coon oil

[frenchman]

i have a friend that traps and he keep the coon fat for me to try for oil. These babies were caught close to corn fields and they where very fat , white fat i just tried a batch today and waiting for it to cool down have no idea of the result but looks promising. Any of you tried it before, it was very oily while trimming it

[D. Taylor Sapergia]

Raccoon oil will be worth the trouble, m'thinks.  My brother Daryl used to render down marmot oil and said outside of sperm whale oil, there is no equal.  Now marmot is a rodent, and a raccoon is not, so I have no idea what that might mean.  Probably not a thing.

[John C IND]

If memory serves... (And it IS early )  Isn't a raccoon a close relative of a bear?

[smylee grouch]

Rarccoon's arn't affraid of their shadow's like them Marmonts. 

[frenchman]

for now it's looking very good will be melting the rest, very happy with the result this batch will decant slowly to separate the clear oil, i have better access to coon then bear, should be able to do a few jars of it, Hope i also can try beaver there again they are very fat around here. Fun to do ,these are very natural oils

[Artificer]

Whilst growing up over 4 decades ago, I did a lot of coon hunting but we never saved/rendered the fat.  Though I don't know for sure, of course, it seems the oil should work pretty much the same as other natural/rendered oils.  It would surely have been better than no oil on the frontier when they needed it. 

I doubt any "useable" quantity of fat would have been wasted on the frontier, whether it was rendered for natural oil or made into soap.   There was always a lot of fat on the coons when we harvested them during the legal seasons.  My Maternal Grandma even asked if we got one that wasn't too large, to bring home the carcass as she had grown up occasionally eating them.  The grease that came off the coons during cooking was surprising to me compared to other meats.

Gus

[whitebear]

What would be the difference in a raccoon with fat rendered and a coon baked without seasoning?

[Artificer]

I only know how my Grandma cooked Coon, not how others did it.  Grandma cut all the fat off she could and the meat still was far more greasy than other and especially wild meats, except for maybe goose..
Gus

[frenchman]

I am very happy with the result, i am surprise  how much oil came out of the fat. I will let everything rest and start decanting in a few day's the color of the oil is closer to a very light golden brown, it's easy to see for the interest for bear oil . The oil is almost clear.I will ask my friend for some beaver to see the difference ,should be interesting. My garage smells like a donut shop . SweeeeeT

[mark esterly]

rendered coon fat works very well. my son uses it.
beaver is my favorite but I lost my source for beaver fat.
right now I have rabbit oil from my wife's meat rabbits.
the oil is colorless and very light.

[Lucky R A]

     Well Denis, I can tell you that if it doesn't make a good patch lube, it will keep your hands soft.  Back in the 80s when fur prices were up I ran a long line and caught several hundred coons a season.  Skinnin' all those coons and my hands were as soft as ever.  I do really like barbequed coon legs--'tis such a shame to waste the meat..

Ron

[frenchman]

will be using it for all type of things to lube and on learther

[Daryl]

As to consistency - the marmot oil I used, from Hoary Marmots - some of which pushed close to or over 20 pounds rendered an oil that was VERY slippery but not water-thin.

I had to wash my hands in dish soap twice to cut through it the oil on my hands just from handling the globules of fat from inside the cavity.  AS freidn of mine, who turned me on to marmot oil, used it as a water proofing dressing for his boots. He's freeze small plastic bags of the cavity fat and just thaw out a bag when needed and rub the fat into his boots.  He claimed it better than properly applied Dubbin and most certainly better than snow-seal.

I did not use fat from outside of the internal cavity as I figured it would likely render mostly into a thicker grease (like under-the-skin-bear's fat, which  hardens in the cold. I wanted oil that did not thicken or turn hard - and the cavity/organ fat did as I wanted. It was quite a wonderful patch lube in my .58 Hawken's Large barrel.

Good luck on the coon fat.