Why We Render Our Tallow Three Times

"Rendered tallow" sounds a little vague if nobody explains what that actually means.

So here it is.

Raw suet is the firm fat from around the kidneys and loins of a cow. Before it can become the smooth tallow in a Bare jar, it has to be rendered.

Rendering is the process of gently heating the suet until the fat melts away from the bits of connective tissue and solids that are naturally part of raw suet. Once the fat is liquid, it can be strained. When it cools, you are left with tallow.

Think clarified butter, but with beef suet.

At Bare, we do that three times.

We melt it. We strain it. We let it cool. Then we do it again. And again.

Why three?

Because the first render gets the process going. The next two let us refine the tallow further, giving us repeated chances to separate out any remaining solids and create the clean, smooth tallow we want to use in our products.

It is not the fast way to do it.

It is the way we prefer to do it.

We also dry-render our tallow, which means we do not add water to the process.

There are different ways to render fat. Wet rendering uses water or steam. Dry rendering does not. With a wet-rendering method, you are adding water to the process and then separating the fat back out from it later.

We choose to work directly with the suet itself.

No added water. No unnecessary extras. Just heat, patience, straining, cooling, and repeating the process until the tallow meets our standard.

That matters because tallow is not a side note at Bare. It is the foundation of nearly everything we make.

You can have a beautiful label, a great scent, and a really good idea. But if you do not care about the ingredient at the center of the product, you are kind of just decorating a jar.

We care about the beginning.

Our suet comes from Brenneman Farms in Jay County, Indiana. From there, we handle it in small batches and take the time to render it three separate times before it becomes part of a Bare product.

It is a little old-school. It is definitely more hands-on. And nobody is making a documentary about me standing over rendered suet for the third time.

But this is the part that makes the rest possible.

The smooth texture. The rich feel. The simple ingredient list. The jar you reach for without needing a whole speech about why it works.

It all starts here.

Good suet. Dry-rendered three times. No added water.

Nothing fancy.

Just done carefully.

Jaimie Rae, Founder
Bare Tallow Co.