We always have at least one thing on our counter that would otherwise be thrown into recycling, but it was rinsed and kept because it'll make a good grease receptacle.
post
Honestly never heard of that, but I'm also a bit lost in translation. Does this have any relevance to a person that only uses olive and sunflower oil and doesn't eat any meat?
As a home owner, $360 to get my kitchen drain cleaned. No more grease down the drain.
I briefly worked for a plumber during my college days to make money. He said the people who kept him in business were people who poured grease down the drain and also people who flushed tampons.
People who pour grease down the drain have definitely never unclogged a drain before.
Usually something like half fibers (hair, tampons, "flushable" wipes, etc), half grease and fats.
If it's a solid at room temp, it probably shouldn't go down the drain.
so would olive oil be ok
Nope. Nothing oily that doesn't rinse away completely with water. Most people forget butter and peanut butter, too.
But olive oil does rinse away pretty easily with water and washing up liquid? So does butter and bacon fat?
Nothing oily that doesn't rinse away with water?
Why do you keep focusing on "water"? I don't get what you're getting at. You don't wash dishes with just water. Water is a very small and inconsequential component of the process.
You wash dishes by squeezing some dishwashing liquid on a dishwashing sponge, then pour hot water onto the dish being cleaned and leave it on as you clean, then you scrub the dish clean with the sponge while water flows over washing away what's left.
Then when there are no longer any visible stains on the dishes in question, the dishes are considered clean and you put them on a drying rack and/or pat them down with a towel to ensure dryness.
All i see going into the sink during this process is soapy water. I've no idea what is or isn't "grease" of that liquid. It's all just food waste. It disappears away into nothingness, as it should.
Why it could cause any issues all of a sudden when it never has and the only place people have ever mentioned it or claimed to do it is on the internet.
Ig it's like one of those "put an iPhone in a microwave" trolling things to get people to keep jars of dirt/trash/food waste and spread insects and/or disease?
Edit: Downvoted because you're upset at the mention of dishes?
The question was can I pour oil down the drain. The "Rule of Thumb" (a general catch-all rule that plumbers use) is if it can't rinse away with water, don't pour it down the drain. I replied to whether you can pour olive oil down the drain. I don't know why you started talking about washing dishes.
But nothing rinses away with just water? That's why I assumed you meant "rinsing with water" = "washing dishes" because by that logic nothing at all can go down the drain, ever.
Why would that even be a rule of thumb? Who "rinses" dishes "with water" instead of washing them normally as described?
I’m pretty sure the risk is lower, but you probably still shouldn’t. I think the problem is that anything fatty/oily can emulsify with other things that get poured down the drain and potentially thicken into a blockage even if they weren’t in that state when you poured them down
Keep it in a mug by the sink
Every time the mug fills up, dump it into a pot of very hot water, give it a stir, pour it into a mason jar, seal it tightly, and put it in the fridge upside down.
When it's cold, dump out the water, scrape the thin top layer of crap off, and voila, you have perfectly usable high smoke point salted lard for frying.
If you fry fresh pork belly, save that fat separately, do the same thing, and you have pure lard.
Or, alternatively, you could eat healthy.
Oh fuck off.
Oh my how original. No I will not eat ze bugs. Are you gonna bitch and cry about le poor animals now too?
It's such surface level emotional thinking. Like if you just think about it for a moment - let 'em mfers burn and churn, momma needs her protein dust.
You don't have Plumbo or equivalent?
it destroys all organic matter it touches. Fatbergs, human hair, small rodents, I've never paid anymore to clear anything.
Cost us over $200 to get a plumber to fix the drain when my partner decided to feed an entire jar of whole pickles into the garbage disposal.
As a renter, that's the way it goes
It isn't put in the jar to throw away, its put in the jar to cook more food with later
For maximum enjoyment, drink it directly from the jar. Preferably while warm.
And use for tortillas and savory pie crust.
When my grandma had "too much" of it she would mix it with seeds and put it out for the woodpeckers in winter
Bacon grease chocolate chip cookies...
I shit you not.
Fuck. It’s 2am and I’m so high. Why did I have to read this‽
How long does bacon grease last? How can I tell if it went bad? Does it last longer in the fridge?
You can freeze it!
I can't tell if people here are pouring their grease down the drain.
The answer is don't. "It will be fine" for the person who told you that it will be fine, but it will absolutely fail for you. You know that by now. Also that guy is lying and already had to snake his drain but won't tell you that.
Idk I've never had any issues.
Yet. It can take several years to build up
Don't pour hot grease in a glass jar or it'll shatter and spill hot grease all over your counter and then when you grab a flimsy piece of plastic from the recycling and try to push it on to stop the spill and the plastic collapses and hot grease goes all over your forearm and gives you 2nd degree burns and your floor is covered in broken glass you will regret it.
I’m not blowing smoke here … that’s great writing. It works well if you imagine voice growing frantic and speaking faster as it goes.
I use a Pyrex container if I want to safe the grease. Otherwise I make a bowl of aluminum foil, pour it into that, and toss it once it hardens.
Modern pyrex isnt any more heat resistant than any other soda glass, they switched in like the 90s. But regular glass is fine for grease, I use an old pasta sauce jar.
That’s why I pour it into the jar in the sink.
That and I’m really messy and the sink is the easiest place to clean up spilled grease.
Eh, a small mason jar is tough enough to handle a few tablespoons of bacon grease or whatever without shattering. But sure, if you've got a lot of grease at once, let it cool down first (or better yet, refrigerate the pot roast or whatever it is you've made, so that you can just pull the grease off the top of the pot in one hardened puck).
Get frozen orange juice and save the cardboard tube to hold the grease while it congeals.
I've been pouring hot grease in glass jars for decades without having one shatter. You're severely overestimating the risks
I have had this happen once. Cold jar, didnt let the grease cool enough... was my bad. Same as if you're going to put it into a metal can while its still really hot, make sure the can isnt sitting on something that will melt.
I think the best advice is "Dont pour the grease while its still hot enough to burn you"
I may be speaking from experience. I only pour grease into cans and foil now.
It depends on where you’re from, glass jars/drinking glasses in Germany don’t shatter from thermal shock, but they do in the US.
I reflexively yelled at my boss once because he poured recently boiling water out of a glass and turned the cold faucet on to rinse it out while scrubbing, and I thought he was about to cut the shit out of his hand. He got contemplative for a moment and then said that he had forgotten that that used to happen in Afghanistan (where he was from), but it doesn’t happen in Germany.
Just putting oil in a few dozen times won't shatter it. A few hundred cooling cycles might, but you change jars by then.
It won’t necessarily shatter it, but it absolutely can. I’ve done it with a jar I had washed the original product out of shortly beforehand. Just because it’s never happened to you doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen.
I guess it depends on the temperature of the oil, I pour when its still liquid, but less than boiling.
I pour when it’s hot to the touch, but not unpleasant, so probably around 50-60 C
And it still shattered?
Yep, I was PISSED. I can’t even eat pork and was just being a good houseguest the morning after a party, and then suddenly had to clean up a bunch of shattered glass and pork fat in someone else’s kitchen.
Canning jars are made to withstand temperature changes though.
Weird. I mean tomato sauce jars are too, at least once. Was it a pickle or jam jar? Ive had those break just placing them on the counter.
Can, pour the grease into a can. Glass is likely to energetically and spontaneously disassemble when temperature shock occurs.
Yeah you don't pour it immediately. You wait for it to cool off a bit.
Pour it when it's hot and you don't have as much cleaning.
You can still get less cleaning pouring it warm. Won't cause temperature shock on the glass.
Excess coffee cups received as gifts work too.
The jar got stuck in my drain.
Okay but how? In what? For how long? Do you reuse it again? How often? Does it go bad? Where do I put the jar? Do I close it? People just say shit like "save your grease" and expect me to know what to do.
You save it up in a can or a jar and then you have a world of options:
Throw it away Make soap from it Throw it away Use it to season cast iron pots and pans Throw it away Cook with it if it's from the last few days Throw it away Add it to outdoor dog food in the winter Throw it away Soften dry ski-you know what, just throw it away.
I just pour the grease from mine into a ramekin and then put that in the refrigerator, optionally cover it with plastic wrap if you are worried about contamination or smell. Most people use a jar with a lid but I don't cook fatty meats often enough to need a jar for all the grease I produce. If you left the pan out after cooking/overnight and the grease solidified before you could pour it, just heat it up again on the stove or in the oven until it turns back into a liquid. Obviously, wait until the pan has cooled enough to handle it without burning yourself while doing this pouring step, hot grease burns like hell and will send you straight to the emergency room with 3rd degree burns if it gets spilled on you.
Once it's in the container and in the refrigerator, it will solidify into a scoopable/spreadable semi-solid with a texture somewhere in between butter and ice cream. You can use it in place of fats or oils in other recipes (for example, if you need to grease a pan with butter or cooking spray before cooking, you can use a spoonful of the solid bacon grease instead). If you don't want to use it and just want to dispose of it safely instead, just wait for it to solidify in the fridge and then scoop it into the trash. Takes about two seconds and won't clog your plumbing
It does go bad eventually. The grease will get rancid if left alone for too long, and it will start to smell foul and anything you cook with it will taste terrible and make you sick. If you are going to save it, use it within a month or so if you leave it uncovered, or covered it can last longer but give it a smell test before you put it in a pan - it should have a neutral smell at room temperature and be white in color or have a very slight yellowish hue. Throw it out if you see any spots or discoloration.
A steak cooked in bacon grease is next level delicious. You should try it.
You put it with the jar into general waste. I guess you could also filter and reuse it if you had the materials and will
I got you.
I used to throw it away, but recently I started saving it, and it's amazing.
Step 1: Cook bacon.
Step 2: Strain the grease. I use a tea strainer. You don't have to do this, but it helps it last longer, because the bacon bits spoil before the grease does.
Step 3: Pour it into a small tub. I use an old spreadable butter tub that has masking tape on the top and sides with "BACON GREASE" written on it, so I don't accidentally use it instead of butter.
Step 4: Store it in the refrigerator.
Step 5: Use that shit. You can use it in most places you'd use butter or oil.
-
Caramelizing onions? Slap a dollop of bacon grease into the pan first.
-
Pancakes? Pancakes with a soupçon of bacon.
-
Eggs? Obviously.
-
Grilled cheese? Holy shit, use bacon grease. It's so fucking good.
It behaves a lot like butter. When it's cold it stiffens up, but if you leave it out for a few minutes it softens and becomes spreadable.
Whenever I cook more bacon I top up my bacon grease tub. My cooking has gotten a little bit better this year, and it's all because of bacon grease.
Another thing you can do is to separate the grease from any residual solids.
If you have a jar of bacon grease with brown bits floating around in it, you can put it in a pot with a similar amount of water and bring it all up to a boil or just near it for just a moment. The grease will sit on top of the hot water, but anything else will fall down. Then let the pot cool and put it in the fridge to solidify the grease. You can then scoop the now-solid grease in big chunks and put it back in the jar and discard any bits in the water.
I learned this from people who do at-home soap-making from their rendered fats. They would repeat it a few times before adding lye, as it will leach impurities such as salt, aromatic and favor compounds from the fat, but I find doing it once or twice leaves me with a nice cooking fat that still has bacon-y aroma.
I just take a piece of aluminum foil and press it into the sink drain so it makes a little cup. Then pour the oil into that foil. Then drop an ice cube in to help it solidify and cool a bit then I grab the foil corners and twist them up and dump it in the trash.
It’s quick and easy and neat.
Throw it away once it's cooled. If it's a solidified fat, you can just scrape it into the trash bag. If it's a liquid oil, then you can throw it into a disposable container (I have a million takeout soup containers on hand at any given time) so that it doesn't leak everywhere.
Oil is compostable, but only in proper ratios to the overall organic material being composted, so it's fair game to put into compostable containers for industrial composting, or maybe small quantities in your backyard compost, but I wouldn't recommend it unless you know what you're doing.
Pour it in an empty jar. let it cool and then put it in the fridge. It keeps nearly indefinitely.
There's a movie called The Greasy Strangler that reveals all.
Oh well. Shouldn’t have made home ownership impossible for the next generation.
I always chug a beer/soda, open the top of the can using a can opener, and pour the grease into that.
NOTE: make sure all the liquid is out of the bottom of the can (maybe wipe it down with a towel) or else the grease may shoot back out
top 100 comments