AI6YR BenComposting animal bones (chicken, beef, pork) in compost for 6 months, and then taking the composted bones and cooking them in a solar cooker for 3 weeks makes the bones brittle enough to easily smash into bone meal between two bricks. #random #composting #gardening
D@driusan Well, anything, really!
"Bone meal provides phosphorus and calcium to plants, along with a largely inconsequential amount of nitrogen.[4] The N-P-K rating of bone meal is typically 3–15–0[5] along with a calcium content of around 12% (18% CaO equiv.)"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bone_meal
(you can provide a complete fertilizer to your plants by combining bone meal and taking a wee on them 🤪 -- Urine in mostly N and K)
cwicseolfor@ai6yr I just boil them for stock, with fresh water in five or so times, and the last time with a bit of vinegar in, which saps the calcium out into the broth so they can generally crumble under a fingernail. Good for the soil just about straightaway then. Depends on how much broth you can use (but I'd rather use that higher rarity/ complexity as human food before degrading it to lower complexity as compost.)
George BWhen you say "fresh water 5 or so times" do you mean that you basically boil it, pour the water into another container and then add new water and get some more out or add water as it evaporates?
I've been making chicken broth by just boiling all the rotisserie chicken bones for like 8 hours and then tossing the rest in municipal compost but i would be interested in your technique if it means I can toss them in my worm bin instead
@gbargoud @ai6yr Good question, I wondered if I'd framed that clearly enough. Basically I'll make first, second, third, maybe fourth stock, and remove the stock for cooking with each time, replenishing with fresh water. The fourth or fifth time (depending on how cleaned and porous the bones are looking, if all the cartilage has melted away, etc) I'll add water with a quarter to a half cup or so of vinegar to really leach the rest of the minerals out - that's the short version.
Technically they don't really need to boil all that long, but coming to a boil briefly is good for sterilization, I'm usually trying to exceed 160F or 70C for four hours or so. (You can even boil the pot, kill the heat, and wrap it in a towel - or just do it in a pressure cooker and don't unlid it for a few hours.)
By the time I'm done with a rotisserie chicken, for instance (you can freeze the carcasses, if you want to do two or three at a time to conserve heating energy, I usually do two at once) it'll have become all the many meals I made with the chickens, plus three to four quarts of stock thick enough to stand a spoon in (think soup dumplings, or use four spoons for the equivalent of a bouillon cube), same amount of average density stock for intensely flavored soup (ramen), same of a lighter stock ready to be chicken soup with some veg, or a deglaze for pan sauce, and same of light broth for rice/ legumes for making into pureed dip/ etc. What won't be used inside a week gets frozen. The last stock with the vinegar isn't recommended for legumes but is fine for grain.
The chicken by then is broken bones and scraps of the outermost skin, and the fats mostly ended up in the broth, so it's not prone to anaerobic decomposition then. Earthworms don't prioritize it, but black soldierfly will make it vanish quickly, or you can mix it in across a square foot or so of soil and it sort of fritters away thanks to all the microbes. Bones are unrecognizable after a couple months, if that, although admittedly I'm in a warm climate so everything's a bit faster - I've seen 100% cotton fabric disappear inside six weeks.
Ah ok my move is that we have a 6 qt bone bin in the freezer that gets rotisserie chicken bones as well as likely veggie scraps (carrot and celery ends, bell pepper seeds and pith, etc)
When that bin is full, I put it in my stock pot with 2 gallons of water and some black pepper and bay leaves and cook it all day at which point I have 6 quarts of soup dumpling thick stock
I can probably get a few batches out of each set of bones. They still look fine when I'm done
The problem at some point becomes "how do we go through this much stock with the recipes we cook at home"
I've been using the 8 quart polycarbonate square based tubs for storing it and switching it to standard deli containers before freezing it.
Something I would love but I don't think anyone makes would be a silicone insert in one of those 8 quart containers that can make the stock freeze into pebble ice for more granular portioning. Imagine just scooping up as many frozen pellets as needed when making a soup
CHICKEN STOCK ICE CREAM!
@gbargoud @ai6yr I can see this for scoopable purposes but it'd have to be very gelatin-rich with the fat still in to behave itself, I think.
I've used those molds for long skinny tubes of ice (intended to add to bottled beverages) for all manner of off-label herb bars, compound butter, whatever before, but that might be close to as easy. I also use some hexagonal mini ice molds for fish or seafood stock since I usually don't have much of that on hand at a time, but a cube or two in some Asian dishes in lieu of fish sauce can be handy. Even regular sized ice cubes would be a decent form factor for soup purposes. Keeping most the stock in the fridge and freezing a tray per day to crack into a container would be simple enough - you could even dip them in grease or oil to ensure they don't bond to each other too permanently.
I grabbed some clearance holiday silicone cupcake molds (the kind built into a tray, not freestanding) with the intent of using them as a poor woman's souper cubes but the volume was a bit too small to be a serving and a bit too big to be usefully granular, so they get used for freezing portions of rice.
Crystal
Paul_IPv6i hear trading and selling stocks can be quite profitable. :D
maybe a neighborhood stock exchange?
@gbargoud @ai6yr In that situation I'd PERSONALLY separate the vegetable from the animal in the stock-making process, for the reason that if you cook many veg, especially crucifers and alliums, long enough you end up with sulfuric compounds. The goal is a stock which is full of macro and micro nutrients but literally and figuratively beige, and thus culinarily compatible with virtually anything (which solves the "how do we go through this much" problem - it basically goes in everything until you run out: curries, soups, sauces, bean puree spreads or dips, you can throw it in biscuits, etc.) It also means you're not putting those plant extracts into the water yet, which helps extract more from each steep of the bones (think in terms of osmotic pressures - this is a big help also when you have a tough cut of meat to braise; if the liquid around it is stock, it loses much less into that already-concentrated liquid and remains far more flavorful.) I tend to do perpetual stock all winter from the carcasses I built up since the last one, filling the freezer with half each round of first and second stocks for easy use in warm months.
I do similarly to you with veg, but they get cooked in the pre-made animal broth, with spices added not more than an hour or so before it's going to hit the table, to preserve their volatiles.
Very little left for the garden by then, though all biomass goes to compost. I admittedly don't have recipes (hence the vague measurements) so much as just improvise with what's on hand/ on sale/ in season. Culinarily speaking, though, there's a long history of cooking with just a bit of meat almost treated like we'd treat a hard grated cheese as a flavor accent, or with just schmaltz, or a cracked bone's worth of broth, because most of history we just weren't slaughtering so many animals and very much not year-round - a fairly traditional plant-based diet with a half-dozen chickens a year can seem pretty meaty if it's broken across a lot of dishes and spiced appropriately. It's also a heck of a lot cheaper, too.
lizzzzard@cwicseolfor @gbargoud @ai6yr can I just say thank you for those detailed descriptions? I've cooked my own veggie broth before, but haven't done bones and this discussion is really helpful and makes me want to try doing it. I go through a lot of store-bought broth, so going through too much stock doesn't sound like a problem we'd have.
Do any of you try preserving broth by canning it in glasses instead of freezing?
Never tried it but it would make one step annoying:
You need to skim the gross parts off the top of the broth. If you have a fat separator you can use that but my usual approach is to just put it in the fridge and then after it sets into a jelly like texture, spoon any bits that look wrong off of it.
Canning would mean that you want to do that skimming while it's hot (since I assume you would go straight into cans at temp) which makes that step a bit annoying.
@gbargoud @cwicseolfor @ai6yr or you would need to cool, skim, then heat again for canning... Yeah, I agree, not ideal.
I think the move would be to get a fat separator ladle which can then be use while it's hot after resting a bit to skim more efficiently
(I can use a spoon but it always feels like I miss almost everything and I hate it)
Then heating it back up and canning would save so much fridge and freezer space
@gbargoud @lizzard @ai6yr I generally pull all the broth I'm not using that night for the fridge before the freezer into containers taller than they're wide, optionally to chip off the schmaltz pucks. I wait for it to cool (setting it out while cooking dinner accomplishes this) and then use tall takeout containers which only ever experience cool liquid, but if you're plastic free you could do it in a glass pitcher.
Ignore all the "seek out XYZ special expensive bones" you see online, consult an imaginary peasant from anywhere in the world and laugh at that nonsense in commiseration- any bones will do, though it helps if they get cracked or cut somewhere in the process to allow water circulation into the marrow or interiors. After two steeps for most bird bones you can snip them open with kitchen shears to little resistance; mammalian bones often require a saw, but probably will come to you already cut. Shellfish shells also work. The whole point in all the water-immersed cooking is nothing needs to be wasted, ever (this being said, once you've got a broth on a low simmer after initial boiling, try using the crappiest, gristliest cut of meat with a bunch of connective tissue for about an hour per inch of thickness and watch it melt into jello-swaddled tender meat chunks. I used to buy the crappy fin-bearing offcuts off catfish super cheap for most of my meat for this reason.)
I don't actually skim it after the initial skim, when boiling brings up the foam, I know, I'm a savage, that breaks all laws of Chinese and French cooking styles, but I just don't see much point and haven't experienced off flavors as a result. I just don't pour the absolute dregs, where the tiny bone chips and bits end up - usually a few teaspoons worth of "loss" that goes in the garden directly. I have been known to filter that in a sieve, at least until my pouring technique perfected.
Likely known to you but just for general reading: IF YOU ARE CANNING MEAT PRODUCTS YOU WILL NEED TO PRESSURE CAN. Various resources exist on canning that discuss available water, etc. but the short version is things which are insufficiently salty, sugary, or acidic (all preservatives) can and will breed botulism toxin if not pressure-canned (which creates high heat conditions that the spores can't survive.) This is why they add citric acid in commercial canned tomatoes.
The other bit I've learned recently is in such cases jar storage still should remain below a certain temperature lest the seal be broken (admitting new botulism spores) and re-sealed by vacuum as it cools. I have only canned twice, and have no pressure canning experience at all, but for healthy adults one consideration in my untutored mind is that it's far easier to kill C. botulinum cells and inactivate the toxin (much lower temps will do) - so the risk seems at least *somewhat* mitigated if all such properly pressure-canned goods were *thoroughly heated to 185* for some minutes before consuming after de-canning, just in case… but this is conjecture emerging from experience with not having a lot of choices, and when choices are available it's safer to not ingest botox, y'know? So I am a freezer addict, but at least chest freezers are incredibly efficient; I can keep mine topped off on cheap 100w solar panels if my renewable power gets cut (I live on the Texas grid.)
@cwicseolfor @gbargoud @lizzard This is great to know you can re-boil the bones for additional broth, I had no idea!!
@ai6yr @gbargoud @lizzard SOOO many times. The more connective tissue on the bones (think joints) the better, but after three or four boils any dry exposed surfaces will start looking really dry and kind of rough, not smooth and shiny like when fresh - that's because mineral and collagen loss into the broth is leaving the bones porous. That's when it's time to add a bit of vinegar to really break down the calcium and the bone is much easier to fragment.
@cwicseolfor @gbargoud @ai6yr thanks for the elaborate answer! Yeah, I live in a house nowadays and we have space for a dedicated freezer - but we only own a small one and I prefer doing big batches with this type of time-intensive kitchen stuff. Thus the question - space for cans is nearly unlimited.
I do know about botulism, but thought it was only relevant when protein is present, so in meat and legumes? And yeah, canning in a pressure cooker reduces speed or amount I'd be able to handle at once by a lot. I can barely fit four glasses in my pressure cooker... So it'd be a small batch again - or re-heating in parts. But I could split the batch, freeze half and pressure-cook the rest. I think that's what's going to happen soon 😊
@lizzard @gbargoud @ai6yr Clostridium botulinum will eat nearly anything we eat. The only thing that slows it down is not existing there in the first place (but spores are most safely considered totally ubiquitous in the environment, which is why we sterilize everything related to infants, who lack the stomach acid to inactivate the dormant spores - also why they cannot have honey) OR not having enough water activity/ available water (that is, a high enough hydration environment to keep C. botulinum cells happy; this is why we add sugar to jam, not because fruit isn't sweet enough, but sugar is hygroscopic and will pull water out of cells... like bacterial cells.) Saline solutions, sugar, acid, and alcohol all make for an inhospitable growth medium, hence traditional food preservation either involving salting, fermenting to create alcohol, pickling (with vinegar, which itself starts as preserving via alcohol, then converted into a preserved solution of acid - or via natural lactic ferment of the material), or sugaring with any form of concentrated sugar. For SOME low-water foods you can also do confit under fat or oil, but people give themselves botulism poisoning on fresh wet flavoring ingredients in olive oil often enough that it is warned against making your own garlic/ herb oils for anything but very near-term use (sous vide or bain-marie cooking it on low heat can speed up flavor release which helps that not be a bloody inconvenience.)
Splitting the batches sounds like a win there - some for long long term use, some for use in the warm months, some for right away. At that point you just have to decide what you want to use when, as the earlier stocks will be much richer with collagen and fattier, with more concentrated flavor.
My geography and lifestyle have made a chest freezer a huge win for me (at double the efficiency of upright - I'd love to build a chest fridge, too, as they're still priced ludicrously.) But I tend to acquire large amounts of food at once and do huge processing batches; if I lived in an urban core, as I have briefly before, I'd probably be doing much, much more frequent small shopping trips.
clewstock is wonderful as a cup of broth when you might otherwise have a cup of tea.
or the luxury of cooking everything in broth when you might have used water!
the roamerRemarkable thread with well-tested tricks on stock making / broth making, super useful.
I make lots of stock at home (chicken bones, mutton bones, beef, leftover mixes), in large batches, and I use stock in most of my cooking in one way or another. Your posts added a few more tricks to my stock-making arsenal, many thanks!
Kat@ai6yr I wouldn’t use it on any Proteacea or any Australian natives. The Proteas especially are very sensitive to phosphorus and bone meal would kill them.
@Garden_Kat Oooh, that might explain why my Protea didn't last very long here... (all potting soil here has added phosphorus).
@ai6yr Yes, that would do it. They need freely draining, nutrient poor soil. This site has a diy recipe: https://www.theplantaide.com/articles/110440.html
Rancho de la LibertadThis is hyperspecific to our climate but the UV index in the summer here is so high and the moisture so low a skull left outside will become brittle to the touch within a summer
DoomsdaysCW