Anyone made schmaltz (rendered chicken fat)

[Hopeful homesteader]

She has a lot of good videos, some are a bit long, but she can be detailed. Her website usually has all the recipes printed with notes if you don't want to watch forever LOL
I have never rendered the fat to keep it like this but will tuck all this away for next time I process birds. Sounds great!

Oh, if you don't make bread, watch or get a few of her basic recipes for dutch oven no knead or search the google machine for recipes. Easy peasy and nice crusty homemade bread to go with that Chicken Soup. Delicious!
I'm not a fancy cook, most everything I make is just pretty much made up or I read a recipe and just mash my own together, been doing that for a long long time, but for bread, you need a recipe

I just started making my own sourdough the end of last year. My favorite is just dipping the bread in broth and eating it like that. I'm not a fancy cook either, I'll try sometimes just for fun but some the ugliest meals are the best tasting. I'll follow the recipe the first time and then just change up whatever I want to make it better.

 

[Hopeful homesteader]

That's the way I separate the fat.

I'll go through a detailed explanation of how I make broth. There are lots of different ways, this is just my method.

First I hatch chicken eggs and raise those chicks to butcher age. When I butcher them I part the chicken. One container gets the parts I'll cook, the other gets the parts that are strictly for broth. The broth parts are neck, back, wings, gizzard, heart, and feet. I skin the feet after blanching them, this gets them clean enough for me to use.

I cook the parts that we eat and save the bones, putting them in the freezer. When I get enough bones, say a gallon bag, I put them in the crock pot covered with water and cook them overnight on low. Overnight is around 18 to 24 hours. I usually make three batches back to back to back and reuse the old bones each time, adding a bag of new bones each time. So I wind up with three different batches of liquid. I strain that liquid through a metal strainer to remove the bones and such and freeze the liquid. I discard all the bones after the third batch.

When I make broth I take one bag of parts for broth our of the freezer. and put that in the crock pot without thawing it. I add some herbs like basil and oregano, maybe some thyme or parsley. I add a rough cut onion, a couple of cloves of garlic, a chopped carrot and a chopped celery stalk. I don't measure any of this and often just use what I have on hand. I grow my own herbs, carrots, onions, and garlic but have to buy the celery. Each batch is different since I don't measure or always use the same herbs. I cover this with the liquid I froze when I cooked down the bones from the parts we ate if I have any and top it off with water. Otherwise I just use water. The I cook this in the crock pot on low overnight (18 to 24 hours). Each batch gives me 6 to 7 pints of broth.

I strain this through that metal strainer to remove the big chunks and reserve that. Then I defat the liquid, then strain it through cheesecloth to remove the small bits. I then pressure can the broth.

I take the reserved bits that I strained out and separate the meat out. You have to be careful as there are some small bones. This separated meat can be used for tacos, chicken salad, or soup. I often make a sandwich for my lunches as it is hard to use up all that meat. I vacuum seal that meat and freeze it until I use it.

Do I need to skin chicken feet or is that optional?

 

[Hopeful homesteader]

Do I need to skin chicken feet or is that optional?

I looked up how to clean the feet before cooking but I have 2 birds that had feathered feet, I've plucked the feathers but there is still small bits up under the scales. Will this come off after scalding them or will I need to figure out a different way to get them out?

 

[Hopeful homesteader]

Well after scalding most of the remaining feather bits came right out, some had broken deeper but scalding made the tissue soft enough that I was able to easily punch a hole with my finger nail and remove a small bit of tissue the feather base was attached to. This batch was just feet and necks but 2 hrs in the instant pot and the meat was falling off the bones. Here is the finished broth, just need to cool it, skim the fat, then portion it out for the freezer. I need baby food size jars for these small amounts of fat lol

 

[iwltfum]

Do I need to skin chicken feet or is that optional?

Yes, skin the feet for your health. The scales on the feet hold so much poop, dirt, mites, etc. That being said, if I'm making dog food, the feet go into the pot unpeeled.

 

[Hopeful homesteader]

Yes, skin the feet for your health. The scales on the feet hold so much poop, dirt, mites, etc. That being said, if I'm making dog food, the feet go into the pot unpeeled.

Yeah before I looked it up I was wondering how to clean them and my thoughts were you'd need a toothbrush to get in between all those scales lol after removing the skin there was some dirt and probably poop wedged in between where the skin was around the nails and I couldn't even see it until the skin was removed. They looked clean after a good washing but I'm glad it was mentioned otherwise I would have tossed them in the pot as is and not known any better.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Do I need to skin chicken feet or is that optional?

I've read some people on here say they don't but I do. When I make broth it's cooked for a very long time and then pressure canned at a high temperature. I'm not worried about any pathogens surviving all that. I don't think there is any real danger. To me it's not a matter of clean or not, there is a yuk! factor I can't get by.

The problem with skinning the feet is that if you overscald the skin becomes so tender that it tears if you try to peel it. Just like the skin can tear if you overscald when plucking. That can make peeling the feet real work. The way I scald 10 to 12 feet at a time is to bring water to a boil and drop the feet in. 15 seconds later I dump the water and feet in the sink and run cold water over the feet to stop them from cooking. The spurs and toenails twist out pretty easily and the skin pretty much stays intact as I peel the feet. It can still be some work but it's the easiest way I've come up with.

 

[Hopeful homesteader]

I've read some people on here say they don't but I do. When I make broth it's cooked for a very long time and then pressure canned at a high temperature. I'm not worried about any pathogens surviving all that. I don't think there is any real danger. To me it's not a matter of clean or not, there is a yuk! factor I can't get by.

The problem with skinning the feet is that if you overscald the skin becomes so tender that it tears if you try to peel it. Just like the skin can tear if you overscald when plucking. That can make peeling the feet real work. The way I scald 10 to 12 feet at a time is to bring water to a boil and drop the feet in. 15 seconds later I dump the water and feet in the sink and run cold water over the feet to stop them from cooking. The spurs and toenails twist out pretty easily and the skin pretty much stays intact as I peel the feet. It can still be some work but it's the easiest way I've come up with.

The directions I read said boiling water and drop them in for 30 seconds then drop them in cold water so I did that and I didn't have trouble with it being too tender. They hadn't grown spurs but the toenails didn't come off at all, I ended up clipping off the tips of the toes with kitchen shears cause I couldn't tell how far up into the toe each nail goes. I was not thrilled with the smell after scalding them, idk what it was but it was just on the skin and the meat underneath just smelled like chicken so that was weird lol

 

[Ridgerunner]

Glad yours worked out for skinning. Take some pliers and twist the toenails out. They should come out pretty easily.

 

[Wyorp Rock]

I need baby food size jars for these small amounts of fat lol

Mason jars would be better to use in the freezer. Especially a wider mouth jar, less risk of breaking.

If you need small jars, then look for quarter pint jars. I get them at my Walmart. These are the smallest but work well for giving away jams/jellies too or small batches of ghee.

Having a variety of jars is helpful. For freezer, use wide mouth.