# How long does grease stay?



## therunbunch (Oct 5, 2009)

Ok.. dumb question maybe but I don't know. I never really saved grease drippings before but I started putting it in a jar in case I needed it for cooking or something.

I just put it in a canning jar (didn't can it.. just storing it there with the lid on it) and it's sitting in the pantry.

Are there any rules I need to know about keeping old grease? How long is it good? I feel dumb for asking but I suppose that's the only way I'll get an answer


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## Aseries (Feb 24, 2011)

First of all dont feel dumb asking questions, its not a dumb question. But to answer what I know it should hold up at least a few months, I keep old bacon grease in the fridge, it keeps longer as fats go rancid at room temps faster, and keep longer in the fridge.

I think most people will suggest keeping it in the fridge. 

Dont feel dumb on here, there are alot of people on here willing to share an amazing amount of knowledge and I thank everyone of them for answering many other peoples questions. 

Have good one


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## PeachyLeigh (Sep 24, 2011)

The only dumb question is the one that goes unasked. :goodjob: 
I have wondered this myself, just never thought to ask here.


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## Navgatr (Aug 3, 2011)

We save our bacon grease and even beef tallow, too.
We put it in a jar in the fridge.
Never had any go bad, but we use it pretty regularly.
We also purchase pig fat and render lard.
We just keep the virgin lard in separate containers from the leftover.


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## Harry Chickpea (Dec 19, 2008)

Saturated fats keep for a long time. The key is that you want them as clean as possible or to have any "bits" so cooked that there is no moisture. Lard (pig fat) is almost 100% saturated and keeps longest - I've used clean lard bricks a year old. Cow fat (tallow) or mixed cow and pig fat (tow) is not quite as good at keeping, but you can taste to check for rancidity before using. Chicken fat (schmaltz) keeps fine refrigerated, but has a brief life at room temps.

Be aware that vegetable oils also have shelf lives. Peanut oil lasts a long time. Corn oil much shorter. I won't allow Canola oil (rape) in the house, and if you knew what I did, you wouldn't either. Olive oil varies, but is usually fairly long lasting.


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## scooter (Mar 31, 2008)

Harry Chickpea said:


> Saturated fats keep for a long time. The key is that you want them as clean as possible or to have any "bits" so cooked that there is no moisture. Lard (pig fat) is almost 100% saturated and keeps longest - I've used clean lard bricks a year old. Cow fat (tallow) or mixed cow and pig fat (tow) is not quite as good at keeping, but you can taste to check for rancidity before using. Chicken fat (schmaltz) keeps fine refrigerated, but has a brief life at room temps.
> 
> Be aware that vegetable oils also have shelf lives. Peanut oil lasts a long time. Corn oil much shorter. I won't allow Canola oil (rape) in the house, and if you knew what I did, you wouldn't either. Olive oil varies, but is usually fairly long lasting.


Please tell me about canola oil.


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## unregistered29228 (Jan 9, 2008)

Be sure to strain the grease drippings unless you'll be using it soon. We store bacon grease in the fridge for months, maybe up to a year, without any problems. But we strain out all the yummy bits first.


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## 7thswan (Nov 18, 2008)

I was also woundering about Oils, until recently I've never used anything other than butter,crisco,peanut oil. Used packaged Lard abit back for pie crust, I was very happy with it.


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## TheMartianChick (May 26, 2009)

scooter said:


> Please tell me about canola oil.


Me too!


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## Harry Chickpea (Dec 19, 2008)

Long story short on Canola oil. Summary:
Bioengineered from rapeseed oil, which is *toxic* to many people because of one component, erucic acid. That component made rapeseed a desired type of specific lubricant. That was supposedly removed in Canola, but I'd be willing to bet money the early varieties being sold only had reduced levels or had some mixed stock of seeds.

Pure unsaturated canola goes rancid faster than you can spit.

The Center for Whining in the Public Interest did a """study""" of movie theatre popcorn which totally BLASTED the use of coconut oil as a bad fat. Theatres bowed to pressure and changed to canola, which invariably smelled like dead fish. I began to get physically sick when I ate a box of popcorn, even though I had been eating the stuff for decades. Employees were getting sick more often. Customers stopped buying popcorn. It got so bad, that as a DM, I could only spend a small amount of time in some locations if they were popping corn.

Many theatre circuits switched back to coconut or peanut oil and saw sales return. Canola was then further "tweaked" to stop the rancid fish oil smell and taste. It then stopped being the same "healthful" unsaturated oil that had been promoted, but more along the lines of cottonseed and other cheap oils.

Canola was specifically engineered as a crop for Canadian farmers. It literally is a contraction of Canada Oil (ola = oil). India does have a variety of rapeseed that is used as a cooking oil. Spain had a big problem with rapeseed back a few years back.

I would use olive oil but I have a personal sensitivity to it. Even with that, I encourage people that olive oil is fine. Coconut oil, we now know, is one of the HEALTHIEST oils and is sold in health food stores. Most of the time, we use grapeseed or peanut oil. I will not use canola. At all. Ever.


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## LonelyNorthwind (Mar 6, 2010)

Thanks, Harry, that was interesting. Do you have an opinion on rice oil?
I can't figure this out either: extra virgin olive oil, cold pressed coconut oil etc. are so healthy because they are not extracted through a heat process, right? So, if you're using these oils for cooking, doesn't that defeat the purpose (and expense)?


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## Merit (Jul 15, 2009)

Curious to the answer to heating the coconut/olive oil question.

In the meanwhile, is there a reason nobody has addressed freezing the fats to prolonge shelf-life? I've done it...sometimes after long periods the fat (lard) turns greenish! Any negative ramification to freezing that is mitigated with the aforementioned refridgerating?


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## Harry Chickpea (Dec 19, 2008)

No opinion on rice oil. It is rare enough here that it would just be opinion anyway.

Yes... and no. We are ranging further off-subject but in general you are correct. However, example - If I want a decadent bit of cheese bread, I may spritz or slop the bread with oil before putting cheese (and maybe some garlic salt) on top. If I use a good oil, like grapeseed or olive, I get full benefit. If I only have cottonseed around, it may be a fine bland oil for cooking, but the cheese bread will be junky. The idea is to keep good foods around you. If you use them less for than they are capable of, you lose money. If you keep cheap oils and foods around you, you lose health.

Bringing it back on topic, a lot of folks have finally come back to the idea that lard may be better for you than shortening, which was a way of making money out of waste cottonseed.


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## scooter (Mar 31, 2008)

Thank you, Harry Chickpea!


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## stamphappy (Jul 29, 2010)

Here's a yummy use for bacon drippings: 

Lightly grease your cookie sheets with it prior to baking peanut butter cookies. The flavor makes those cookies delicious; something about the smoking flavor mixing with the nutty flavor.


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## texican (Oct 4, 2003)

Imho, the only long term solution for oils, in a teotw scenario, is lard. All oils have a shelf life, and once it's gone, it's gone, unless you have a way of making your own. Maintaining a small number of hogs (and protecting them thru the initial year of hunger from the hordes) would guarantee you a source of cooking fats.

Sure someone out there has the equipment to squeeze oil out of plants, but that involves multiplicities of detail (farming/raising the crop {powered by hand tools}, unless you've gone big time and can make your own biodiesel, harvesting, processing, etc.). Lard is easier... kill a hog, wild one preferably, and boil down the fat... Uneducated backwoods folks have been doing this for millenia.

I use to save my fats, and use them for cooking. I've got to where I probably throw away 20 to 50 lbs of fat each week. I'll throw a slab of pork fat in my pot of pressured cooked pork, to have that weeks lard supply (scoop it off the top once refrigerated).

I don't know if eating fats that have went 'off' would make you sick or not. Imagine if your starving for fats, some bad fats would be better than no fats. Hope I don't have to learn this the hard way!


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## Becka03 (Mar 29, 2009)

I save all the drippings from bacon in the fridge- I have noticed it doesn't go bad even after like a yr as long as i keep it in the fridge... 
any other thoughts?
I know when things go rancid- as i know the smell-


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## Harry Chickpea (Dec 19, 2008)

Saturated fats last longest, monosaturated fats like peanut oil next longest, unsaturated and the others less. The more saturated, the less reactive. Rancid oil may not kill, but it is said to really deplete the body of certain nutrients.

If the fat or oil is heated above the boiling temp of water, there should be no living pathogens. At those temps many toxics also break apart.


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## mekasmom (Jan 19, 2010)

Navgatr said:


> We also purchase pig fat and render lard.


Where do you buy pig fat or pig skin with fat on it?


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## 7thswan (Nov 18, 2008)

mekasmom said:


> Where do you buy pig fat or pig skin with fat on it?


A Butcher. Most folks that get pigs butchered arround here, do not get the fat back unless they ask. They always have extra for sale for people that feed the birds. At some butchers we even have had to pay extra to get skulls and hides back,because they sell them.(when we raised Longhorns)


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## Blu3duk (Jun 2, 2002)

one way to clean your fat is to add it to a pan of water and heat to boiling and then let it cool, the fat floats on the water and the impurities GENERALLY sinkto the bottom, when it cools then you can skim off the fat and if needed boil it again after tossing out the leavings.....

you can clean oil also in this manner, though take care cause hot oil aint fun to spatter and oil and water dont mix....... many old greasy spoons used this method in years past to keep their oil without having to change it out every day..... of course regulations prevent this now in most places......

William
Idaho


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## texican (Oct 4, 2003)

mekasmom said:


> Where do you buy pig fat or pig skin with fat on it?


What 7thswan said.
Or at any grocery store where they have butchers on staff and cut their own meat. At one of our local stores, I get all their fat, meat trimmings, and expired meats. One of the perennial best sellers is "country style ribs"... apparently they get a leg quarter (front shoulder?) and trim the slabs of fat off four sides, then cross cut the meat, to have a sliver of bone in and call it 'ribs'. They throw those slabs of fat away. I could probably boil down a five gallon bucket's worth each week.

If your grocery store (do independent butcher shops exist anymore???) cuts their own meat, 'ask' what they do with it... at worst, they'll charge a nominally low price for a sack of pig fat, if lucky (and you can schmooze it up with them) you can get it for free. I spent a month 'chattin' em up, and now I get it all, for free.

Haven't bought shortening or cooking oil since! Must be two years now...


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## mekasmom (Jan 19, 2010)

Thank you all for the information about where to get the fat.


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## jwal10 (Jun 5, 2010)

We strain bacon grease and refrigerate until the can is full, Warm it and pour off the top, leaving the fines in the bottom. Freeze the good stuff. That and butter is all we use....James


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## YuccaFlatsRanch (May 3, 2004)

I get fat from my lambs when I butcher them. It's a good fat to make tallow from too. I also am investing about $130 in a Piteba oil expeller. It will make oil from almost any seed, but for some reason not olives and grapes. I can grow black oil sunflower seeds to make oil from and I am going to plant peanuts (already have the raw peanuts for seed) this next summer.


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