Brown Beef Stock

Question: What do you do on a Saturday afternoon when your wife and daughter are 4,400 km and 4 time zones away?
(Note: Andrew is not allowed to answer this question.)

Answer: Might as well practice making a brown beef stock.

I started out with 5 lbs of frozen beef bones, placed on a roasting pan. (By the way: 5 lbs of bones will yield about 3 litres of beef stock when this is all done. Opening a box of OXO powder would be much quicker, but I thought I'd better practice this technique for my practical test in Stocks, Soups, and Sauces.)

They went into the oven initially at 475°F (for about 10-15 minutes), then down to 375°F until roasted with a nice caramelization (about another 45 minutes).

While the bones were roasting, I made my mirepoix. A brown beef stock uses a coloured mirepoix, in this case 40% onion, 20% carrots, 20% celery, and 20% leeks (by weight).

Since this mirepoix will simmer for about 8 hours, I chopped the vegetables into roughly 3/4" pieces.

I kept the leeks (on the right) separate from the rest of the mirepoix because they will not be roasted, but later added directly to the beef stock.

Next I made my sachet. This is a classic sachet containing a bay leaf, dried thyme, cracked peppercorns, and parsley stems. I also added a smashed garlic clove (optional). This all gets placed in cheesecloth and tied up with kitchen twine.

 Here is my mise en place for the brown beef stock: tomato paste, mirepoix, and sachet.

By this time the beef bones had a nice caramelization, so out they came.

They went into a dutch oven and covered with cold water.

Next, I drained the fat from the roasting pan, leaving a little on the bottom, added my mirepoix (onions, carrots and celery only; the leeks would burn if I tried to roast them), and put them in the oven to caramelize.

After about 20 minutes, they had a pretty nice caramelization, so I added the tomato paste and back into the oven to roast the tomato paste.

After about 15 minutes, the tomato paste darkens into a pince; a sweetened aromatic rust colour. 

While all this has been going on, the beef bones are being brought slowly up to a boil, and I skimmed the surface of the water, removing fat and impurities. This is called depouillage.

When the beef bones came to a boil, I reduced the heat to a simmer, continuing to skim the surface of the water. Then I added the roasted mirepoix, leeks, and sachet.

I deglazed the roasting pan by adding some cold water to the pan and heating on the stove, scraping all those brown bits from the bottom of the pan. This all gets added to the stock.

Now with all my ingredients in the dutch oven and the heat brought down to a simmer, I play the waiting game for 8 hours.

 The waiting game sucks...I'm gonna go play Hungry Hungry Hippos.

So, sometime around 10pm this evening, I'll be straining the beef stock through a cheesecloth, putting in an ice water bath to cool quickly, then into the refrigerator for storage. I'll post a few photos of that process tomorrow. I'll most likely use the beef stock for a beef stew that I will make tomorrow. Yummy.