Chicken Stock (White Stock)

Ingredients

• 8 lbs chicken bones
• 1lb 4 oz yellow onion, cut in half and nothing but the sticker removed
• 4 oz carrot, peeled and cut in half
• 4 oz celery, cut in half
• 1 oz cilantro
• 1/8 oz thyme
• 2 cloves of garlic, unpeeled
• 2 bay leaves
• 1/2 tsp black peppercorns
• 2 cloves

Preparation

1. Put chicken in pot, cover with water and use a steamer insert to keep the chicken submerged.
2. Bring to boil
3. Reduce heat to a simmer and begin to skim the froth
4. When froth is mostly gone, skim the fat
5. Prep the vegetables and spices
6. Cut onion into halves
7. Push the cloves into onion halves
8. Cut each of the celery stalks and carrots in half
9. Wrap the cilantro, thyme and bay up with some sort of unbleached natural fiber string (You know, like cotton)
   
10. When the fat is mostly gone, remove the steamer insert and put the veggies and spices in the pot. Return the steamer insert to the pot.
11. Let simmer for 8 hours or so, or until the bones crumble when you squeeze them with tongs

Notes

• I used mostly store bought backs and necks this time around. Over 7 lbs store bought and less than 1 lb home. This batch is mostly bones.
• I separated the fat during cooking, after most of the skimming had been done, and before I added the veggies. The yield was about a cup of fat, but I probably lost quite a bit more during the skimming.
• I used a ladle to skim the fat, first getting mostly fat and putting it into a 2 cup measuring cup. I then started getting a lot of water, so I put the fat into a smaller vessel, and started pulling fat and water from the pot, dumping into a measuring cup, and then skimming the narrower neck of the measuring cup. This worked really well. I skimmed the fat from one measuring cup to another, and returned the leftover water to the pot. This took a couple of passes, but I got most of the fat.
• I think the 4 oz each of celery and carrots are fine, but onion should be 1 lb 8 oz, I think.
• It took about 3 hours to get from putting the pot on the stove (The bones were mostly frozen and the water was at about 40 degrees) to adding the veggies and spices. 1 hour to boil, 1 hour to skim froth and 1 hour to skim fat and then prepare the veggies. It should also be noted that I made breakfast for Erin and I did the dishes during this time. I left the pot to simmer starting at about 11:00 AM. I thank that next time, I could have the veggies chopped and the spices ready the night before, and I could be more attentive and reduce the 3 hours to 1.5 or less.
• The amount of stock that I had was 796g, 1 lb 12 oz, 28 oz, 3 ½ cups
• It had been in the fridge for 3 days, and had set pretty well. A thin layer of fat had formed, and because the stock was set, it was fused in place. I could not remove the fat without removing the very concentrated stock, as well.
• I warmed the stock over low heat and then cooled it down to 85-90 degrees. To cool, I put the stock in a metal bowl and put the bowl in the sink and used the faucet to run cool water on the sides of the bowl.
• I put the bowl in the fridge, and after 20 minutes, I was able to skim a thin layer of fat off of the top, and using a 3 inch fine strainer, I could pick up some of the floating clouds of fat that I disturbed. I put the bowl in the freezer to cool it quicker (It had gotten to 77 degrees). After 20 minutes, it was at 66 degrees, and it had set again. The remaining layer of fat was very thin, so I gave up and put it back in a saucepan and warmed it over very low heat.
• When the stock was back at about 135 degrees, I boiled some filtered water and prepared 4 glasses. I put a little salt in each (less than 1/8 tsp kosher salt) and put in the glasses, from left to right, 1/8 tsp, ¼ tsp, ½ tsp and 1 tsp. I then tared each glass and put in 50g of the boiled water (this is about ¼ cup)
• The two left glasses were clearly not the right mixture, as they were almost clear and tasted of nothing but salt water. The two right glasses were weak, as well, but closer to what I was looking for. I added 1½ tsp stock to the left glass, and 2 tsp to the right. Now the two glasses were 2 tsp and 3 tsp per ¼ cup. The 2 tsp was pretty good, so I then tried doing 1 tbsp per ½ cup and this experiment worked fine. At that ratio, 2 tbsp would make a cup, and 2 tbsp is what fits into my ice trays. It was still a little weak, but that is fine, as I can always double up if I need stronger flavor.
• After spillage (3 cups tasting, 2 spilled), my yield was 41 cups.
• This stock was very collagen heavy, but it was low on flavor. This is fine, but I think I am going to try a brown stock next time to see if I can get strong flavor and good density.
• I did not let the bones get to breaking point, so I think I could have made it even denser.

Ingredients (Amended)

• 10 lbs chicken bones
• 1 lb 8 oz yellow onion, cut in half and nothing but the sticker removed
• 4 oz carrot, peeled and cut in half
• 4 oz celery, cut in half
• 2 oz cilantro
• 1/4 oz thyme
• 4 cloves of garlic, unpeeled
• 3 bay leaves
• 1/2 tsp black peppercorns
• 2 cloves

Preparation (Amended)

1. Put chicken in pot, cover with water and use a steamer insert to keep the chicken submerged.
2. Bring to boil
3. Reduce heat to a simmer and begin to skim the froth
4. Push the cloves into onion halves.
5. Wrap the cilantro, thyme and bay up with some sort of unbleached natural fiber (i.e. cotton) string
6. When froth is mostly gone, skim the fat
7. When the fat is mostly gone, remove the steamer insert and put the veggies and spices in the pot. Return the steamer insert to the pot.
8. Let simmer for 8 hours or so, or until the bones crumble when you squeeze them with tongs.
9. Remove the chicken remains and vegetable matter, then strain the stock at least twice using a piece of cheesecloth and a strainer.
10. Cool the stock, refrigerate and then skim the layer of fat that forms.
1. This layer should appear as the stock cools, so if you cool the stock in the sink until it temps between 58 and 65 degrees, you could probably just chill it for a few hours to get it to around 40 degrees.
11. Reduce the stock
12. When the stock is reduced quite a bit, put a bit of salt at the bottom of a glass. Tare the glass, add 1½ tsp of stock and then enough filtered, warmed water to make 2 oz/56g. Drink a little bit and see how it is. If it is weak, reduce the stock some more. If it is too strong, dilute the stock in the glass until you get the correct ratio, than dilute the concentrate in the saucepan using the same ratio (see note below).
1. The goal is to find out if 2 tbsp (The volume of a cube in my ice trays) of the concentrate is equivalent to 1 cup of stock.
13. A 1/4 cup of liquid is 2 oz or 56g and 1 tbsp is 3 tsp, so 1½ tsp of concentrate makes 1/4 cup of stock.
14. To dilute the stock, start by repeating the exercise above to get a ¼ cup of stock. Add 1 oz of water and taste. If it is still too strong, add 1 more and so on until you get the right mix. If you added 2 oz water to the original 2 oz, you now have doubled the amount of liquid needed to dilute the concentrate. You can either make smaller cubes (1 tbsp = 1 cup) or double the liquid in the saucepan and keep the original ratio (2 tbsp = 1 cup).
1. The math for the above is: (concentrate) multiplied by number of ounces you ended up with over the number of ounces you started with. If you had 32 oz of concentrate in the pot, and when you did the glass experiment, you started with 2 oz, and added 2 oz, you will do 32 x 4/2 = 64. 64 is the amount of concentrate you want to end up with, so subtract the amount of concentrate you have (32) and you end up with 32 oz of water to add to the pot.