Homemade stock is a powerful pantry staple. Every so often, I make a big batch in my slow cooker and I don’t mind using fresh garlic cloves, onions, and carrots, in addition to leftover bits such as lettuce that’s gone a little too limp for salad making or the inner core of a bunch of celery. I avoid using strong-tasting brassicas such as cabbage or broccoli. Like Rebecca (#21), I pressure can what won’t get used right away or won’t fit in my limited freezer space. Homemade stock is so much better tasting (without all the salt, etc.) and so much more cost effective than anything you can buy at the store.

With just the 2 of us, we make smaller batches (Only saving about 2 quarts of raw materials at a time) but it makes just the right amount of stock for some delicious risotto.

Like fellow commenters above we try not to toss edible veggies in the bin. We do put in the root and stem ends of onions along with that outer layer that’s not brown but is still tough/rubbery. The root end of garlic bulbs. Herb stems. Celery leaves. We joined both a meat and a veggie CSA this simmer, and they’ve done great things for our stock production because we came home with more bony cuts of meat and more herbs with stems for the bin.

I’ve stopped putting in carrot skins because I wasn’t sure I was scrubbing well enough to get all the dirt off. I’ve also stopped putting in pepper membranes and seeds, because I did’t like the flavor they added. I do put in a few here or there, I think I was on a pepper kick when the moratorium was declared, and they had taken over my mystery stock :-)

I also put in the canning liquid from canned vegetables, and when I finish a jar of pasta sauce I’ll rinse it for recycling and toss the rinse water in the stock jar. Like the stock itself, it adds just a little bit of flavor that tap water doesn’t have.

As for skimming: I usually leave the strained stock in the fridge overnight and skim the next day. Chicken fat is very soft, pork is firmer but malleable, and beef is hard enough I have to crack the fat cap on my container to make an edge so I can lift out the pieces with a spoon.

When I have enough end bits to make a batch, I make sure that there is the right balance of things in there to make a good broth: outer onion skins (not the paper layer which will turn the whole broth bitter), garlic skins (once again, not the papery bits), something sweet (tomato cores, carrot skins, beet green stubs, strings from winter squashes or Halloween pumpkins) and something “earthy” (base of celery, cabbage cores, brussel sprout ends, cauliflower bases, wilty spinach – a rarity since I’m good at eating through my produce at its prime).

Having the mix right makes the broth taste balanced and rich. I have been known to sacrifice a carrot or add in celery seed or garlic or onion powder to make up for any imbalance.

I typically do not add any spices or salt when I create my broth since I’m not sure what the seasonings will be in the end product that I make with it.

It takes so little time and produces a wonderful tasting result!

It is astonishing how much meat is on a close-picked chicken carcass. You can also pull any clear cartilage bits off and include it with the meat. They are quite good.

1) When you are making stock, do it at a temperature low enough (say, 170-180F) that the stock does not bubble at all. This is because the bubbling action will emulsify fats into the stock, making it fatty and cloudy

2) After cooking and straining the stock at the temperature described above, it will be a clear stock with fat floating on the top. The easiest way to deal with the fat is to pour the stock into a few mason jars, let them cool to room temp, and then refrigerate.

When you go to use the stock, pull the refrigerated jar from the fridge and you will see that the fat will have formed into a solid “cap” on top of the clear stock. Just pull the cap of fat off and the rest of the stock will be completely fat free.

If the refrigerated stock has a cap of fat on it but the liquid underneath is jellylike instead of a liquid, that jelly is not fat. The jelly is the collagen and cartilage from the carcass that have dissolved into the stock. It’s very healthy and is NOT fat. jellied stock like this is the best stock of all-but watery stock is still pretty darn good!

The stock is so flavorful it is delicious. I use my pressure canner to can mine in pints and quarts. You have to use a pressure canner, not a water bath but it works frozen too, I just don’t have room in my freezer.

We always use our turkey carcass at holiday time to make soup – it usually has enough meat on it that once boiled is yummy. We usually save any odd bits of veggies for salad add-ins rather than soup stock. But will often buy the marked down sad-looking veggies if we’re making soup.

I like mine boiled down/reduced too.