1 hour ago, Shel_B said:
Quite a few times over the past decade, Sweetie and I (mostly Sweetie) have made stock from leftover rotisserie chicken. The result has always been too salty for me, but Sweetie found it acceptable for her taste. I'd make the stock for her when I had a rotisserie chicken (always from Costco) ...
Now, with the Instant Pot, I tried making "carcass stock" a few times, and saltiness was still a problem. I stopped adding the skin, started adding fresh chicken, and cooked it longer in larger quantities of water. That helped tone down the saltiness to an acceptable level, but it still minimized the choices for which I'd use the stock.
So, how have you dealt with the saltiness, or has it even been an issue for you? How do you prepare and cook the bones? I'd like to get more use from the bones.
I must be in Sweetie's erstwhile camp. I've never felt that the stock made from the carcasses was too salty. Granted, I don't usually put the skin in (because I've already eaten it, or shared it with my dog). I'm a bit surprised that skinless carcasses still produce too salty a stock for you; most of that salt should be in the skin, or the meat that was already taken from the carcass. Granted, in my case the wing tips and joint cartilege go into the pot; maybe there's some residual salt there?
As for what I do: it's pretty pedestrian these days. Pull the meat off the bones; break the bones at the joints so they'll fit more compactly in the pot (this includes breaking up the breastbone and the spine); cover with water; pressure cook for 50 minutes. I haven't bothered with any aromatics the last few times I've done this. Then, if I've used the IP as I did this time and had the carcass in a basket, I just pull the basket out, drain the juices into the rest of the stock, and simmer the stock to intensify it a bit. Right now, after 4 hours of sitting in an open pot on the Slow Cook mode, I'm still looking at around 4 quarts of stock. I could probably boil it down more, but this will do for my purposes.
Edited to add: now that I've put the stock into containers, and had a taste, I will tell you that this stuff is nothing to write home about. I've noticed before that uncooked chicken produces a thicker stock, no doubt because there's much more collagen. This stuff that I've made today won't gel, ever. The only way it's likely to be solid is if it freezes! So...concentrating it would have been better. Aromatics would have been better. Still...it'll do for boiling pasta or potatoes or some such and adding a touch more flavor. And no, I don't think it's particularly salty.
