Let’s talk Broth

Let’s talk broth
This week Andreas (my son) and I made 11 gallons (44 quarts) of chicken broth.
We use a lot of broth in our household. We go through at least 1 gallon a week, so I try to get as much broth as I can, out of the carcasses we have in the freezer.
I have 2 brew pots (40 qts & 20 qts) I use for making broth. They are meant for making beer, but are perfect for making big batches of broth. They have a spigot at the bottom, which enables me to skip the straining and skimming of fat, when I make broth. They also have a temperature gauge, so I can make sure it stays at a safe temperature when I make broth.
Making broth in our house takes almost a week. Here is why:
On day one I fill both pots with the carcasses, herbs and veggie scraps and bring them to a boiling simmer keeping them close to 200 degrees.
On day two I drain and can half of the broth, and then fill the pots back up with water.
On day 4 I again drain out half of the broth, can it and fill them back up with water.
On day 6 or 7  I drain and can the rest of the broth.
Using this method, I ended up with 44 quarts of chicken broth.
Sometimes I will also dehydrate some of the broth, add salt and some vegetable powdered to it. This way we have instant sipping broth or flavor enhancer for sauces and stews,
Now I will divide what plant and carcass is left and freeze dry it. After it has been freeze dried and ground to a powder, it will be spread out in my garden as fertilizer. I haven’t done this before, but know several people who do it, and it makes sense to me too.
Do you have any tips/hacks/tricks you do when making broth?

I freeze bones left from the fall butcher season, then pressure cook them as needed to make soups and stews.  Easy peasy,  a bit dependent on power, but I’ve got a generator and fuel to buy some time if I need it to can.

I just started making broth from leftover rotisserie chicken bones. It's great! I use it in lots of stuff. It's not very expensive from the store but home-made tastes cleaner and fresher, and is probably cheaper.

I have decided it's important to always pronounce broth with 2 syllables, a real quick glottal stop almost like a chuckle creeping into the middle of the word to separate the syllables. Much funnier word that way: "braw-hoth"

I may not have any tips or tricks at the moment but I wanted to take the time to tell you that I now want a shelf full of broth. I'm very jelly.

Ned Harr wrote:I just started making broth from leftover rotisserie chicken bones. It's great! I use it in lots of stuff. It's not very expensive from the store but home-made tastes cleaner and fresher, and is probably cheaper.

I have decided it's important to always pronounce broth with 2 syllables, a real quick glottal stop almost like a chuckle creeping into the middle of the word to separate the syllables. Much funnier word that way: "braw-hoth"

Well, at least now I understand your location.    I use a combination of rotisserie chicken bones plus the occasional culls from my smallish flock.

I use my Instant Pot in slow cooker mode to produce bone broth.  It makes smaller batches than the OP, but it works well and is easy.

Thanks for sharing that is a lot of broth!

I use bone broth for everything.  I especially like cabbage cooked in bone broth.  Of course, I feel this is one of the healthiest foods there is.

That stuff from the grocery store is like buying a can of water.

Those are cool pots you're using Ulla! Since I don't like beer, I'm particularly impressed with what I consider a "higher calling".

And you have access to a freeze dryer - I have used commercial freeze dried food in the past and preferred it over other options with the exception of the packaging needs. I'm sure there are alternatives.

And you've got a great set of shelves to store it on! I just wish someone would make shelves like that designed so that the "ledge" could go in the "up" direction - yes, I live in earthquake country! When I get a better storage system for my jars, making sure they won't all shake off and break will be high on my priority list.

I'm afraid that I make cheater broth. I put my bones in a basket in my small pressure cooker with water and a bit of vinegar. Grab walking onion greens, parsley and a couple other snips of herbs from my front garden to add nutrition (and a dandelion leaf or two) and pressure cook for about a half hour - younger duck and chicken bones a little less, heavier beef bones a little more. Yes, I know it isn't going to develop the nuanced flavor of a slow boil method, but it gets the job done. Generally I'm using broth in recipes that have a lot of flavor on their own, so I'm mostly looking for the nutritional boost that homemade broth can give me.

The spent bones go to the wood-stove for third stage processing, and from there to the garden.

Jay Angler wrote:Those are cool pots you're using Ulla! Since I don't like beer, I'm particularly impressed with what I consider a "higher calling".

And you have access to a freeze dryer - I have used commercial freeze dried food in the past and preferred it over other options with the exception of the packaging needs. I'm sure there are alternatives.

And you've got a great set of shelves to store it on! I just wish someone would make shelves like that designed so that the "ledge" could go in the "up" direction - yes, I live in earthquake country! When I get a better storage system for my jars, making sure they won't all shake off and break will be high on my priority list.

I'm afraid that I make cheater broth. I put my bones in a basket in my small pressure cooker with water and a bit of vinegar. Grab walking onion greens, parsley and a couple other snips of herbs from my front garden to add nutrition (and a dandelion leaf or two) and pressure cook for about a half hour - younger duck and chicken bones a little less, heavier beef bones a little more. Yes, I know it isn't going to develop the nuanced flavor of a slow boil method, but it gets the job done. Generally I'm using broth in recipes that have a lot of flavor on their own, so I'm mostly looking for the nutritional boost that homemade broth can give me.

The spent bones go to the wood-stove for third stage processing, and from there to the garden.

I do use my pressure cooker (I have 2 instapot and a pressure canner that I also sometimes use to pressure cook), if I have run completely out and don’t have the time to do a slow cooked broth. I don’t see it as cheating. Cheating would be to just use water or buy in the store.
I don’t like store bought broth, except the frozen from flavor chef which is expensive. Often the store bought stuff has MSG, and a lot of over flavor enhancers and preservatives. Here the bones are from out meat chickens and the veggies and herbs from my garden.

Ned Harr wrote:I just started making broth from leftover rotisserie chicken bones. It's great! I use it in lots of stuff. It's not very expensive from the store but home-made tastes cleaner and fresher, and is probably cheaper.

I have decided it's important to always pronounce broth with 2 syllables, a real quick glottal stop almost like a chuckle creeping into the middle of the word to separate the syllables. Much funnier word that way: "braw-hoth"

We also save the bones when we eat meat, but we use too much broth for that to be enough, so a few times a year I buy either chicken backs or feet from azure standard and make a mega batch like this.

Jay Angler wrote:Those are cool pots you're using Ulla! Since I don't like beer, I'm particularly impressed with what I consider a "higher calling".

And you have access to a freeze dryer - I have used commercial freeze dried food in the past and preferred it over other options with the exception of the packaging needs. I'm sure there are alternatives.

And you've got a great set of shelves to store it on! I just wish someone would make shelves like that designed so that the "ledge" could go in the "up" direction - yes, I live in earthquake country! When I get a better storage system for my jars, making sure they won't all shake off and break will be high on my priority list.

I'm afraid that I make cheater broth. I put my bones in a basket in my small pressure cooker with water and a bit of vinegar. Grab walking onion greens, parsley and a couple other snips of herbs from my front garden to add nutrition (and a dandelion leaf or two) and pressure cook for about a half hour - younger duck and chicken bones a little less, heavier beef bones a little more. Yes, I know it isn't going to develop the nuanced flavor of a slow boil method, but it gets the job done. Generally I'm using broth in recipes that have a lot of flavor on their own, so I'm mostly looking for the nutritional boost that homemade broth can give me.

The spent bones go to the wood-stove for third stage processing, and from there to the garden.

I got the idea to use a pot like this from watching cooking shows with professional chefs. One of them talked about pots like this, how useful and time saving they were, so I asked for a 20 qts for Christmas and loved it so much that I got another double the size. That said, using a pressure cooker isn’t cheating. I do it too, if I need to make a quick batch.
As for the freeze dryer. I got a small inheritance last year, and used it to get a medium freeze dryer, a grain mill and an oil press. We had also gotten to the food production level, where we either would have to buy another freezer (we have 3 already) or a freeze dryer. I love having it, especially for things I can’t can or freeze like melons for example and duck eggs. I waterglass all clean extra eggs, but duck eggs are always dirty, so I can’t save them that way. It has been a few years now since we had to buy eggs.
As for earthquakes, we get them too and I have the same wish. I use bungee cords on the edges of the shelves, and everything on the top shelves are in non breakable containers.

Admittedly we generally buy broth, we made it from scratch once, it just didn't ring necessary for us at this time.  Rather what we do is enhance the storebought broth, add water to stretch the amount of storebought we're using and then enhance with allthethings including bones.

I made a lot of broth from yak bones, the past two winters. We were slicing the meat and drying it, which left us with a lot of very hefty bones with bits of meat still clinging to them, as well as some gristly or fatty bits we chose not to dry.

First round, I simmered the bones for 12 to 24 hours with just water and maybe salt, but not vegetables or spices. This meant I could strain the broth out and pick the now tender meat off easily without it being mixed in with other stuff.

Second round, I simmered the now bare bones and as yet unmelted fat chunks with whole spices, garlic and onions, for another 12 to 24 hours. Now since there wasn't meat, I could strain it and discard the spent spices and alliums.

If I had time, I did a third round and added a tiny bit of vinegar or lemon juice. If I got the amount right, the resulting broth wasn't actually sour: all the acid had gone into dissolving bones and making broth out of them, and the bones got soft and seemed likely to break down pretty well in the compost.

Even for chicken bones, I found that simmering for at least 8 hours made much richer broth and softened the bones.

For fish heads and tails, 3 hours seemed sufficient.

I’m curious, has anyone ever made venison bone broth and did it gel? I’ve made a ton of bone broth from all our domestic animals and have no problem with gelling but this has me stumped.

Lexie Smith wrote:I’m curious, has anyone ever made venison bone broth and did it gel? I’ve made a ton of bone broth from all our domestic animals and have no problem with gelling but this has me stumped.

What venison bone are you using? Gelatin is created by the surface of joints. So if you broth the equivalent of hands and feet, you get lots of gelling. If you're using long bones and minimal joints, the broth is likely to be thin. You will still get the calcium and other good minerals out of it.  

Interesting! Good to know Jay! I’ve been making bone broth for years and didn’t know that. If my memory is correct, my last batch was made with long bones and vertebrae, but, my memory is definitely not anything in the realm of accurate. Thanks for valuable information, now if I can remember it…