Tallow Candle

Thousands of years ago, our ancestors learned how to create fire, and it has been our companion ever since.  One of the early ways of lighting a space was to use a tallow candle.  Tallow is simply rendered fat.  After my success rendering lard, I decided to try rendering tallow (don't ask me why it's lard when it's from a pig and tallow from any other animal fat, because I have no idea).  I had a few pounds of 70/30 ground beef I cooked in a frying pan, rendering the tallow using the same steps as when I made the lard.  I'm not really sure how to use tallow in cooking, but I was curious about how well it burns as a candle substance.  I've read a little about candle making, and I decided to try my hand at making a tallow candle.  For clarification, if I call the fat tallow, I mean it's in its solid state, and if I call it grease, I mean while it is still liquid.  I'm not sure if that's all the proper terminology, but I figure it's the easiest way to make sure what I'm saying makes sense.  Here's how I did it:

The supplies:
Rendered fat (tallow)
Wick material
Wick holder
Container
Something to hold the wick straight while the tallow sets

The Process:
First, I had to decide what to use for my wick.  I don't have any candle wicks laying around, and I wanted to make this a free project.  Remember that under shirt RM gave me for the lard project?  Well it was the type Wal-Mart calls "A-Shirts" but I grew up hearing them called "wife-beaters" (I know, it's a terrible name).  Anyways, the necks and arms holes are essentially just serged, and I figured that would work great since they are 100% cotton.

After I cut that out, I had to figure out what to use to hold it up.  I have a bunch of tea candles that I bought at the dollar store ages ago, and I realized the little tin holders they come in would be perfect.  I pulled the candle part out and then used a nail to poke a small hole in the bottom of the tin.  I threaded the wick through the hole, and it worked great!  I have lots of little glass candle holders, so I can put the tea candle in one of those when I want to burn it, so it won't go to waste.  I decided to use one of those glass votive holders as my candle container.

Left to right: Tea candle as it came, disassembled tea candle parts, wick material, nail

Candle tin with hole punched

Candle tin with wick threaded

If you're using a wick material that hasn't been pre-soaked in wax or some other flammable material, go ahead and pull it back out because you're going to have to soak it in your grease.

When you've filtered your grease and while it's still liquid, soak the wick material in it for a few minutes.  Afterwards, re-thread it through your wick holder. Pour just a little grease in the bottom of whatever container you're going to use to hold your candle, then put the wick holder in the container and make sure it's resting on the bottom of the container.  To hold my wick straight while the grease cooled and set, I used a clothes pin laid across the top.  Here's a picture of it after I finished pouring the grease, but we're not to that part quite yet, so just set your wick straight for now.

Once you've got your wick straight, put the container in the freezer for a few minutes.  The purpose of this step is to let the grease set to tallow, so that when you pour the grease in the container, the wick holder will stay anchored to the bottom of the container rather than float up.  Your container of grease can stay cooling on the counter while the candle holder cools in the fridge, it won't set that quickly.

After 3-5 minutes, when the grease in your candle holder has set to tallow (it will have turned white), pull your container out of the freezer and slowly pour more grease until it's 1/8 to 1/4 inch less than what your final desired height will be.  Use a toothpick to eliminate any air bubbles, then return your candle holder container to the fridge or freezer, double checking that your wick is centered.  Let cool for 5-10 minutes, until grease has set to tallow.  Remove your clothes pin and trim your wick to about 3/4 inch, then slowly pour your last 1/8 to 1/4 inch of grease, pouring it onto the wick to give it one more coating.  Let set on counter or in fridge until hardened.  If needed, trim wick a little more.  Your final product should look something like this:

I didn't do a very good job getting the air bubbles out, which is why the bottom looks funky.

Place any unused grease/tallow in the fridge or freezer for future use.


The results:
I'm really impressed with how bright the little flame on this candle was!  I wish I could have gotten a good picture to show how much light this puts out, but there was too much glare when I turned the lights off.  I'm not sure for how many hours this will burn, but I'll post an update once I've tried it out.  If you're not planning on burning your candle in the next few days, store it in the freezer.  The tallow will harden enough in the freezing temperatures that you shouldn't have to worry about doing any damage to it if it gets bumped or knocked around.