My chicken stock is a gelatinous mess

hoglet121

Thanks - I will try using less water. I don't have a slow cooker but I know it's possible to create gelatinous stock on the hob, I will persevere!

lostinrates

hoglet121 wrote: »

I always use free range or organic birds, so it has nothing to do with the quality of the bird. I suspect I use too much water and don't cook for long enough - usually an hour or so. I normally add enough water to just cover the carcass but perhaps this is too much.

I'd guess not long enough,

When I make stock its for much longer. Mainly because I'm in the kitchen all day.

Its nothing to do with the quality of the chicken. While I use quality organic or home reared bird, my home birds are exceptionally lean and sometimes not always that great quality ( stewing birds rather than gourmet roasting birds, ones we have hung on to for far too long:o) and my aunt in law once brought non free range chicken wings in to my kitchen and we also got beautiful stock from them, just an unpleasant taste in the mouth when we realised my ethically raised would clash with the visiting relatives kosher at the price point she had procured at could never happen again.

A.Penny.Saved

The length of cooking makes all the difference. However I cooked beef bones, which I had cut down the centre with a saw, for 18 hours in a pressure cooker set to high pressure and the stock seemed pretty poor IMO. It was my first go but a bit of a disappointment. The bones had disintegrated a lot but there was not much gelatine. The bones I purchased, the butcher did not have much, were not really ideal.

Chicken does not appeal to me though.

building_with_lego

Hoglet, mine takes about 1hr on the hob with the lid half off- I break the carcass up as much as I can when I strip the meat off, then cram it all in and just cover with boiling water, an onion and some bits of carrot/ celery/ bay leaves wtc. It always jellifies as it sets and only goes a bit watery when I defrost it.

meritaten

Its rare that I get 'jellified' stock but it does happen occasionally! I cant figure out how either. I do it the same way every time.

I wouldn't worry about very liquid stock though - watching the 'barefoot contessa, hers looks very watery and insipid!

hoglet121

Thanks lostinrates and building with lego. I will leave it on the hob for much longer in future.

Cottage_Economy

Been doing some research on extracting gelatin from bones, and the sources I've seen all seem to say the longer you simmer the bones the more gelatin and minerals leech from them.

Apparently chicken feet make a very gelatinous stock. Would a butcher sell a bag of chicken feet that could be frozen and a couple chucked in each time?

Edited to add: apparently chicken heads are good for gelatin production in stock too. However I draw the line there. I'd feel like a witch with head and eyes rolling around in there.

sooty&sweep

Hi
I often find stock sets when its chilled but when it warms up abit it goes liquid.

Jen

Ches

Mine always goes like this if I leave it to cool. I warm it through till liquid enough to strain then I pick the bones adding the meat back into the stock. Can be used or frozen at this point. Never hurt anyone yet and I have been doing it this way for years.

lostinrates

Ches wrote: »

Mine always goes like this if I leave it to cool. I warm it through till liquid enough to strain then I pick the bones adding the meat back into the stock. Can be used or frozen at this point. Never hurt anyone yet and I have been doing it this way for years.

This is what I am doing if I make chicken soup. I tend to keep my wings for chicken soup ( when the animals aren't having them, my pets usually get the wings raw you see) and the rest of my my more bare carcasses for stock.

I really fancy chicken soup now!