Beef Bone Broth, Part 2

Okay, so it's the next day now. Last night I removed some meat off the bones before placing the whole mess in the crock pot to simmer over night. It's not a huge amount of meat, but enough for a nice pot of beef barley someday.

Before going to bed I put the crockpot on it's lowest setting and added a good dash, maybe 1/4 cup of apple cider vinegar to the broth. The acidity of the vinegar helps to leach all the good minerals out of the bones.


In the morning I pulled all the bones out of the broth with tongs. As you can see some of the bones are cleared right out, the marrow releasing itself into the broth. Other bones need some help. I use various methods to accomplish that. With poultry I use a nut cracker or seafood cracker thing. You can also simply loosen with a knife by sticking it into the ends of the bones and twisting it around a bit. I have also been known to take a hammer to some of them! I want that marrow!!! With that said, don't obsess over every little bit of it. Some of it can be pretty hard and resistant. Just get what you can. Once that is done slide the whole mess back into the pot.


Now it's time to add the vegetables that flavor your stocks and make them yummy good. I use carrot, onion and celery. This picture doesn't look like a lot but it was actually quite a bit; 2 onions, quartered, several stalks of celery with leaves, and 5 carrots, chunked. I use a bit more carrot in beef broth than I do in chicken because the carrot will help to "sweeten" the broth, meaning not a sugared sweetness, but that good balance between "savory" and "sweet". Don't be concerned with perfect cleaning and chopping. All the onions need is the outer skin removed, and the carrots and celery are both organic so just got a rinsing and then the ends cut off.


The only spices I use in broth making are a decent salt, a small handful of pepper corns, and several bay leaves. I spent years making broths trying all kinds of combinations of herbs and spices, only to learn that they don't always end up tasting good. Bay holds up to the long cooking times and gives great flavor, but other spices taste bad after being cooked for so long, so I add those to the foods I'm making with the broth, rather than into the broth itself.

Here's the broth on it's last stage ready to simmer for a few more hours. And below is the finished product ready to strain. Put the pot of strained broth in the frig overnight to cool. Then you can defat if you want the next day. At that point the broth is ready to use or package into freezer containers for future use.

So, there you go...beef bone broth. A little time consuming but well worth the effort.