Stokclub — Culinary stocks and broths: how stock, broth

How long should you simmer chicken stock?

Four to six hours at 85–95 °C — long enough to extract gelatin, short of the boil that clouds the pot.

The 4–6 hour window is measured from the moment the pot settles into its hold, not from the cold start. Chicken bones give up their gelatin steadily across those hours, and a covered pot charged at 1 kg bones to 1 L water finishes with roughly 700–800 ml of strained stock.

Temperature matters more than the clock. Hold 85–95 °C so a bubble breaks the surface only now and then; a rolling 100 °C boil emulsifies fat and bone dust into the liquid and clouds it permanently, no matter how carefully you simmer afterwards.

Other stocks keep other hours. Beef or veal needs 6–8, a fish fumet only 20–30 minutes — past 45 it turns bitter — and a vegetable stock is done in 30–60 minutes.

What is the difference between stock and broth?

Stock is bones and no salt; broth is seasoned as it cooks; remouillage is a second pass over the same bones.

A stock starts from bones in cold water and goes into the pot unsalted, because it is an ingredient rather than a finished soup: reduce a salted stock by half and its salt doubles. The test waits in the fridge — a stock that sets firm at 4 °C has extracted gelatin, one that stays liquid has not.

A broth is seasoned as it cooks and is meant to be eaten as it is. Where stock waits to be salted at the end of whatever dish it joins, broth carries its seasoning from the start.

Remouillage is the second extraction: bones that have already given one stock are covered with fresh water and simmered again before being discarded, yielding a thinner second liquid.

Stock: bones, cold-water start, unsalted, 4–8 h depending on the animal

Broth: seasoned while it cooks, served as a finished liquid

Remouillage: second extraction over used bones, thinner than the first

Vegetable stock: no bones at all, 30–60 minutes

The working dossier

The working sequence: cold start to cold storage

Six ordered steps, each with its own clock and its own typical failure.

The sequence is fixed because each step protects the next. Cold water is what allows the early skim, the early skim is what allows a clear hold, and a calm hold is what keeps the fat out of the liquid.

Most failures have names a cook can recognize: the grey stock, from foam left in past the 30-minute mark; the cloudy stock, from a pot that reached a rolling boil; and the slow-cooled stock, which missed its two-stage cooling window.

Once strained and cooled, the bones are not necessarily finished: they can run a second extraction, the remouillage, before being discarded.

1. Cold-water start — bones go into cold water at 1 kg per 1 L; skipping this is the first route to a grey stock
2. Skim inside the first 30 minutes — the foam that rises early is what turns a stock grey if it stays in
3. Hold at 85–95 °C, covered, 4–6 h for chicken — the failure here is a rolling 100 °C boil, which clouds the liquid permanently
4. Strain — the charge yields about 700–800 ml of strained stock per litre of water
5. Cool in two stages — 60 °C down to 21 °C within 2 h, then to 4–5 °C within 4 h more; the failure is a pot left warm for hours
6. Store — about 4 days at 4 °C or 4–6 months at −18 °C, reheating a portion to 74 °C before serving

Sizing the batch: bones, water and yield

Work from 1 kg of bones to 1 L of water and expect 700–800 ml of strained stock back.

The working ratio is about 1 kg bones to 1 L water. A covered simmer of that charge yields roughly 700–800 ml of strained stock, so a litre jar in the fridge starts as a little more than a litre in the pot.

Covering matters: the 700–800 ml figure assumes a covered hold, where evaporation stays slow across 4–6 hours. The pot needs only enough headroom for the bones and the occasional bubble, since the liquid should never approach a rolling boil.

For a brown stock, size the aromatics to the same batch: mirepoix is cut 2:1:1 by weight — 500 g onion with 250 g each of carrot and celery — and forms the standard aromatic bed.

Roasting and clarifying: two ways to change the pot

Roast bones for color and depth, or clarify with a raft for a glass-clear consommé.

A brown stock begins in the oven: bones roasted at 180–220 °C for 45–60 minutes before any water is added. A white stock skips that step entirely, which is why it stays pale.

Clarifying a consommé runs on a raft of minced meat and egg whites that sets between 60 and 80 °C. The broth is then drawn through it for 1–1.5 hours with the surface never boiling.

Both techniques sit outside the basic sequence: roasting happens before the water goes in, while clarifying happens after straining, as a second life for a finished broth.

Simmer windows at a glance

Simmer windows, holding temperatures and the failure each stock is known for.
Stock	Simmer time	Hold temperature	Oven step	Typical failure
Chicken stock	4–6 h	85–95 °C	none for white; 45–60 min at 180–220 °C for brown	grey stock from foam left past 30 min
Beef or veal stock	6–8 h	85–95 °C	45–60 min at 180–220 °C for brown	cloudy stock from a rolling 100 °C boil
Fish fumet	20–30 min	85–95 °C	none	bitterness past 45 min
Vegetable stock	30–60 min	85–95 °C	none	clouding if the pot reaches a boil
Consommé	1–1.5 h drawn through the raft	raft sets at 60–80 °C	none	surface allowed to reach a boil
Remouillage	second pass over used bones	85–95 °C	none	expecting first-pass strength from a second extraction

Simmer windows, holding temperatures and the failure each stock is known for.