Making Tallow Candles

Being a modern day soy candle maker I was curious as to how tallow candles had been made.

I searched the web and found some basic instructions. If you decide you are going to try to make your own candles I would recommend doing your own research first to completely understand the process and the possible risks that go with it- and I have heard that actual burning tallow candles are actually not always pleasant smelling.

The basic instructions are as follows:

Using beef suet cut the suet up into small chunks and place in a large pot filled with enough water to cover the suet. Add 1 tbsp. of salt per pound of suet. Boil this until only the fat remains- this has to be strained to remove any bits of meat that has come out of the suet. The strained liquid is the fat you use to make the actual candles with.

Dip the wick material- they used cotton twine- to thoroughly saturate the wick. After that the dipping process needs to be much faster and the tallow must be kept on low warm ot the fat will be too hot to stick to the wick material. After each dip into the tallow you must dip into a cold water bath to start hardening and forming the candle. This being said you must keep drying off the candle to prevent water from becoming trapped inside the candle as the water will cause the candle to sputter when burning. The result is an uneven shaped nubby candle being wider at the bottom.

I think I were actually ever to try candle dipping I would use beeswax like the more affluent colonists did to avoid the smell.

The article also stated that this is a very messy process that will likely get melted suet all over your kitchen so I would be armed with plenty of newspapers!