Why roast, and why so long
Roasting the bones before simmering does two things. It renders and browns the fat and meat scraps clinging to them, generating a large quantity of Maillard flavour compounds that a simmer alone cannot produce. And it gives the stock its colour.
A stock made from unroasted beef bones is pale, thin and faintly barnyard-like — perfectly usable, and not what most recipes calling for beef stock mean.
The length is about the bones themselves. Beef bones are dense, and the connective tissue on them is heavier and slower to convert than a chicken's. Six to eight hours is normal, and longer is not wasted.
The method
A day's work, mostly waiting. Cooling, storing and reheating a stock or broth safely is a food-safety matter rather than a question of taste, and the Food Standards Agency is the authority on it. Follow its guidance rather than a recipe timing.
- Ask a butcher for beef bones — marrow bones, knuckles and shin bones together give both flavour and body. Knuckle and joint bones are the ones rich in connective tissue.
- Roast them in a hot oven until deeply browned, forty minutes or more, turning once.
- Add roughly chopped onion, carrot and celery to the tin for the last twenty minutes, and let them colour too.
- Transfer everything to a deep pan. Deglaze the roasting tin with water or wine, scraping up every browned scrap, and add that liquid.
- Cover with cold water, bring slowly to a bare simmer, and skim carefully in the first half hour.
- Add a bay leaf, thyme, parsley stalks, peppercorns and a spoonful of tomato purée.
- Simmer, never boiling, for six to eight hours. Top up with water if the bones become exposed.
- Strain without pressing, cool quickly, and lift the set fat off the next day.
What to do with it
- Reduce it hard into a concentrated sauce base. A litre reduced to a few spoonfuls is close to a demi-glace and freezes in cubes.
- As the liquid in a braise or a stew, where it does far more than water.
- French onion soup, which is essentially a test of the stock.
- Gravy, made from stock rather than a cube.
- Risotto, in place of chicken stock, for something darker.
- Pho or a beef noodle soup, though those have their own long-simmered traditions.
- Frozen in cubes, which is the most practical way to keep something this laborious.
Notes
- Bones
- Knuckle and joint bones for body, marrow bones for richness, shin for both. A mixture is best.
- Roasting
- Deeply browned, not burnt. Burnt bones make a bitter stock.
- Tomato purée
- A spoonful adds savouriness and colour. Traditional in a brown stock.
- Time
- Six to eight hours. Chicken stock is three to four; beef genuinely needs longer.
- Body
- A good beef stock sets to a firm jelly when cold. That is the connective tissue having converted.
Common questions
Do I have to roast the bones?
For a brown stock, yes. Unroasted beef bones give a pale, thin, less interesting stock.
How long does it need?
Six to eight hours at a bare simmer. Beef bones are denser and slower than chicken.
Why is mine bitter?
The bones were burnt rather than browned, or vegetables scorched in the tin.
Should I salt it?
No. It is usually reduced afterwards, which would concentrate the salt.
Why does mine not set?
Not enough connective tissue. Use knuckle and joint bones rather than only marrow bones.
Try this next
- How to make chicken stock the faster, lighter version
- Beef shin the cut whose bones are ideal
- Maillard reaction what the roasting achieves
- Gravy where it ends up