chicken broth discovery

It's been awhile since I've bought a whole chicken to roast for meat and make broth with the bones and leftover meaty bits, and since then, I've read you should add some vinegar at the beginning. This is supposed to help leach the minerals out of the bones. In fact, I learned that soon after I made and canned my last batch of chicken stock, so I was eager to try it again. I *think* it was on Kitchen Stewardship, but in a brief perusal the other day I couldn't find which entry it was mentioned in - she has a few on making chicken stock.

So anywho - it worked way better than I expected. Check out the video!!



 Normally I bring it all to a boil, then let it simmer 24 hours, let it cool, then use a strainer to scoop out bones and such. I rest it on the brim of the pot and pick out the bones, and then scrub them with my fingers to get off any meat. The bones just crumbled! There were still some shards that had to be thrown out, but it was maybe 5%-10% of the total bone mass, it was incredible! With enough soaking and rubbing it just turns to mush. Woah! Imagine the difference of mineral content with all that marrow and bone matter! I didn't even use that much vinegar - maybe 3/4 c added to about 5-6 L of water with the chicken. Try it!

I also put two small handfuls of kelp meal in there, with the orange, onions and carrots and salt the chicken had roasted with, along with extra onion and lots of garlic and a good amount of crushed chilli pepper. Tony had some with supper the other night and he liked it; cooked, the vinegar taste is very subtle-to-absent.

The resulting stock is quite thick and dark; normally my jars of stock have meat gathered at the bottom and the rest of the broth is a transparent yellow, whereas these are like an opaque beige. Can't wait to use them!