I'm making this stock now and am confused by these two instructions:
"Let the stock gently simmer for approximately 8–10 hours, skimming and adding more water, as needed to keep the bones covered."

And:

"Cook the stock for approximately 9 hours, until it reduces by about 1/2."

If I keep adding water to keep the bones covered, then how will it ever reduce by about 1/2?

Also, I'm a little concerned because at about 6 hours in, my stock doesn't smell very good. I'm not sure exactly what it smells like, but far from delicious. Is that bad?

Sorry we didn't get to this question sooner...

To answer your question, as the bones and vegetables cook they will sort of break down or compress and become smaller...meaning they will take up less space, so adding more water should not be a problem.

Also, you don't always need to add more water. This is only necessary if they bones are sticking out of the water. No water covering the bones means no flavor will be extracted from those parts that are sticking out of the water.

As for the smell...veal stock never really smells that great...at least not to me (and many others here at Rouxbe). It just sort of smells like cooking beef bones.

I think that is why I most often make dark chicken stock instead of veal stock...it's culinary potpourri in the kitchen :-)

Thanks for the response, Dawn! That makes sense about the bones compressing.

I ended up not adding extra water, and at about the 8 hour mark, putting in the bouquet garni. Once the stock was reduced by half I finished the stock. After straining it, I let it cool, then put it in the fridge so I could take off the solidified fat in the morning, proud of a hard day's work.

Unfortunately, two things went wrong:
1) The stock came out kind of red-ish (maybe I used too much tomato paste?)
2) When I took it out of the fridge, a layer of fat was on top, but unfortunately below that layer of fat the stock had turned into a jelly. The only thing I can think of is that I should have let the fat separate out more before I put the stock in the fridge, or I should have used my fat separator.

Next time I think I'll be making a chicken stock; after 8 hours of veal stock smell, culinary potpourri sound lovely.

You mention that two things went wrong - the first being the red-ish tone...I think you are correct in that maybe you just used too much tomato paste...no biggy really, I am sure it will still taste great. That is the best part about cooking we get eat what we practice!

As for the "under the layer of fat the stock had turned to jelly" FANTASTIC! This means your bones had a good amount of fat and gelatin in them. This is why homemade stocks will reduce down to that nice sauce-like consistency when you are making pan sauces.

Nice work! Happy Cooking with your stock!

I was definitely NOT expecting the jelly-like consistency to be a good thing! :)

So now that my stock isn't at all liquid, how do I use it in a recipe? If I heat it up will it turn to a liquid? Do I mix it with water?

Fear not Jon, the stock will liquefy as soon as it is reheated. Do not add any water or else you will only water down the taste. Hope this helps!

Thanks!

In your video presentation the garlic was never added to the mirepoix.

Alex V | Feb. 04, 2010

Might be hard to catch but at around 00:56 of step 1, the garlic is on the tray of vegetables that is being placed into the oven.

I made a stock similar to this using beef ribs. I started with 6 quarts of water and by the time I had reduced it to the point where it tasted like rich delicious stock with the compex flavor I was looking for I had 3 cups. I used it for pan sauces and it was awesome but I only got three meals out of it using 1 cup per pan sauce. Did I have to reduce it so much because I used ribs? Would I get more stock with that rich flavor if I would have used different bones? My stock never jelled and I am sure it was because I used ribs instead of shanks or shoulder bones. I spent 10 hours making 3 cups of stock! It was worth it but I would like to end up with a little more stock for my efforts.

There could be a few reasons why you got so little. For example the ratio of bones and mirepoix to liquid. I suggest you watch the Rouxbe Cooking School Lesson on How to Make Stock Fundamentals. This will provide you with many of the answers you may be looking for. There are also a few other lessons on stock making - How to Make Dark Stock and How to Make Veal or Beef Stock. Cheers!

I just got some veal knuckle bones from my butcher!
I am excited to make the veal stock ... I always get excited when I am about to make stock.

The 9L yield (I know it is approximate) is for the stock or the reduction?

Thank you

The volume estimation is for the stock. How far you want to reduce it is up to you. Have fun making your stock! Cheers!

Making stock is a time consuming operation. Yet, so is cooking. Proper cooking takes time. After-all it is the love we put into each dish, regardless of the time, that makes us all happy and greatful for the experience of cooking all things well. Stock is a difficult task for most of us. As stated, before, so much work for so little results, is a questionable exercise. Yet, Once you complete this laboriuos task, you'll never buy stock from any store again. There is no replacement for the feelings of accomplishment of making your first successfull stock! Nor, can any store bought stock/broth every replace the most wonderful favors of that home made beautiful stock, regardless of its' origine. You can freeze stock and take a little at a time to make the most wonderful favors ever. Do not stop, make that stock, store the stock, and savor tha favor until it is time to make more. I hope each time, that when I remove the layer of fat, after the chilling period, that there is the most wonderful jelly below. Hail the jelly! Hail to stock! Hail to all that love the wonderfulness of cooking! Stock is a most precious ingrediant! It only took me about 10 times before I perfected the operation "STOCK!" After all, one can not learn until mistakes are made and over-come. Keep cooking to all, try it all, and continued success to ROUXBE! Your the greatest! Terry R. Jacksonville, North Carolina

Can you mix and match bones? For example, we had Veal Osso Buco last weekend and I froze the bones. Can I combine those with some different beef bones to make one stock? And then, since the bones have already been cooked, is it still necessary to caramelize at 425 degrees? Is beef ever purchased for the sole purpose of making stock and then discarded as in chicken stock? Thanks.

You can mix different beef bones together. Since the bones have been frozen, it might take a long time to try and caramelize them since all that moisture has to evaporate. Even though they have been previously cooked, the bones themselves wouldn't have caramelized (perhaps on the ends, but they would have been protected by the meat). It's up to you. You can caramelize the new bones for a bit more flavor and just add the leftover bones to the mix. Beef and veal bones are definitely purchased for making beef stock and are discarded after. It will be useful to watch the lesson on How to Make Dark Stock and How to Make Beef and Veal Stock. Cheers!

Can you please give me the ratio of bones, mire poix, and water for a 20 quart stock pot?

I think this might be what went wrong with my last batch. Actually it was really good, but cooking times differed as well as viscosity.

The recipe calls for a 10 to 12 qt stock pot so I would just increase everything by double. cheers!

Thanks Dawn, So double the amount of hours from 10 to 20 on simmer?

I was only suggesting to double the ingredients not the time. The time may need to be increased slightly but not necessarily. You still want to follow the same indicators when determining how long to cook it. Cheers!

Should the bones be completely "empty"? After I had already removed the bones and was about to throw them out, I noticed there was a lot of gelatin still inside the bones.

should I have cooked longer, or tried to remove it with a spoon?

The bones should be fairly bare after cooking. Sounds like you may have wanted to cook it a bit longer that gelatin will add more flavor and body the stock. Ah! the beauty of practicing. At least we get to eat what we make. Cheers!

It all makes sense now. This is probably why my demi glace didn't have that thick consistency. Still, it's delicious but next time I think I'm going to get it perfect.

Thank you so much this really helps!!

Sorry, this is going to be a little long but I have some questions.

I used 20 lbs of veal bones.

Question one:

As I was making my roasted veal stock yesterday I read where Thomas Keller will re-simmer the "left-over" bones, and mirepoix in clean water a second time for four hours, called remouillage.

I did that and couldn't believe this morning that the second re-simmered batch was just as tasty and gelatinous as the first, although dark, not as dark as the first batch.

So I combined both this morning and am now on my third day reducing, 7 more hours.

I initially finished the roasting at 1:30 a.m., exhausted, then threw bones into a pot of water set on low and didn't get a chance to do any skimming until morning. It tastes good, but worried about skipping that step for the first 8 hours.

Would like to hear your thoughts on the-no skimming part for the first 8 hours on an extremely low flame.

Second question:

Even though I bought a cleaver to chop the gigantic bones up, still couldn't get them into small chunks. So I'm wondering because I couldn't get them small, is that the reason the remouillage came out tasty and gelatinous?

Looking into the bones the second time after I re-simmered them for another four hours-they still had a good amount of soft bone marrow, but was tired and finally threw out the bones.

Third question:

I simmered the bones initially for 14 hours. I did it longer this time because they are still so huge. But was reading about what temperature the water should be and come to find out my simmer wasn't high enough so when I raised the flame a bit scum started raising to the surface.

I'm thinking because it was at a low simmer all those hours, (like too low), maybe there wasn't much scum to skim to begin with and maybe all this time I could have extracted a lot more flavor out of all my stocks because I couldn't be more accurate without a thermometer.

So what should the temperature of the stock be while skimming? 190 degrees? 180 degrees? For me I'm lost without a thermometer especially when cooking stock in these crazy large pots, not to mention checking the done-ness of meat. I never thought to use it in a stock.

Last question:

Usually I strain my stock with a thicker cloth (not the loose cheese cloth) over a strainer much like a mesh-like chinoise. I never have any of those grains in the bottom of my stocks anymore after figuring out how to do this.

Yesterday I made double the amount I normally do so skimming became a sort of nightmare. The cloth got clogged with a bunch more of thick solids stuff than usual. At first I was thinking it was scum so I kept rinsing out the cloth.

But then I realized, I'm probably throwing out FLAVOR and it's supposed to be there. What was that brown thick stuff? Was it mirepoix? In any event I stopped throwing it out and put it back into the stock. Should I have kept pushing that brown thick stuff through the strainer into the stock pot, or have discarded it?

Last question.

Since my stock pot is so huge (and thin) I use a cast iron heat diffuser between it and the burner for better heat distribution. So it's not easy to regulate the temp very quickly. Sometimes I get that bubble or two rising to the surface, sometimes it comes to a light simmer in the center of the pot, so I turn it down. I also know the stuff at the bottom of the pot is going to be much warmer than what's at the top. Any comments on this would be appreciated. Especially surface temp to watch out for.

I'm beginning to see where stock making is more of an art form, the more I do it the more questions I have.

One day I would like to get so good at this I can become a stock maker. Is there such a thing, a stock maker? Ha!

Well, one thing I did learn I am very grateful for. Many times when I see roasted bones for stock, it looks to me like there's a lot of black bits in the bottom of the pan and I've seen chefs on videos go ahead and throw them into the pot.

I get so worried about those black bits turning my stock bitter, I'm probably under-roasting my bones.

This time around I didn't seem to have a choice about the black bits and had more than usual which I usually throw out. I thought about throwing them out this time, but then realized there's a lot of black bits stuck to all those bones too, so it's not going to make much difference as they'll be in the pot anyway.

So I added the red wine to deglaze and simmered away. Then tasted, it was horribly bitter. so I nearly threw EVERYTHING out, but then realized the bitter I was tasting may be from the wine, hello!

so the next batch of bones I roasted (had to roast four separate trays of bones, I decided to actually taste one of those black bits. It tasted yummy. So I deglazed that time with water and tasted. It was good. I am no longer afraid of those black bits. I realized if you look really close to those "black bits" Yes they are dark, but you can see a lighter brown around the edges, that's when it occurred to me to taste them. Duh!

So TASTING is really really important. I get that now. Thank God! Those black bits made me sooooo nervous every time I make roasted stock. They still do, but now I know to taste them if there is any question.

Thanks for listening and any comments you might have.

One the last question, second paragraph that begins with:

"Yesterday I made double the amount I normally do so skimming became a sort of nightmare."

I STRAINING!

Sorry!