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Chicken Stock Breakthrough!


bdevidal

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The key issue in this method is sealing the container so that the volatile flavor compounds do not escape. To do that you need to have some way of making an air tight (and ideally water tight) seal.

Note that you must NOT bring the temperature to a boiling point if you have a sealed container - otherwise the pressure from the steam will burst the bag or seal.

Roasting bags, as listed in the first post are one good way to do this. The only issue is that the bags cannot be heat sealed, so you need to double bag them and try to make sure that the seal is done tightly with the supplied twist ties.

This approach to stock making could be done sous vide, however to do that you need to have a large chamber style vacuum sealer, and large bags.

You could also use sous vide style bags and heat seal them without a vacuum. For example, a Food Saver vacuum packer, or other edge seal vacuum machines will let you seal bags. Food Savers work poorly for liquids - they tend to get sucked up into the machine. However, you don't really need a vacuum at all in this case, just dial the vacuum down to zero and use the food saver to seal the bag with air in it.

A sealed sous vide bag (with or without vacuum) will get a much better seal than you can get with the roasting bag approach. You can turn it upside down and the seal won't break. I would NOT try this with roasting bags - the seal you get with the twist ties is not that good.

If you use bags (either roasting or sous vide), there is a useful trick once you are done. Instead of dumping the whole bag out the top, hold the bag at an angle and snip one of the lower corners off the bag with kitchen shears. The liquid will drain out and leave the meat, bay leaves etc in the bag. It also acts as its own funnel. This makes clean up simpler. Fat will rise to the top - if you don't want it in the stock you can keep it n the bag by pinching off the cut corner just before it drains out.

Instead of bags, hard containers can also be used. Mason jars like those used for canning work well - the gasket in the lid is made to take 250F and above so it will work fine at lower temp. Just seal the meat and liquid in large mason jars, and put them in the oven, or in a bath of water in the oven, or even a bath of water (big canning pot) on the stove. You must keep the temperature below boiling. Note that the result is NOT "canned stock" because the temperature is not high enough for canning.

Instead of an oven one could use a sous vide water bath. Or, you could probably use a crock pot, set on low. Mason jars, or sous vide bags set in water in a crock pot would work very well. Just check the temperatures - crock pots and slow cookers often have inaccurate thermostats.

However, the simplest way to do approach to stock making is with a pressure cooker - many people already have a pressure cooker in the kitchen, it is larger capacity than mason jars or sous vide bags and is made to seal tight.

Normally you use a pressure cooker above the boiling point of water, so it is actually under pressure. However, if you use a pressure cooker BELOW the boiling point of water, it is essentially an air and water tight sealed container, which is just what this techinque requires.

In this approach you load the stock ingredients in the pressure cooker, then put the whole thing in the oven at low temp (190F to 200F).

Some pressure cookers have plastic composite handles, and may not be OK in the oven, but most would work as long as the temperature is 190F or lower. The metal part of a pressure cooker routinely gets to 250F when it is pressure cooking, so the handle has to be able to take that - and usually some margin above it. So, even if if your pressure cooker says it is "not oven safe" - what they really mean by that is 350F and above. If you are 190F to 200F, it should work fine.

You could also use the pressure cooker on a stove burner, but only if you can turn it down low enough that it does not boil. Try the lowest setting and find out.

Using a pressure cooker for low temperture sealed stock making begs the question of why not turn up the heat and save a lot of time? Heston Blumenthal of the Fat Duck uses a pressure cooker for stock making (as discussed in many threads on eGullet). People often say that a pressure cooker will make a stock cloudy or have an off taste, but this does not occur if you do it right.

The key to doing this is to pressure cook the stock very gently by controlling the heat so that the the pressure valve barely reaches the point you want it to be. The pressure relief valve should not be whistling like a tea kettle. If you do that then there is some loss of volatile compounds, but very little. The time is cut dramatically - instead of 12 hours, an hour would suffice. However, if you prefer low temperature that is fine too.

In all cases you should cool the stock quickly after cooking unless you are going to use it immediately. The best way cool it is to put the bag, jars, or pressure cooker, into a large basin (or stopped up sink) with cold water and ice. Or, filter out the meat and bones and then either use it, or chill it.

Letting it sit and cool slowly is a bad idea from a food safety standpoint - there are some species of bacteria that have spores that could withstand the long low cooking and there is no point letting them germinate.

Although the topic of this thread is chicken stock, the same methods work for fish stock and meat stocks, with some adjustment of the time. Vegetable stocks can work as well. In all cases you are trapping the volatile flavor compounds. It means that your kitchen will not have that incredible smell in it during the stock making - because you are saving the smell and flavor for the final product.

One final point. All stock making works better if the meat and bones are cut up finely. This increases the surface area, and helps promote the flavor compounds leaching out into the stock. The best is to grind it with a meat grinder - bones and all. This has been discussed previously in other threads on eGullet.

Nathan

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This is fascinating. We need more trials. Volunteers, please step up and document, with photos if possible.

Here's what I did today:

1. took out a dozen chicken thighs, skin and bone intact:

gallery_42214_4635_86944.jpg

2. removed the bony bits with a paring knife:

gallery_42214_4635_43624.jpg

3. vacuum/heat sealed the bones with a litre of liquid water:

gallery_42214_4635_77634.jpg

4. cooked them in a big stock pot for 4 hours at 60 C:

gallery_42214_4635_43761.jpg

The bag is now cooling. It will be filtered and then refrigerated until tomorrow. I am a bit surprised at the brownness of the liquid, its not at all that lovely "chicken yellow" colour. There has been zero odor from this process so I'm thinking all those elusive volatile flavour compounds must still be in the bag.

Finishing and taste test tomorrow . . .

BTW I was so pleased with the outcome of the actual thighs I'm going to post them on the Dinner! forum.

Here's a teaser:

gallery_42214_4635_80339.jpg

Peter Gamble aka "Peter the eater"

I just made a cornish game hen with chestnut stuffing. . .

Would you believe a pigeon stuffed with spam? . . .

Would you believe a rat filled with cough drops?

Moe Sizlack

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Peter, what type of bag did you use?

Its a re-used milk bag, like the kind shown below:

gallery_28661_4647_82421.jpg

The tricky part was sealing the bag while full of liquid water!

Peter Gamble aka "Peter the eater"

I just made a cornish game hen with chestnut stuffing. . .

Would you believe a pigeon stuffed with spam? . . .

Would you believe a rat filled with cough drops?

Moe Sizlack

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this sounds like a great method to experiment with. i suspect i'll use the conventional method most of the time, since i use my chicken stock with pork and sometimes fish ... so i'm not looking for an intense chicken flavor. but if i ever am, this looks like the bomb.

nathanm, i'm curious to know what spores can survive an hour at 190 degrees? that's surprising.

Notes from the underbelly

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The bag is now cooling. It will be filtered and then refrigerated until tomorrow. I am a bit surprised at the brownness of the liquid, its not at all that lovely "chicken yellow" colour. There has been zero odor from this process so I'm thinking all those elusive volatile flavour compounds must still be in the bag.

Finishing and taste test tomorrow . . .

I must report that my experiment has proved inconclusive. I have been neglecting the little brown bag of proto-stock in my fridge for a few days and now it has sprung a leak. Its not a big mess but I'd rather start over - it has a bit of a pong, and there are cloudy bits about. I'm thinking a higher temp is required - maybe more cooking needs to happen?

Peter Gamble aka "Peter the eater"

I just made a cornish game hen with chestnut stuffing. . .

Would you believe a pigeon stuffed with spam? . . .

Would you believe a rat filled with cough drops?

Moe Sizlack

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The only oven bags I could find were these really thin transparent plastic sorts. I double bagged it, but it sprung a small leak anyways. I took it out after about 18 hours at 190. While it was good, I didn't find it mindblowing but I may have used a bit too much water (one advantage of the traditional method is that you can adjust the strength of the stock during the cooking process by letting it evaporate/adding more water as necessary: I could have boiled it down after but I assume that defeats the purpose? Someone needs to develop a precise recipe).

Incidentally, the stuff that had leaked out reduced to an amazing full-but-mellow-demi-glace-type liquid, I think the ultra-long evaporation produces a superior reduction to the high-heat method.

Martin Mallet

<i>Poor but not starving student</i>

www.malletoyster.com

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nathanm, i'm curious to know what spores can survive an hour at 190 degrees? that's surprising.

Botulism - Clostridium botulinum you need to get very high heat to kill it. It generally take 300 minutes (that is 5 hours) at 100C/212F. This is why people use pressure cookers for canning - 121C/250F for 10 minutes is a typical recommendation.

Here is some data:

http://www.anthrax-protection.org/BacterialDestruction.html

Nathan

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Nathanm,

I've got a chamber vac machine and waterbath/circulators but have not used them for stock making. I follow the Peter Barhum method of brown (for Malliard) then mince (for extra surface area) the ingredients as you say. But if I use the pressure cooker that Heston B has written about the resulting stock always has a bitter dry/powder aftertaste on the palate. why is this? So I've guiltily followed the inefficient candle-light/infusion of heat for 12 hours instead.

So if I use sealed bags, in your opinion, what temperature and for how long is optimum?

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Nathanm, 

              I've got a chamber vac machine and waterbath/circulators but have not used them for stock making. I follow the Peter Barhum method of brown (for Malliard) then mince (for extra surface area) the ingredients as you say. But if I use the pressure cooker that Heston B has written about the resulting stock always has a bitter dry/powder aftertaste on the palate. why is this? So I've guiltily followed the inefficient candle-light/infusion of heat for 12 hours instead.

So if I use sealed bags, in your opinion, what temperature and for how long is optimum?

I am not sure why your pressure cook stock is bitter or powdery. Perhaps you are cooking it too long, or too hard. Pressure cookers should be turned as low as possible for the vent valve to stay in range.

However, if you want to try sous vide stock making that is fine too. I am not sure what the optimum is - I use 190F/88C for poultry and red meat. However, I have not (yet) done exhaustive tests to find out.

That temp is high enough to denature the collagen into gelatin very well. Over a 12 hour cooking you will do a pretty complete job.

Nathan

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have you tried a thermos shuttle chef?

http://www.galtak.com/thermos.html

i use this to make stock all the time and get a prefectly clear and well flavoured liquid

Okay origamicrane that device is totally the $hit! It seems similar in theory to a pressure cooker, but without the alleged loss of nutrients nor the "KA-POW!" factor. :smile:

Inside me there is a thin woman screaming to get out, but I can usually keep the Bitch quiet: with CHOCOLATE!!!

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The Thermos Shuttle Chef is sold in the US as Thermos Cook and Carry or Thermos / Nissan Cook and Carry. Australian and UK web sites show 4.5, 6 and 8 liter models. US sources only seem to offer the 4.5 liter size. It is available on Amazon.com

This is basically a simple way to keep something at low temp. You heat it up, then let it steep for 7 to 8 hours.

Nathan

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This might be interesting for people who want to use a slow cooker or just like free stuff...

Slow cooker liners.

http://www.alcoa.com/reynoldskitchens/en/p...200&cat_id=1337

They are basically smaller oven bags. I'd imagine they are good size if you wanted to do the stock in a slow cooker.

Free sample offer:

http://www.alcoa.com/reynoldskitchens/en/p...ns/scl_main.asp

Edited by pounce (log)

My soup looked like an above ground pool in a bad neighborhood.

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Has anyone used chicken feet in their chicken stock? I'm about to get some, and I think I'll make a stock this way (I wrote it this way in a column recently): In my big cast-iron Dutch oven I’ll make a mirepoix:

Sauté some onion, celery and carrots, probably two of each. In the meantime take a chicken (I haven’t decided about the head yet) and chop it up into fairly small pieces, bones and flesh, cleanly, with a big cleaver – this makes the marrow more accessible. Add that to the pot along with the chicken feet scrubbed of toe-jam, ¼ cup of raw cider vinegar, 1 tablespoon of sea salt, and cover it all with filtered water, or water left out overnight to let the chlorine escape. Put the cover on nice and tight; bring it to a low simmer on the stovetop, then place it  in a 200 degree oven, and let it simmer in there for a day or so... well, maybe 6 or 7 hours.

What do you all think of that?

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Has anyone used chicken feet in their chicken stock? I'm about to get some, and I think I'll make a stock this way (I wrote it this way in a column recently):  In my big cast-iron Dutch oven I’ll make a mirepoix: 
Sauté some onion, celery and carrots, probably two of each. In the meantime take a chicken (I haven’t decided about the head yet) and chop it up into fairly small pieces, bones and flesh, cleanly, with a big cleaver – this makes the marrow more accessible. Add that to the pot along with the chicken feet scrubbed of toe-jam, ¼ cup of raw cider vinegar, 1 tablespoon of sea salt, and cover it all with filtered water, or water left out overnight to let the chlorine escape. Put the cover on nice and tight; bring it to a low simmer on the stovetop, then place it  in a 200 degree oven, and let it simmer in there for a day or so... well, maybe 6 or 7 hours.

What do you all think of that?

I intend to soon. Because of the demographic of the area I live in, they are readily available. I would think just the collagen would make it worthwhile - plus I have eaten chicken feet . :blush: They are not at all bad.

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I have seen various bits and pieces on the internet, about braising or potroasting meat in containers sealed with a basic flour and water dough. The advantage is of course, that when introduced to heat, the dough hardens and forms an air-tight seal.

Would this not be better than messing around with turkey bags etc? just find a stock pot with a lid, make the dough and seal the top, then bung it in the oven for 24 hours?

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I have seen various bits and pieces on the internet, about braising or potroasting meat in containers sealed with a basic flour and water dough. The advantage is of course, that when introduced to heat, the dough hardens and forms an air-tight seal.

Would this not be better than messing around with turkey bags etc? just find a stock pot with a lid, make the dough and seal the top, then bung it in the oven for 24 hours?

As long as the temperature is low (i.e. well below boiling 212F/100C) then simply putting the stock in a pot with a lid that it reasonably tight would work. Sealing with dough will help. But using a pressure cooker (but at low temp so no pressure) would be better, and won't have the clean up.

Nathan

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