Beef stock

[Oak Smoke]

We’re having a cool day today so I’m making beef stock. I roasted some beef leg bones, rib bones, and a bunch of oxtail with quite a bit of meat on the bones for 2 hours at 350 F. Now it’s simmering with onion, onion skins, carrot, and celery in the big stock pot in the kitchen. It smells so good in here right now. On a big batch like this I simmer it for about 24 hours. The stock I end up with will be very gelatinous. We use some freezable Tupperware like jars to store it in the freezer. My wife likes to spoon some out into a coffee cup and warm it up for part of her breakfast. I liked home made so much better than what I can buy for soups and stews.

[Davek8282]

Sounds excellent. Have fun

[58limited]

I do this a lot, same way you do except I often ad a sprig of rosemary from my garden - not a lot but it gives a nice depth to the stock. I tend to toss in any scraps too: celery tops, parsley that is starting to wilt, green parts of leeks in I have them, etc. It is so much better than store bought stock and really not much work.

[Oak Smoke]

Not much work at all. I keep a couple of gallon zip lock bags in the freezer that onion peels, leftover onions from hamburger night and left over raw carrots and celery go in. They freeze very well up to about 6 months then the carrots start looking bad.

[HawkerXP]

Would like a picture of this if possible.

[Oak Smoke]

Here you go HawkerXP. This is still in the starting stages, there’s about 20 more hours to go. For some idea of size there is 2.5 gallons of filtered water in there besides the other stuff.

[HawkerXP]

Don't stop here.

Take us all the way!!!

[TripleB]

I don’t usually have beef bones or oxtails in the freezer. But I love using homemade beef (and chicken) stock for soups, stews, chili, etc. For beef, I’ll buy a cheap 1.5-2 lb. round steak in the Mangers special section ( about $5), cube it, brown it, add veggies, 2 tsp “I can’t believe it’s whatever” bouillon, tomato and h20. I get a rich beef stock and the meat I chop up for dog food. Win-win.

[JeffJ]

Beef stock is a lot of work. I make it once per year - December. On Christmas we have beef stew. The rest gets used for a dozen bowls of French onion soup.

some decent store bought chicken broths can be decent, with beef stock the gap between homemade and store bought is immense.

[Oak Smoke]

I agree. We buy chicken stock at Sam’s, their Members Mark brand is as good as I can make. Since we have our own beef processed we have the option of having bones and lean cuts if we want them. I just use them making stock. I save leftover onions and onion skins in the freezer so there again I’m just using what would have gone in the trash. Normally I just go to the store and buy a bag of carrots and a bag of celery when I start a batch. It’s just not that time consuming when you’re retired.

[SheilaAnn]

I’m due to make a batch here soon. I also will have just some broth for a meal. Have you Oak Smoke tried seasoning with miso? Togarashi? Good stuff! And as I type, I can’t help but wonder how good it would be with a dash or two of a certain homemade spice mix…..

and as mentioned before, I portion into zip top bags, freeze flat and file away in the upright freezer door. 1 and 2 cup portions.

[Oak Smoke]

If it were just me mine would have a much deeper and complex flavor but the wife wants it pretty bland. She uses 90% of what I make so I defer to her tastes here. Good grief I put home made stuff on so much stuff now. I have this Sassy spice that kicks butt!

[SheilaAnn]

If I have to go store bought, this is my jams. $$$



it pours like loose jello…..

[JeffJ]

If it’s coming out gelatinous it’s a pretty good sign that actual bones were used, although they could just be using powdered gelatin to give a false impression. :-)