[swaghauler]

Just because the nukes have flown and the world has "gone to pot" doesn't mean you can no longer enjoy your favorite fried foods or candle light dinners. All you need to do is "Render" some animal fat. Rendered fat will also be necessary for making Confit and other forms of preservation including the Wet Salt Infusion of certain meats. So here's how our ancestors have made Lard, Candle Wax, and other oils since the Stone Age.

Dry Rendering Fat:

1. You must first prepare the fat by cutting off ALL OTHER TISSUES including skin, muscle, or tendons from the fat. Thoroughly clean the fat to prevent bacteria from contaminating your future lard.

2. Cut Fat into small cubes or chunks to better distribute heat.

3. Place the fat in a pot over a heat source NOT hotter than 250F/121C (200F/93C will be more appropriate for some leaner fats). Let cook while stirring frequently until brown "cracklings" occur. This should take 1D3 hours in game time to occur.

4. Remove the material from heat when you have brown "cracklings" laying in clear rendered fat. Strain the "cracklings" (which are edible and can be used as ingredients in cooking, especially for sauces or gravy). Place the now rendered Lard in an appropriate container.

Wet Rendering Fat:

Follow all of the steps for Dry Rendering but add in 0.1L of clean Water per Kilogram of fat. Wet rendering is less likely to burn but takes longer (1D3+1 hours) and there will be NO "cracklings" as a byproduct.

Rendered fat will have a volume of 40% to 60% (1d3+3) of the precooked fat's weight (ie rendering 100 kilograms nets 40 to 60 Kilograms of lard). Add 1 to the volume roll for Wet Rendering.

Rendering Fat is a task of Routine(1.5 X Skill): Survival or Easy(2 X Skill): Cooking.

an animal will have 1/10th its yield in meat as fat in Kilograms (ie 50kg of animal meat will yield 5kg of fat to render. Gm's may wish to modify the amounts of Fat and totals of Rendered Fat for leaner animals (like deer) versus more Fat-laden animals (like pigs) in game.

As always, use what you will and ignore the rest.

Swag.