what do you do with your used cooking oil?

[edjanuary39]

As a rule I used to take mine to the recycle center, we had a biofuels dumpster. I always save it in a old butter bowl, when its full I have no idea what to do now! We moved and the only biofuel recycle place is 50 miles away. Is there something functional I can do with it? I won't put it down the drain, and im not a fan of putting it into the ground, but that's looking like my option. We recycle and burn our trash, and that is my son's responsibility, so putting in the trash to burn is not very smart. I've heard you can make soap, but what I have is grease from every fried meat fro the last 2 months, and it has food that got spooned out into it, so its nasty moldy! We dont have dogs to mix in with their food-fresh grease- so im just out of ideas!

 

[ORChick]

Are you talking about frying oil, or drippings from cooking meat? For the former, as I don't deep fry much at all, I pour it off into a spare jar, and use it to brush the grate before grilling. For the latter (bacon grease, and other meaty drippings), it all goes into a lidded container in the fridge to use for flavoring various dishes - fried potatoes, etc.

 

[~gd]

Ed you can bet that if there is a eating place around that sells deep fried food they have a home for your fat. It used to be that they had to pay to get it hauled off but the Biofuel fad seems to have changed all that. We just had an arrest made where the bad guy was charged with stealing oil for recycling. Many of the collection places now have trucks that run around routes to pick it up check with your local 'greasy spoon' they may allow you to leave it there for recycling. for the more solid fats I usually cast them in slabs meat bits and all to use in a bird feeder. If it won't make a solid slab I add bread crumbs/bird seed/excess pasta or rice. It is fairly popular with the birds in the winter when insects are hard to come by but it also attracts coons!

 

[edjanuary39]

I mix it all together, except bacon grease, that I keep. So do you use your all your meat fats for flavoring? Do you mix them or keep them separate? My oil is try to reuse, its usually never enough for the next pan, so I end up adding some. That's a great idea on the restaurants. How do you ake you slabs? I have chickens so i could give it to them, and of course the wild birds!

 

[FarmerChick]

Keep and use til I can't keep no more. Good infro from a thread I asked.
old oil I pour in the pasture.
won't put down the septic ever, sometimes let it go solid and put in trash
when I had big dogs I mixed with feed but this little house dog now, no way

very little old oil here. I don't fry alot in big oil capacity. use the tablespoon to saute type person.



hubby wants to fry a turkey. we have eaten it from others, but I think, what a waste of oil and what the heck do I do with that AMT of oil after?
so no so far, smoke it I say which is delish lol

actually using less oil is something I have strived to do...and have done.

I love not using tons of oil. I am so happy I got out of the big oil usage.

 

[mandieg4]

I reuse what I can and what I can't gets mixed with the scraps that we feed the pigs.

 

[k15n1]

I save fats and use them for cooking. I usually store them in the refrigerator so I don't have to worry about spoilage. When I add more, I usually microwave the whole (glass) jar so that any juices and fat will separate.

Cooked a goose for Thanksgiving, which yielded about 3 C !!! of fat.

 

[Up-the-Creek]

I always use it to mix with our dogs food,..but we have three very large outdoor dogs,..since you have no dogs to give it to maybe you have a neighbor, friend, or family member who could use it to feed to their dogs? Or pigs,..they like it to.

 

[staythirsty]

I used to save meat drippings and make soap. Meat drippings are solid at room temperature. Drippings from beef is usually classed as tallow which offers a harder soap. Other meat drippings, such as that from pork is lard and will make a softer soap. I remember saving a summers worth of bacon drippings from BLTs and making soap from that, albeit a softer soap. So I'd save the meat drippings in a container and keep it in the fridg and keep adding to it until I had enough, about 1-3lbs or so. Then I'd render the fat in hot water to clean it and then use the cleaned fat for the soap. I've also made soap using oils such as jojoba and avocado that are liquids at room temperature When using liquid oils I'd do some simple stoichiometry in combining the ratio of lye to oils, saponification, in order to make a safe gentle solid soap. You could probably use used cooking oil if it's not too far gone. Each kind of oil has it's own stoichiometric ratio of oil to lye to make the soap. You can buy lye or make your own with hardwood ashes.

 

[ORChick]

I mix it all together, except bacon grease, that I keep. So do you use your all your meat fats for flavoring? Do you mix them or keep them separate? My oil is try to reuse, its usually never enough for the next pan, so I end up adding some. That's a great idea on the restaurants. How do you ake you slabs? I have chickens so i could give it to them, and of course the wild birds!

My jar of fat in the fridge is mostly bacon grease, with occasionally a bit from fried sausage. I've added drippings from roast pork as well once in awhile, but mostly meat drippings are used to make up a gravy for that night's dinner. I save the fat from goose, chicken, duck separately, and keep them in the freezer; I use them for savory pastries, or for panfrying. After about a year I toss them (or give them to the birds) as I get new. I also render lard about once a year, which is best for pastry, and what I use when I need a pretty much flavorless fat. It sounds like I am swimming in fat , but it really is only a few pint jars, and it doesn't all get used. I understand that clean fats can be used for making soap.