Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Beef Bone Broth or Stock

It's realitively easy to make your own broth or stock and so much better for you because you control the sodium and you can make it even more healthy than anything in a box or can.  Your bone broth freezes easily for almost immediate use.

You start with some good bones.  Shank or knuckle bones from good grass-fed, naturally raise beef is a MUST.  This day I used some Beef Short Ribs as I was out of the other.  From our NATURALLY RAISED, GRASS-FED BEEF of course.

Since I used the Short Ribs I took the time to braise them (brown on both sides in hot skillet with 1 tablespoon olive oil and 1 tablespoon butter or just coconut oil).  Place the meat bones, 1 quartered organic onion (yellow preferred but I only had a red one that day), 3 organic carrots, washed (no need to peel) and broken into pieces, 3-5 organic garlic cloves, peeled, handful parsley and 2-3 bay leaves in a STAINLESS STEEL stock pot with 1-2 gallons of water.  Bring to a boil, reduce heat,  simmer for one hour.



After simmering one hour remove the meat only, cool, remove meat from bones, add 2 tablespoons pure organic apple cider vinegar to the pot along with the bones.  Cover and simmer for 10-12 hours on low.  The vinegar will actually add the benefit of drawing much of the calcium from the bones directly into the broth resulting in a calcium rich broth.  At this point you can add salt and pepper to taste and any other herbs you might like to add.



Now you are going to drain the broth though a collander over another STAINLESS STEEL stock pot and let drain for a few minutes.  I then allow some cooling of the broth by adding the pot to a sink of ice water then I put it in the refrigerator to totally cool.




Once cold you will see that the fat is at the top of the pot.  You can now drain again and remove that extra fat from the broth.


You are now ready to bag.  I use labeled zip lock bags, a 2 cup measure, and a large jelly roll or cookie sheet pan.

Two cups of broth go into each bag.


The bags are then laid flat on the cookie sheet of folded over like mine, depending on how you want to store them.  I fold mine because I then store them in the door section of my freezer.  If they are laid perfectly flat they will stack nicely in  your freezer.

I use Beef Broth in recipes but also as a drink when I'm not feeling well or have been accidently 'Glutened' (got some glutten accidently).


2 comments:

  1. I freeze my broth in exactly the same way! I had never thought of taking the meat off after a short while and re-doing the bones. I usually just boil the whole thing for 12 to 24 hours. You can use the bones 2 or 3 times. Each batch gets a little less "potent" with less gelatin and such, but it's still good for you. Chicken bones can only be used twice. I also leave the fat in mine since I've read about the many benefits of healthy, quality fat. Plus it makes it taste better!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I agree about the fat! I used the meat from the bones on this batch for shredded BBQ Beef Sandwiches. Thanks for sharing!

    ReplyDelete