Stock to Remouillage to Glace

It took a little under 24 hours, but I've done just about everything you can do with 5 lbs of beef bones. In the previous post, I ended at the waiting stage.

After simmering for a little over 7 hours, I strained the stock through a cheesecloth, chilled it quickly in an ice water bath and then refrigerated it.

I ended up with about 2 litres of stock. Not cost effective, but excellent practice for me.

I decided not to stop there. I took the left over beef bones and added a new batch of cold water, brought to a boil and let it simmer overnight. This second use of the bones is called a remouillage. The end product will be weaker, but can be reduced further to make a glace de viande.

The next morning, I strained the remouillage, and put the liquid into a pot and started to reduce the liquid.

Since a glace is reduced by a factor of about 20, I will be reducing this from 2 litres to about 100 ml of concentrated liquid, so I have to reduce the size of the pot as the liquid reduces.

The glace is ready when it coats the back of a spoon.

I chilled the glace in an ice water bath and poured the liquid into a shot glass lined with plastic wrap.

After it was chilled, I removed it from the shot glass. It is the consistency of gelatin at this point. (Basically, that is what glace is; the concentrated gelatinous portion of a beef stock.)

I wrapped it in plastic and put it in the freezer. This stuff is like gold to the culinary world. It can be reconstituted to make beef stock, or it can be used in sauces, or to flavour soups.

So, perhaps a little boring to read about, but after going through that process, I shouldn't forget the techniques or terms any time soon.

I'm off to the kitchen to make a beef stew with the original batch of beef stock.