I actually did this last night, but didn’t do the pictures until this morning because I was too tired.

I forgot to take pictures until I had to stop and clean collagen (etc.) out of the grinder. Messy, greasy, but kind of fun, in a way.

I dumped the ground up result into a pot and melted the fat. Smelled like cooking cheap hamburger, so not too bad.

I got roughly 3 cups of tallow from a pretty good-sized tray of suet, which the butcher gave me at a $6 discount. He didn’t say exactly why, but I’d imagine it was because he doesn’t get a whole lot of people asking to buy something they probably just throw away. Anyway, a recipe for 4 blocks of suet cake calls for half a cup of suet (in my case, tallow because it keeps longer), so I’ll get somewhere around 24 cakes out of this.

The leftovers. bits of meat and connective tissue. I’m just going to put it in the woods; I’m sure the trash pandas will eat it, and if they don’t, I’m absolutely sure something else will!

All in all, it was kind of fun, and given the yield, I may or may not bother to go to the actual meat market and get suet already ground. I think I’ll always render it, though; I don’t want any birds getting sick. I also thought I might make some in a muffin tin with cupcake papers. Then, I could sneak them into the tray feeders (maybe? Might be too messy…dunno) so that the non-cling-capable birds would be able to get some suet. Cardinals like to hang out under the woodpeckers’ feeders and pick up bits that have dropped, and I’m sure they’d appreciate easier access, especially when it’s cold!