Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game Cooking with Bear fat

Shot a nice fat black bear last year and saved all the fat.A friend wife rendered it down and was able to get quite a few quarts of it. It came out pure white.My wife made a pie crust with it and fried a chicken with it. The flavor was excellent and the pie crust perfect. I'll never let it go to waste again.

I don't know about the fat but the BB sausage that KC brought to the meet here in Wyo. was as good of sausage as I've ever had.

My mother said that rendered bear fat was the finest pastry shortening in the world. She got that idea from some French Chef and proved it for herself. The best I've ever tasted was from a super fat black bear living in a river bottom corn field and the rendering fat smelled like corn fed hog. High alpine bears fat from huckleberries have snow white fat on the carcase.

The pie crust was the best my wife has ever made. She's going to make all the holiday pies and pastry's with it if it last that long.

I rub bear fat on my hunting boots.Best water protection going.

When I was hunting bear, I would render the fat to make patch lube for my muzzleloaders. It works too good as a patch lube when mixed with beeswax for me to give any up to the missus. Don't care how good it is as pastry shortening, it is far better used in the gun.

Best:)

The old timers placed a high value on a fat bear.They could use just about ever part of it.Then came the buffalo hunters.

how do you store the rendered fat? Will it not spoil if just shut with a lid? Do you vacuum seal or jar it?

Thanks for sharing... I will give that good though as I am thinking seriously of taking Urusus up on a bear hunt...

I've only killed two Black bears and enjoyed the meat from both. I rendered down the fat (a whole bunch!) and put it in 1/2 pint plastic jars with lids. Put them in the freezer and used them as needed. That bear fat lasted probably a couple years, frozen, until we used it all.

Great for pastries, biscuits, and greasing the griddle when making pancakes, etc.

L.W.

It will go rancid in a hurry if left exposed. Local guy insisted I try some on my Whites boots once. In about a week they smelled like hell.

I'm not real familiar with rendering, but I assume it must be done at >160F to kill ant trichinosis?

There wouldn't be any trichinosis in the fat, but regardless, it is rendered well above 160f.

I don't bake, but the people I've had use bear fat for baking have had mixed results. Any suggestions for them?

I use it for frying and any recipies that call for fat. The flavor bear fat imparts is excellent.

Don't know the temp- but you don't want it too high or it scorches, then is worthless. All you want to do is leak the lard out of the fat , pour it off, and let it harden.

It is a project you want to pay active attention to.

las;
I've heard from folks who have taken bears on our northern coast in the salmon streams that the meat can at times have a slight fish taste. As they didn't save any of the fat to render I wondered if that fish taste would be there as well?

Our local bears don't really have access to much fishing or luckily garbage dumps, so they tend to be pretty fine table fare.

The one and only time anyone I know attempted lard, one of the chaps who cuts meat at our place rendered fat off of a particularly obese bear another fellow had shot. His wife was so impressed with it that she instructed him to never let it go to waste again.

He did say it was a little bit of work to make the lard and as you noted, one needed to pay attention while it was cooking.

Thanks in advance for any info on salmon flavored lard, I'm just idly curious this morning is all.

Happy Fourth of July to you and yours.

Regards,
Dwayne

Dunno on the fish-bears- I've always taken care to shoot vegetarians - Interior Alaska bears, or those on alpine blue-berry patches, well away from salmon streams.

Just tried a couple nights ago a straight shot of "smoked-salmon" flavored vodka. Not too bad - but then I'd already had a couple.... I was reliably informed it's a lot better in the Bloody Mary mix recipe on the bottle.

I can also advise to NOT shoot a dominant herd caribou bull in the rut (juveniles just practicing will be stringy, but good flavored - cows will be excellent) - or moose bulls in the rut that have been fighting (if they haven't, they can be OK- not good- but palatable). The trick is in knowing which ones have been fighting- and probably defeated - after a couple days as herd-meister...

Take a satellite bull.

Getting a little far afield of bear lard here.....