The Regency Library
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Topic: Everyday-Things/Tallow Candles Excerpt reprinted from: Thomas Webster, Esq. An Encyclopedia of Domestic Economy (1845) first American Edition. Tallow is a variety of animal fat melded down and clarified. There are scarcely any animals but a sort of tallow may be obtained from them. Those which yield the most are the bullock and sheep; but tallow may also be prepared from the horse, hog, goat, deer and bear. It is employed for a variety of purposes, as for making soap and dressing leather, but chiefly for candles; and large quantities are annually imported from Russia. The fat of animals is usually collected between the skin and muscles, in the interstices between the muscles and between the viscera. It is composed of cellular membrane, enclosing an oily matter of various degrees of consistence, according to the part. Thus, suet, lard, marrow &c. are varieties of this substance, which is very analogous in its chemical properties to the vegetable fixed oils; but the suet, being the firmest kind, is chosen for making tallow. Tallow chandlers melt tallow by chopping the fat, as it is taken from oxen and sheep, and then boiling it for some time in a large copper, to separate the tallow from the cellular membrane; when the former is chiefly extracted by this means, the remainder is subjected to the operation of a strong iron press, and the cake that is left after the tallow is expressed from it, is called "greave:" with this dogs are fed, and, it is said, may of the ducks and pigs that supply the London markets. The tallow for mould candles should be made of half bullock's and half mutton suet, the former giving firmness, consistence and gloss. When of the best quality, tallow is white, firm and brittle: it is then nearly without taste, but has always more or less of an oppressive odour. To be pure, there should be no admixture of oil or grease of any kind, and it is to this species of adulteration that the bad quality of candles is chiefly owing. It is very important that too great a proportion of mutton suet should not be used; for this possesses a peculiar principle called hirsine, which has a disagreeable odour that distinguishes it from the fat of other quadrupeds, and which occasions it sometimes to give a disagreeable smell, particularly in hot weather. Hogs' fat causes candles to gutter, smell, and smoke; and the ordinary dipped candles are very often adulterated with kitchen stuff. Tallow is sometimes melted in a vessel heated by a naked fire, which is very liable to injury it; it is much better to employ a vessel surrounded by steam: a little alum is put in with the tallow to harden it. Foreign tallow has often a yellow tinge, and frequently contains a considerable portion of sebacic acid: it is generally inferior to the English; but Mr. Parkes informs us, in his Essays, that the former may be purified at a trifling expense by chemical means; and by the proper application of chemical agents brown tallow may be rendered beautifully white, and fit for the best purposes. If tallow is bad, a part soon becomes converted into acid by exposure to air; and this renders the w hole, when melted together, unfit for the making of candles. The method recommended for separating the sebacic acid from the tallow is that of melting it in water containing some alkali. But old tallows may, in general, be sufficiently purified from their rancidity by melting them upon lime-water, and giving a considerable agitation to the whole mixture; when the water is again suffered to subside, it will be found to be offensive in smell, and to have subtracted most of the impurities of the tallow. Should it, however, be found not to be sufficiently purified, a repetition of the process will be found effectual.
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