Brad Makes Bone Broth

Hey guys I'm here with It's Alive up here in my house

in coastal Connecticut, and we're gonna be

making beef bone broth.

Say that five times bone broth, bone broth,

bone broth, bone broth.

Here's our bones. I'm Brad. Let's make some broth

[upbeat island music]

The big difference between bone broth and just a stock

which we made an episode before, you know

about like a master stock, a type

of a multi species stock that I like.

It's got big aromatics.

It's got, you know, celery

the classic mirror plot.

Soup party, my kind of party, babe.

And for me, bone broth is more simple.

It's just the bones and some water.

I tend to add half

of a lemon and maybe a couple little aromatics

and a little bit of garlic, but nothing

like I would would a stock.

All these bones you know, if you were to cut it open

on a bandsaw, they'd be hollow.

It's the traditional marrow bone filled

with basically a type of fat in there.

If you can get like shanky knuckles or joining parts

of beef by all means. The more connective tissue,

the more jointy, the better when it comes

to making a big stock or a broth.

So yeah, we're just gonna blanch these off.

Boiling hot water for, you know, just a few minutes.

And again, that's just gonna draw

off some of the impurities and get this party started.

I'm waiting for a big giant stock pot.

That's got a little bit of water in there to come to a boil.

I'm still stuck cooking with electric over here,

but I'm gonna get that converted soon to good old propane.

This is never gonna boil.

Oh good God.

[tongs clacking]

I can't do this anymore.

[gong bell]

Who would've known.

All right, here we go.

Bones going in the blanching water

blanching will it draws out some of the impurities

off of the meat

and off the bone brings out some nasty little scum.

This is bypassing a whole skimming

the scum as our buddy, Matty likes to say.

Skim the scum!

Oh, back to the bone, duh Brad.

Hello Brad! When you put things in hot water,

you have to make a face, right?

It's like,

All right it's beautiful, perfect.

Now we're gonna let that descuzzify

for about 5, 6, 7 minutes.

And then I'm gonna pull 'em off and we're gonna roast them.

We got my oven going at 500.

We're gonna put 'em right on the roasting racks.

Little olly oil just to help the caramelization.

Let that come back up to a boil.

And then we'll start pulling bones out in a minute or two.

You got a minute Kev.

Oh my God. We're back to this.

[head bangs on vent hood]

That's a good point for a proper distraction.

We're gonna add these just cuz they caught my eye

and I forgot about 'em and you know what?

Fine, I said, oh, we gotta keep it real.

Just bone broth.

But I got some dried mushrooms.

I forgot about an old chunk of chicken of the wood.

[chicken clucking]

And then we go out a little piece of Lion's Mane.

Little chunk of Head of the Wood, it looks like.

And then a couple little chunks of Shitake stems.

We'll add those right into the party.

Why not?

You know, at this point I don't even care.

We're just getting crazy now.

Little sprig of thyme

and little pink peppercorn

and a Chili de Arbol

and a cinnamon stick.

I like where we're going with this.

I like these kind of warmnesses.

These warmnesses in my stock.

[buzzer]

It's not stock it's bone broth.

I like to throw a little, allspice in

just a little. We're not going nuts here. Just a little bit.

I'm talking just a couple. Bop. Bop. Bop

I'm picking up what I'm putting out down.

So turn the water off.

I with the ladle took off some scum already.

This is a second layer of scum.

And now we're gonna pull the bones.

I give a little drizzle, the olly oil.

It's got plenty of its own fat on it

but some of those little meaty bits

I like to get a little help, get a little brown on them.

And then at that point I also hit the onions

with it too.

Onions, little ginger

let that get a little roasty on there.

A little bit of garlic.

Uh Oh.

And we'll put that right in the oven.

I got it going.

I got it going at 550.

I'm sorry.

I got it going at 500 degrees.

And this is gonna take a good 30, 40, 50 minutes

to get a real nice solid thing on him.

In about 20 minutes I'll come and put the top,

and switch 'em top to bottom.

Give 'em a little spin.

Keep an eye on 'em.

You don't wanna burn 'em but you wanna pick up

a nice roast on em.

So bones are done, right?

Roast it up.

It's been about 30 minutes, 30 minutes. I'd say.

All right, getting roasty.

Some of that fat starting to render off

you can see all the meat got nice and caramelized.

That's gonna add color, but most importantly

it's gonna add flavor.

Add those bad babies, right to the thing.

There's nothing in the stockpot right now.

And then look a little bit of that roasted ginger,

and a little bit of that roasted garlic.

Just throw it in there.

You don't wanna go pouring fat down the drain, okay.

Just don't don't do it.

Oh, you're gonna clog up the systems ruin my septic tank.

That'll cost me $50,000!

No, but really don't put fat

down the drain as soon as it gets cool

it just turns into a bar of soap, but just, you know

it gets hard again and no bueno, no bueno

for the septic or even the city systems.

Okay. Bad for the sewers.

But if you collect it and strain it

you can cook with it and it's delightful.

All right.

Pop, pop, pop.

So we got our bones in here, time for the wild cards.

Okay. I got two little sticks of north Atlantic Sugar Kelp.

Some may call it combo. Dried chicken of the woods.

One stalk of lemon grass.

Oh God.

It just goes so well with beef.

It goes great with everything.

It's one of my favorite smells in the world.

Our little warm spices.

Remember our little peppers, our allspice, our star anise

our cinnamon stick right in there.

Okay. Little bit of Lion's Manes just for funs.

All right.

A little bit of thyme.

Some bay leaves right in there.

Some of our other mix of mushrooms, boom.

Right in there.

Right? Just some flavor agents.

Now we're gonna top it off

with a little cold water just enough to cover all the bones

with about an inch or so this is a big pot, but again

we're gonna cook it for a lot of time

and we're gonna let it evaporate and simmer down.

Pulling all those nutrients out, pulling, you know

minerals out into the liquid, just left

just really flavorful medicinal.

Bone Broth.

Know what I do too is I add half of a lemon juiced

and I've been told that that acid can draw some

of those minerals out of the bones.

So yeah, one lemon juiced. Controversial!

Okay. But I even throw this, but look

I'm gonna add that right in there.

All right.

You don't like it.

Call your mom, tell her about it.

She be like, you wanna follow that man.

He's a bad man.

All right let's throw this on the stove top.

Oh God! Like I said, we're gonna bring that up

put it on high, bring it up to almost a boil.

Turn the heat down.

Let it simmer.

And then from there, it's just keep an eye on it.

You skim your scum, you ladle off your fat.

It's simmering here.

We got a nice, we brought it up to a nice boil.

All right, now I'm gonna turn it down.

30 minutes in that's the color we're looking at little

little murky, little grayish, little goldinish in a sense.

Like a really bad chicken stock, but we'll get there.

That's where we're at now.

And like I said, this is a low and slow long game.

So I was up at number high number nine on my range.

We're gonna kick it down to like a three and a half.

Keep an eye on it overnight

put a lid on it with just a little crack.

You leave it too high.

You think you real, you're in good shape.

You wake up in the morning and there's, you know

this much left and you got a Demi gloss.

If you're lucky, you want little overnights.

And then during the daytime

when you have a little more awareness, you know

you can kick it up a little bit

and have a little bit more of a aggressive of evaporation.

So we'll see in a little bit. Outta my house.

All right.

So our bone broths been going overnight

a nice little, a good simmer, good little bubble.

It reduced by, I'd say, you know

a solid half and throughout the day yesterday

and then this morning and late last night

I just kept skimming the fat off and skimming the fat off.

And I strained it.

And let me show you what I got you stay right here.

You know, when you skim

you get a little bit of broth in there too, right?

But the rest is all just this beautiful beef marrow fat

and it almost looks like butter.

I'm just gonna pour.

I chill it after I skim it.

And then the liquid separates from the

fat the same way, like butter, making butter,

like the butter milk separates from the milk fat.

And now we're just left

with this beautiful already filtered, clean beef marrow fat

that I'm gonna put into a sauce pan

on low heat and just let it cook down a little bit.

And by cook down, I mean, any residual moisture

in there is gonna evaporate and it's just gonna be left

with a solid, clean, beautiful cooking fat.

And we'll just put this on a little low heat

and I'll let that do what I was talking about.

This is from a different batch that I did.

You could tell it's actually got a little bit

of a different hue of color to it, but look, I mean

it's just pure, solid fat.

Beef marrow fat.

It's fat, the same thing you would use

like a olive oil or anything else.

You know, I do a little drainy drain right into this here.

Oh right in my eye!

Feel like there's always one left, you know?

No, I think we got it all.

Phew. Thank God that's over.

Back to our stock now for the tricky part.

Little bit of straining.

Okay. Lot of, bit of straining actually.

I mean, look at this Joe homeowner operation I got going on.

It's like, I need a giant, one of these, all right.

Just buy one already.

And, and this is when I catch the bigger solids

and the finer stuff.

It works.

Been doing it for decades.

All right.

See how this goes bud. Nice and easy Brad. Nice and easy.

We'll have to do this twice.

Cuz my system doesn't catch everything.

Right. I got my little,

little tasting spoon.

These things are the best.

You don't want to go fooling around

with the bone broth sludge.

Some people eat it. I'm sure the ducks would eat it.

Eat up. Don't make a mess.

Quack.

It's just bone marrow fat

that hasn't completely rendered out.

Next time on It's Alive we're gonna eat the fat off;

we're gonna eat the sludge fat, the marrow sludge.

All right then.

They're gonna fire you.

Whoop whoop.

Easy Leone.

There we go Papa.

All right so we're gonna do our final strain here

through the fine mesh strainer.

And just to get any solids out there.

Oh, heavens.

Still a little bit fat on there, but that's okay.

Just beautiful. Let's do a color analysis.

Get those warm notes. All you can kind

of really pick through everything that you put in there

cause nothing's super overpowering, but it's warm.

It's toasty.

It kinda reminds me of like a

like a good Foie gras or something like that.

Or just as far as well, just in aromatics at least.

Those warm kind of notes in it, but it smells great.

Big beefiness but clean, you know

it doesn't have any funk to it.

It's warm, but I like it hot. So I'm just gonna put it on.

Put a little, give it a little a gentle warmup.

Watch yourself daddy.

My favorite part of every cooking show.

[bleeped word]

No, it's not that bad.

So what I have here is just our tried and true classic.

It's chili honey. Hot fermented chili honey. Hot honey.

I'm gonna put a little, I mean that's it.

I mean this stuff's got a little kick to it.

All right.

Let me try it by itself.

Woof. Floral from the Habaneros. It's sweet.

Oh my God. It's so good.

And for a second wild card here,

this little cute number all right.

I put this together about a week ago.

It's equal parts, ginger, garlic, and fresh turmeric.

All micro-planted with about one

and a half percent salt and a little bit of kimchi juice.

Oh, that's what we'll do next.

Episode coming soon. It's live.

We're gonna do turmeric garlic ginger paste

for enhancing your bone broth

I'm gonna put a little scooper of that in there.

And then look, look, and then just a little

[ding]

Just a little bit.

All right, let's give it a shot.

Yeah, buddy.

Oh, it's good.

Oh, the salt just really kind of

I mean like any type of-- with anything, right?

It really just kind of pops out those flavors, rounds it all

out and just makes it a really, really enjoyable beverage.

I mean just taste it plain by itself again too.

I mean, this is no salt.

I mean it's clean. I don't know how to say this

without it like not sounding unappetizing

but it's bony, you know, it's you get it's minerally.

You know, and the beef, most of the flavor

you get that big beefy flavor is when

you put more meat in it, you know.

It's great as a snack. It's great as a cup.

It's great as a little hot drink

a little coffee substitute. But then it's also, you know

before you add all that jazz to it.

It's a great cooking thing. You know, add it to a braise.

You're gonna make ramen. You're gonna make soup.

You gonna make anything. You are a hero for dinner.

Look at those damn ducks.

They're starting to aggravate me.

I might have to sell 'em or smoke 'em.

See you next time on It's Alive smoked duck.

I'm just kidding. They're kind of our pets now.

Sometimes you hear 'em. Like 20 of them go.

That's my coyote pack call.

[animal noises]

[upbeat music]