DIY Candles
Last Christmas, one of my housemates was given a Lean, Mean, Fat Reducing Grilling Machine*. Now, for the unfamiliar, this is basically a Breville Sandwich Toaster with a bit of a slope on it. You put a plastic tray** under the end of it, and as your meat cooks (*snigger*), the fat drips down into the plastic tray. Simple but effective.

Just one question: what the f**k do you do with a tray of sausage fat? Said housemate probably needs a good salad more than he needs a piece of white sliced deep fried in the sausage juices, so he's better off throwing it away. But of course, you can't tip the stuff down the sink.

So he collected it in a jar. For a few weeks on end. We now had, in our kitchen, a jar containing several weeks' worth of fat, oil, grease and foetid meat juices.

I had a nice sturdy piece of string. I had an idea.

Yes, I dangled this piece of string into the jar and let it marinade in the grease for a few days. Then I took a lighter to the end and - bugger me - I had a working candle.

Of my four housemates, two of them think this makes me disgusting, one of them thinks it's a good idea, if eccentric, and the other hasn't commented. Who do you side with?

Apologies for length, but at least it's lean and low-fat...

*_{Cue "So good I put my face on it" jokes...
**Two of which are generously provided by the manufacturers}
(LongJohnBaldry, Fri 4 Apr 2008, 10:10, 14 replies)

It's a good idea.
And sort of carbon-neutral too.

You could also smash the jar and hang it outside as a treat for the local birds (the feathered ones).
( K2k6 has a proper job these days, Fri 4 Apr 2008, 10:22, closed)

Get a dog
Dogs and cats love the grease, but the candle idea isn't bad. I'll have to try that.
(FleetlordVT, Fri 4 Apr 2008, 10:26, closed)

I'd agree with all of the housemates
Did that as well recently, but with used chip fat from my deep fryer. It worked remarkably well, but once it had burnt down, I just thought "this is minging, what was I thinking?"

(FWIW, as long as you don't leave it standing around until it goes rancid, you could use it for stir-frying stuff etc., or anything that calls for a splash of vegetable oil... much the same thing as "slice of bread deep-fried in it" but not quite as heart-attacky)
(julius, Fri 4 Apr 2008, 10:54, closed)

On deep fry oil...
if you have enough of it, you can filter it and put it in any diesel car to run the engine.
(Half of Stephen Fry's right buttock pissed on your dog on, Fri 4 Apr 2008, 11:16, closed)

...
I keep a jar next to the hob to decant animal fat. When it's full, I take it to the bottle-bank - taking care to ensure that it's a hot day and that the glass smashes. Yummy.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Fri 4 Apr 2008, 11:21, closed)

@Gordon Brown's arsehole
You can only do that with oil though. If you try it with fat your car will only run if it's a really hot day.

@Enzyme - that's a really bastardly thing to do! I like it.
( K2k6 has a proper job these days, Fri 4 Apr 2008, 11:25, closed)

My mate took the fresh fat from 2 burgers
and smeared it on a slice or two of bread. Some kind of ad-hoc butter. I don't fancy that at all...
( whenanimalsattackhumans clad in global hypercolour, Fri 4 Apr 2008, 12:20, closed)

Ad hoc butter
It's not that bad as makeshift butter, it'll do the trick as long as its fairly fresh.

Making candles out of the stuff seems to be the better thing to do though.
(Ghost Atreides enjoying incontestable health benefits on, Fri 4 Apr 2008, 13:07, closed)

I wouldn't
advise giving a jar of the stuff to a pet as a special treat though. Surely that's just going to grease their insides so they shit explosively everywhere?
(The Empress it seems you CAN polish a turd!, Fri 4 Apr 2008, 13:11, closed)

Going back to caveman roots
Apparently man's first artificial light used animal fat as a fuel.

So you're not just being cheap, you're doing experimental archaeology!
(Le Misanthrope last procrastinated on, Fri 4 Apr 2008, 13:27, closed)

@Misanthrope
Well, that was my reasoning - candles are made out of wax, which is a form of fat. Granted, it doesn't also contain oil, grease and little lumps of burnt meat, but I haven't the tools to refine the stuff.

Besides, if the book Perfume is anything to go by, apparently they were still using animal fat to preserve scent and create perfumes only a couple of hundred years ago.
(LongJohnBaldry, Fri 4 Apr 2008, 13:32, closed)

make candles with bacon grease instead
everyone will buy them then (assuming that when you light one the room adopts a delightful bacon aroma)
( Reme Philips laid an epic dump on, Sat 5 Apr 2008, 15:19, closed)

lean mean shagging machine
try using it for lube, up the tradesman's whilst pleasuring your favourite sausage !!
(Betty Boothroyd's Love custard Tourettes at the KOB, Mon 7 Apr 2008, 16:26, closed)

Sweet Lord!
What the hell did it smell like?
(TDub Nunc id vides, nunc ne vides on, Wed 9 Apr 2008, 20:43, closed)