I have been making chicken stock for a few months now from scratch and it is so easy and so fulfilling. Recently I was told I needed more iron to help curb being so tired and guess where you can get a lot of it? Animal bones. So how do we get the good stuff out of those bones? Why stock of course! While I have enjoyed having a mug of chicken broth with meals the past week, I really am a beef lover so I thought it would be good to mix things up and make my own beef broth. I just placed my special order for all the bones I need to make the stock and I pick them up tomorrow.
Why make your own stock? This is an easy answer–store bought stock is basically water with flavorings and synthetic vitamins and toxins. Truly homemade stock is nourishing in every way and it just tastes so darn good! I freeze quart sized containers and just take one out to use in various recipes (rice, soups or sauces) or just drink it in a mug before a meal.
The hard part is achieving the gelatinous consistency. That gelatin is apparently really good for you.
Here is the recipe:
Beef Bone Broth/Stock
Ingredients
- 4 pounds of beef marrow, knuckle bones
- 3 pounds meaty rib or neck bones
- 4 or more quarts cold water
- 1/2 cup vinegar
- 3 onions, coarsely chopped
- 3 carrots coarsely chopped
- 3 celery sticks, coarsely chopped
- several sprigs fresh thyme, tied together
- 1 teaspoon dried green peppercorns, crushed
- 1 bunch parsley
Directions for Stock Pot
- Place all of your bones that have meaty bits on them on alarge cookie sheet (with sides) or roasting pan and brown in the oven at 350 degrees until well-browned (30-60 minutes usually).
- Meanwhile, throw all of your non-meaty marrow bones into a stockpot, add the water and vinegar. Let sit while the other bones are browning. The vinegar brings out the minerals (which is what we want) so don’t skip this step.
- Add the browned bones and the vegetables to the pot, deglaze your roasting pan with hot water and get up all of the brown bits, pour this liquid into the pot. Add additional water if needed to cover the bones.
- Bring to a boil and remove the scum/foam that rises to the top. Add thyme and peppercorns. No need to remove the floating fat. Reduce heat, cover and simmer for at least 12 hours and as long as 72 hours. The longer you cook the stock, the more rich and flavorful it will be. 10 minutes before you stop cooking, add the parsley which imparts more minerals.
- After a 2-3 hours you will want to ‘rescue’ any of the meat you need for recipes or marrow that you’d like to eat. Using tongs find your marrow bones, pop out the marrow with a small knife and return the bone to the pot.
- After you simmer for 12-72 hours, remove the bones with a slotted spoon and/or tongs. Strain the stock into a large bowl, then ladle into wide mouth mason jars. Let the jars sit until they are pretty cool, then freeze or refrigerate. You can remove the congealed fat after refrigerating or even freezing, if you want to reduce it a step. You can feed the fat to the birds!
UPDATE: Directions for Instant Pot click here!
My husband and I just placed an order for our first ever 1/4 grass-fed cow. I plan on making beef broth from the Plate Boiling Beef, Shank, Bones and Oxtail. I would like to use all 4 of the above in the same batch of broth so that I can just do this once for a bigger yield. Would you recommend your recipe for these cuts? Any alterations that I should consider? TIA. Next, I will need to learn how to utilize the other offals too…yikes beef heart!
I much prefer the flavor of the broth of roasted bones, but still want all the mineral content I can get. Can I add the vinegar after roasting all the bones, rather than just part of them as in your bone broth directions?
You can just omit the vinegar if you like it the way you do it. It isn’t that important! Enjoy your broth!
Can you use a crockpot to make the broth, given the suggested, long cooking times? I wouldn’t want to keep the gas cook top ignited all night long.
I don’t recommend this. You don’t get the same ‘gel’ on the broth. I keep my gas on all night and have never had an issue. But if you are worried then just set your oven to the lowest setting and put in in there all night.