I like bacon
In: Chemistry
While fat will congeal at room temp (warm water-ish levels), bacon grease isn’t terribly pure. We can roughly attribute its behaviour to that though.
Regardless, just like any phase transition, individual parts of a state can transition at a macro temperature below the phase change. i.e. Fat is able to partially melt below its actual melting point of [whatever – its probably just above room temp as lipids aren’t bound terribly strong] due to localised distribution of heat.
It’s the same reason why a puddle is able to evaporate slowly over time even though the puddle itself obviously isn’t heated to 100 Celcius (the actual boiling point of water). But how fast and readily it evaporates is governed by how much closer to 100 its macro temp is.
Perhaps a more intuitive example is chocolate. While chocolate melts a bit above room temperature, You should definitely find that handling or even eating chocolate is much different in a cold environment vs a warm environment. Even before it literally melts we can feel the chocolate start to take on a slightly liquid-y state and characteristics
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