with you on this one. A potato fried or roasted in duck (or goose) fat is about as fine as it gets.

So, you're saying that duck or goose fat really is all that it's quacked-up to be? Sorry, but I couldn't resist the pun...