How To Dispose Of Beef Fat?

Imagine a pan full of yummy beef meat being prepared for you and your lovely family. In the cooking process, a lot of oily substances can be noticed which are not water, external oil, and anything provided by you.  So what are they? They are nothing but beef fats, liquefied by cooking heat. Many people don’t like to eat these fats. Some say they are not tasteful, and some for their harmful effects on health. So, it results in their draining from beef meat and ultimately disposing of it.

The main question mark that remains there is how to dispose of beef fat properly. Because their disposal can have a possible impact on your environment! So if you are looking for an answer to how to dispose of these beef fats, then you are on the verge of finding them. This content covers proven methods of how to dispose of beef fat, alternative disposal methods, how not to dispose of them, what to do if poured in a sink, and if they are good for health.

Key Takeaways

• Disposing of beef fat requires draining them apart from the meats, filter out anything else but fat.
• It requires proper container confinement, and leveling before disposing of beef fat in trash bin.
• A big amount of beef fat can be used for making biofuel, both industrially and personally.
• Tallowed beef fat oil is a great alternative to refined cooking oil.

Methods To Dispose Of Beef Fat

There is more than one way to dispose of beef fat. These methods are simple yet caution is needed to avoid any greasy mess. There are many unusual ways to remove or drain beef fats, we will discuss two of the most effective ones. Then we will proceed with the disposal methods.

Removing The Beef Fats

Method 1: Cook the ground beef in a metal bowl. As the beef is fatty, upon heating, it will gradually release the fats in liquefied form. Keep boiling the beef pieces. You can add some water if feels necessary in the process. They will vaporize, leaving the liquid beef fat oil. Then place a colander on top of a glass bowl. Place filtering paper on the bowl and slowly pour the beef into the colander and leave it for 10-15 minutes. Beef fats in the form of oil will slowly but surely pour into that bowl.

Method 2: This method will also require heating the beef pieces but in a pan this time. After the beef releases their fat, try to push them to one side of the pan. Keep the pan in a tilted position so that the liquid fats can accumulate on the other side. Collect the fats in a container with a metal spoon.

Now the disposal methods,

1. Throw In The Trash Bin

Beef fats are considered general wastes. This means you can dispose of them in a trash bin. But not in the liquefied form. Throwing away liquid beef fat is similar to throwing bare wastewater in the trash. In reality, none of them causes any help to dispose of. So it is necessary to get rid of them in solid form. Now if you are thinking, about how to make them solid! For your information, liquid beef fats can become solid at normal room temperature. So leave them for some hours and as they get solid, throw them away in a properly marked and sealed container.

2. Store In Yogurt Container

If you love to have beef quite frequently, then disposing of their fats in that amount of time can become a headache. That’s why you can for a used yogurt container to store them away until it becomes full. Every time you collect the liquid, semi-liquid beef fat, store them in a metal container and place it in the refrigerator. In this way, the fat will reform into its solid form very quickly, yet providing you with a preliminary solution on how you can dispose of beef fat. Upon filling the container full, just like the previous method, throw it away into your trash bin.

3. Soak Away With Hard Substances

Another good way to dispose of beef fat, grease, and oil is to simply mix it with solid substances like Cat food, litter, sand, bird feeders, etc. You can either put liquid or semi-solid fats into the animal’s food or place them on the cooking medium that contains fats. In both ways, the solid materials will soak the oil within them and after that, you can either throw them away or provide your pets with different taste foods.

4. Selling/Donating To Biodiesel Factory

Biofuel has been in the energy industry for quite a time. It is made by processing plant and animal-based sources. This process is called Transesterification. There might be one such processing plant around your place. You can either sell or donate these beef fats to them. Donating them will help you to dispose of them easily and in case of selling, you are getting some valuable money. But in the latter case, the bead fat amount should have to be enough in quantity to trade for money.

Alternative Disposal Of Beef Fat

Apart from getting rid of beef fat permanently, you should want to apply these secondary/alternative uses. Some of them are so beneficial that, you might forget to dispose of beef fat in a trash bin in the near future.

1. Reuse For Cooking

To your surprise, you can reuse beef fat oil more than once for cooking foods. Beef tallows can be a ‘side-use oil’ for cooking any food. Though food cooked with beef fat can appear and smell different than cooked with usual oil. They are not as healthy as refined cooking oil but they can just do the job. Fat-made oil has been around us since civilized humans first started to use oil to cook their food.

2. Recycling For Biofuel Yourself

As mentioned earlier, beef fat can be used to make biofuels. In this process, fats and oils can be turned into biodiesel. Also, glycerin comes in as a byproduct. Apart from heavy industrial process linking to complete this processing, you can do it in your backyard, by yourself. Nowadays, various companies are offering compact machinery to fit in your place and do this task. If you need to dispose of a great amount of beef fat frequently, why not go for this? You can use the result by yourself, sell it for a decent amount of money, and lastly participate in the green earth movement.

3. Making Candles

This may put your eye borrows to the top for sure. Yes, beef fats can be used for making candles and other similar products such as soap. Remember the beef tallows mentioned above? You will need those in decent amounts, some jars to hold the candle shape, and a wick for each of the candles. Just add the tallow to the jar, place the wick in the middle, and wait for cooling.

Don’t Dispose of Beef Fat These Ways

Most of the time, people choose the easiest way to dispose of beef fat, which is by pouring them into a plumbing system. But along with some other practices, choosing these options can come out as dangerous.

• Down the Sink: You may think for a while that pouring the beef fat into the sink can dispose of it but is it the finest choice after all? Note that, hot beef fats look liquid but as soon as they come in a cooler environment, they start to retain their old, solid shape. That could clog your sinkhole or pipe very quickly.
• Down the Drain: Throwing or pouring beef fats in the drain isn’t the ideal option either. Beef fats may look small and harmless. But due to the same reason of clogged sink or pipe, even drain can be clogged too. Also if they are in great numbers, they can clog one or two central drainages and waste management facilities.
• Throwing Without Processing: Different wastes has different characteristics. They will not vanish in the air for sure, rather in the worse scenario, they can create a mess. That’s why it is wiser to process beef fats before throwing them anywhere. For your trash bin it will be, make the fats solid, put them in a container and finally leave a mark to identify the waste type easily.
• Leave It In Yard Soil: Some people choose to leave beef fats in the open soil of their backyard. But this can actually have serious consequences. They can melt and mix with the soil. It will not help the soil more fertile, rather it will stop the oxygen circulation and kill the good pathogens. Also, as they are animal products, they can smell really bad.
• Sprinkle In Compost Pile: Refrain from trying to compost beef fat as well. Firstly, beef fat is an animal product, and decomposing animal products harbor pathogens. This risks your health and the health of anyone living around the area with the compost pile. Besides that, beef grease may turn to oil at the heat of the compost and restrict the permeability of oxygen in the pile. Also, animal products attract the attention of wild animals.

What If I Already Poured Beef Fat Through the Sink/Drain?

It is normal to follow your instinct while working in the kitchen. You may have poured beef fat through the sinkhole/ drain and right after that you realized, you made a mistake. These innocent-looking beef fats can clog your plumbing system slowly. Now what should you do? Well, you can follow the ‘Hot water-backing soda-vinegar-hot water’ formula.

Not so after the beef fats pouring happened, act fast and pour a lot of hot water through the same point. This will create hot weather within the pipes and prevent the growth of fat. Next, pour some baking soda into the pipes and let it set for some minutes. After that, pour some vinegar to dissolve any remaining beef fat particles. Finally, pour a lot of hot water through the pipe again to clean the pipes thoroughly.

This will greatly reduce the possibility of a clogged plumbing system.

Is Beef Fat Good For Health?

To be specific, there are debates over the beneficial and harmful sides of eating beef fats. While many have speculated that any fat is bad for health. We will look into both sides and draw a conclusion here.

Every type of fat is considered bad by mass people and it is advised the same by the doctors. Because fats are known for making blood cholesterol levels high. It creates mild to severe dysfunction of the heart and veins. But with science research has been advancing very rapidly over time, scientists have found that beef fat is no more dangerous than its common alternatives i.e. edible oils. Rather beef fats contain a high ratio of vitamins and nutrients. Also, they have beneficial use as great cooking elements. So the conclusive comment on if beef fat is good for more health end as No, they aren’t good for health but are no worse than its replacements.

FAQs

Final Thoughts

Fat is a common integral part of beef meat. Like many other animals, including humans, cattle have layers of fat on their muscles. Many people don’t like this part of beef, calling it not tasty and bad for health. While the first accusation is undeniably true but the second one has some argument based on the benefit it provides. But if you are looking for methods how to dispose of beef fat efficiently, our recommendation will be to follow any of the mentioned methods at your convenience. All of them are proven and don’t backfire in the process. So for better maintaining your health for a while, prevent unwanted clogging and keep everything clean, disposing of beef fat has no alternatives.