When making any stock there are certain guidelines you should follow to get the highest quality finished product (I borrowed this list from "On Cooking" by Sarah Labensky and Alan Hause). These guidelines are for the actual stock itself, they assume you already did any required prep work. They are (in order of occurrence):
- Start the stock in cold water
- Simmer the stock gently
- Skim the stock frequently
- Strain the stock carefully
- Cool the stock quickly
- Store the stock properly
- Degrease the stock
1. Start the stock in cold water
It's very important that you start your stock with cold water, by doing this the impurities, such as blood, bunch up and rise to the surface as the water is heated. If you add hot water right off the bat you won't get a gradual bunching up of impurities, they will stay mixed in with the water and won't rise to the top. This will create a cloudy stock.
You should also wait until after the stock has reached boiling and returned to a simmer before adding the mirepoix and the seasonings, this will aid in skimming the stock without removing any flavors.
2. Simmer the stock gently
You always want to keep your stock at a simmer, you should never let it boil. Boiling the stock will cause the fat and other junk you would normally skim off to recombine with the liquid.
3. Skim the stock frequently
As long as you don't boil the stock, fat and other impurities will rise to the surface, skim them off regularly.
4. Strain the stock carefully
When the stock is finished cooking you don't just want to dump the whole thing through a strainer, which would cause a lot of the impurities to mix back in with the liquid.
If you don't have a pot with a spigot on the bottom you'll want to skim as much off the top as you can then carefully ladle the liquid out. Once you've gotten as much liquid out as you can you should then strain it to remove anything that you may have picked up while ladling.
5. Cool the stock quickly
In order to prevent any food-born illnesses or spoilage of the stock you'll want to cool it down as fast as possible after it's finished cooking. Here are a couple ideas:
- If it's cold outside, cover the stock and set it on the porch
- If you're able to run water into the sink and have the overflow go into a drainage pipe or another part of the sink you can put the pot of stock on some blocks so the rim is above the highest water-line and fill the sink up. The reason you'll want to let the water run continuously is to keep fresh, cool water constantly replacing the warmed up water and to keep the water moving around the pot, cooling it faster.
- You can also take clean, water-tight containers filled with water and frozen and place them in the stock.
6. Store the stock properly
Once the stock is cooled down you'll want to transfer it to a sanitized pot, cover it and place it in the fridge. As the stock chills the fat will rise to the surface. You can store the stock for about a week like this. You should also check out the page on Glazing to learn how to keep your stock for months.
7. Degrease the stock
Degreasing the stock is simple, just skim the fat off the top when you want to use your stock (leaving the fat on until you want to use the stock will preserve it better).
Now go ahead, choose a stock from the menu on the right, get prepped and make a stock!