Bison Stock

Last Friday we received some grass-fed bison that we had purchased. Along with all the steaks, roasts, ground bison, etc., we got 35 pounds of soup bones. That takes up a lot of freezer space, and while we had room enough (barely) to fit all 35 pound of them, I decided to go ahead and make use of them. There was a total of 15 packages, so I used 7 of the biggest.

The Lovely Bones

I looked for a few recipes and finally decided to make up my own by combining several ideas from the recipes I had found. Here is basically what I did:



About 1/3 of the bones,which had quite a bit of meat left on them, I put straight into my pot. The other 2/3 I cooked in the oven until nicely browned. Then I added these to the pot. Next went the veggies and spices: carrots, onions, celery, garlic, pepper corns, bay leaves (theses were huge-from a friend in Trinidad), and salt. All this is then covered with water. Then I brought it to a boil, reduced to a simmer and let it go all night.

Raw

Cooked

Veggies and spices

Cooking

The next morning I awoke to a wonderful smell, broth not coffee. I removed all of the veggies, bones, and meat from the liquid. I needed to let it cool enough to solidify the fat. There was a lot of fat. I was able to skim off 1 1/2 soup cans of fat before I chilled it. There was a problem here. I couldn't fit my pot into the fridge. Not a big problem though, we still had quite a lot of snow on the back deck, so I just buried the pot in it.

Nature's Fridge-very green

Some of the skimmed fat

Gelatinous goo

After it chilled, I took the rest of the fat off and had a gelatinous glob left. I reheated it until it was liquid and strained it three times, twice through several layers of cheese cloth. Then I brought to a near boil and pressure canned it. At this point I could have frozen it, but freezer space is now at a premium and since I ended up with 15 pints, it made more sense to can it. We also tend to loses electricity several times a year. We have never lost food due to extended outage, but just in case.

Finished product!

I still have 8 packages of bones to do. The next batch I may cook down much more to have a concentrated stock. It will take up less space and with garden season coming up, I'll need it!