Over the last several weeks to months I have noticed a trend on social media... people are talking about this thing called "bone broth." I had never heard of it but I was interested because I do want to utilize every animal that I kill to the fullest extent I know how. I figured that I'd give it a try next fall following hunting season if I happen to fill a tag. Turns out I recognized an opportunity to just try it out before hunting season.
I generally host a rather large family gathering on Super Bowl Sunday and smoke/grill a fair bit of meat. This year I decided to smoke a couple dozen chicken drumsticks and then grill two whole chicken in the Argentine asado style. Seeing all the chicken I decided that I would try and save all the chicken bones and make a test batch of chicken bone broth.
The chicken itself was a hit, the drumsticks were perfectly smoked and the whole chickens turned out exactly as I remember it tasting in Argentina. I requested that nobody throw any of their bones away, but instead throw them in a large bowl for me to utilize later. After everyone left I transferred all the bones into the InstaPot. I didn't clean the bones at all, some still had small chunks of meat and skin. Now I had watched a couple different instructional videos on YouTube and the most common way to prepare bone broth is to simmer a large stock pot on the stove for 12 to 18 hours (or longer). If I had the time to manage a simmering pot for that long I would give it a shot... but I don't... so I decided to try an alternative method using the InstaPot. With the kettle filled with bones I added all the drippings I saved from the smoked drumsticks back in and then finished with water up to the "Full" line. I ran three cycles in the InstaPot set to "Soup/Stew" with the time setting set to the maximum duration (I think it was like 1 hour 39 minutes or some oddball time like that). The gelatin that you can see on top of the bones in the image below is the partially congealed drippings that I had saved and put in the fridge while we ate dinner.
Admittedly, as the first cycle in the InstaPot reached pressure and temperature... it did not smell particularly appetizing! I was really questioning whether my wife would be ok with continuing the process through several more cycles. But by the time the first cycle completed it was starting to smell more like the chicken broth smell we were accustomed to, and by the time the final cycle completed it smelled fantastic. Since the last cycle completed while I was at work, my wife poured the broth through a strainer and put it in the fridge for me to take care of when I got home a couple hours later. By the time I got home the broth and congealed to a Jell-o consistency and all the fat had risen to the surface and solidified, so skimming the fat off was quite easy. I portioned it out into one cup portions and put those in the freezer until the next day. I peeled the paper cup off the frozen broth and then prepared them for storage by vacuum sealing. As you can see I had a little help with the vacuum sealing... this little guy loves that vacuum sealer, he won't let anyone else in my family touch it... and he does good work.
I'm pleased with the result. The broth tastes great, and since the chicken was smoked/grilled the broth has a great smokey flavor to it. One recommendation that I had heard from YouTube videos and podcasts was when doing bone broth from game animal bones is to bake the bones in the oven prior to simmering... I think I'd take it a step further and I'd grill or smoke the bones to "cook" them. I have since done a second batch with turkey bones after my wife baked a whole turkey for Sunday dinner a couple weeks ago. There were a couple things I learned from the first time with the chicken that I attempted to correct with the turkey. With the chicken bones I just threw them into the InstaPot whole but with the turkey I used a pair of pliers to cut the bones into pieces to expose more of the marrow. Turkey isn't my favorite to begin with, but the resulting bone broth was quite good (even though it lacks the smokey flavor) and I would say that the flavor does seem to be a bit more robust than the chicken... I attribute that cutting the bones and exposing the marrow.
My wife has used the chicken bone broth a couple times when making soups. The first was a Chicken White Bean Chili that was excellent and the bone broth gave the chili and excellent mild smokey flavor. The latest was some homemade Chicken Noodle Soup. It was delicious, and again the chicken bone broth added a mild smokey flavor that really made the flavor pop. I'm totally sold on making bone broth, it will become part of my standard butchering and processing from here on out.
