Stop Throwing Away Bones After Making Broth!
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Meat can be a controversial subject. Some people claim that humans were never meant to eat meat and that they are healthier now that they only eat a plant based diet, others swear by the carnivore diet. Most homesteaders raise some kind of meat animal but there are some vegan homesteaders. I can respect whatever food decisions you make! We choose to eat meat, but we do eat it in moderation. We prefer to eat meat that we know where it comes from and had a good, fulfilling life. Lastly, we try to use as much of the animal as we can. That can be difficult! One part of the animal that I grew up throwing away is the bone. However, bone broth has made a come back, and for good reason! Bone broth is one of those super foods that not only gives you a ton of nutrients, but also ads good flavor to foods. We like soup, especially in the winter so it’s nice to have a lot of bone broth on hand. In fact, chicken isn’t my favorite type of meat, but we plan to raise meat chickens mostly so we can have their bones for broth! We have struggled a bit with making bone broth in the past and have only made it when we have enough bones to make a good batch. However, we’ve developed a good system that works well for us and I want to share how we get multiple uses out of those bones instead of just tossing them!
The struggle for us is that we use meat occasionally and not in large amounts. So often we’d have some meat in a meal, but there just were not very many bones left and it wasn’t worth using, so we’d throw them away. When we moved into the house that we’re living in, there was some meat in the freezer. The homesteader that owns it had raised sheep and had it packaged. She couldn’t take it with her and left it here for us. It was packaged in very small pieces and there were not any large cuts like roasts, etc. Each small package had several bone parts in it. Mary really wanted to have broth so one night after we had dinner with some small cuts of meat, she got out a freezer bag and had us all put the bones in that. We keep it sealed in the freezer. It accumulates small bones and once it’s full, it goes to the Instant Pot pressure cooker to make a batch of broth. The nice thing is that it allows us to be a little more picky without feeling so guilty. Personally, I am not very picky and I like fatty meats but some in my family don’t care for fat or anything very chewy. That’s ok, it’ll get put in the broth.
To make the broth, we put it in the Instant Pot, cover with water, a bit of salt (sea salt is best) a small splash of apple cider vinegar, and some onions, garlic, and occasionally other vegetables as well. Again, we often use the parts that are edible, but people don’t usually eat. Onion and garlic skins can be used as well. We cook it on high pressure for 180 minutes. We also make two batches by straining off the liquid, adding more water and putting it back on to cook for another 180 minutes. The second batch is usually not as rich, but still great for cooking! Then we strain it and put that broth in the refrigerator. Broth freezes well, and we have frozen it but we have found that we tend to use it quickly enough to just put it in half gallon jars and stick them in the refrigerator. I imagine that when we raise meat chickens we’ll probably do some larger batches and can it.
At this point, most people just discard the bones, but please don’t just throw them away! There is still some life left in them! We have put them in compost before, but that can attract unwanted pests to your compost pile, and bones don’t always break down that well. However, after 6 hours of high pressure cooking, we find that the bones do break down, and we’ve found a better use for them than compost. The first step is to drain off all the liquid by pressing them in the sieve with the back of a ladle. Then we put them back in the pot and take a spatula or wood spoon and break them up. I’ve been amazed at how easy it is to break up the bones. If there are connective tissues or meat that doesn’t break up then I’ll pick it out and give it to the dog. Once the bones are in smaller chunks, then we spread it out on the dehydrator. Mary bought some food grade silicone mats that go on the dehydrator trays. I was afraid that they wouldn’t allow enough airflow, but it seems to work very well for this purpose. In fact, she loves them! We let the bone bits dehydrate completely and then we put them in the blender. They actually blend up really easily as long as they’re fully dry. Once they’ve been blended up, we have a nice bone meal that we add to the chicken feed to give the chickens nice strong egg shells! We have a big bag of oyster shell powder but haven’t used a bit of it since doing this. It works very well, gives our hens a bit of extra protein and calcium, and they actually eat it better than oyster shells. In the past I’ve noticed that they leave a lot of the oyster shell bits and don’t eat it. We have had struggles in the past with hens eating their own eggs, even some of the hens we have now had done it. Since we started doing this, we haven’t had that issue at all. Between having more land to roam, and getting bone meal supplements, they have a more complete nutrition and they have very strong shells.
I know the blender debate can get intense! Blentec is the only decent blender we’ve owned and it works well for us. It is particularly good for this job!
This also helps us save a little bit on chicken feed, which has gotten pretty expensive with inflation, etc. On a side note, I predict that costs will raise again since there was another egg shortage and so many people went out this spring to buy themselves chickens to get “free eggs”. Supply and demand! There is going to be a spike in demand for chicken food and that means prices rise even more!
This is our system and it works very well for us. You might need a slightly different, or very different system and that’s ok, but having systems in place is very important. Once you get a routine down, this kind of thing is less intimidating and isn’t overwhelming anymore. That is HUGE when it comes to homesteading! If you don’t have good systems, you will begin to burn out!
