By Julie
Here’s a simplified tutorial to help you get started using Beahm Family Farm’s grassfed beef bones for homemade bone broth. Skip the expensive store-bought version and make this healing drink at home for yourself.
Bone broth is noted for its immune-boosting benefits, and helping your own skin, hair, and bones to thrive. Our grassfed beef bones are the best source for making bone broth because of the way we raise them. Chemical additives are generally stored in the fat of animals, and if you want the purest form of broth, you need to start with the healthiest animals that were raised with pasturing practices in a holistic way.
The beef bones we sell are from our 100% pastured, grass-fed/finished beef and we don’t use antibiotics, hormones, or pesticides. We sell grassfed beef bones year-around at our farm, and have them in convenient bag sizes that are approximately 3, 5, or 10 lbs. of bones per bag. It’s easy to reserve some on our website, they are $2/lb. with our order form.
Bone broth contains:
• Collagen and gelatin. They improve joints, hair, skin, and nails.
• Amino acids, nutrients, and other minerals. They boost immunity, encourage detoxification, and provide better digestion and overall gut health.
Making bone broth, in our opinion, can be as complicated or simple as you want to make it. So what is bone broth exactly? It is the extracted collagen, fat, minerals and nutrients from the bones infused in the water after you have simmered the bones over a long period of time.
People drink a cup of bone broth everyday like hot tea (as it cools, the fat will separate from the liquid, so keep it hot!) Others use it as bases for soups, stews, or sauces. We get bone broth into our children’s diet by sneaking it into delicious soups and crockpot recipes that require broth.
We have used several different cooking devices to make bone broth: stove-top, Crockpot, Instant Pot/electric pressure cooker, and stovetop pressure cooker. The results vary a little with each type of method as far as ease of use, cooking time needed, and how concentrated the broth turned out.
Ready to try your hand at making bone broth? Start reading the basic steps below and then pick which method you’d like to try from the list we provide.
OVERALL BASIC STEPS FOR MOST METHODS OF COOKING:
1. Thaw our grassfed beef bones.
2. Place them in cooking device of choice.
3. Add in any vegetables or herbs if you have them on hand.
4. Add appropriate level of water to cover the bones but without filling your pot or device too full.
5. Add in 1 TBSP. of apple cider vinegar per pound of bones to the water and bones.
6. Start heating up the water.
7. Cook for many hours depending on which device you use (pressure cooking will be the quickest, stovetop and crockpot longer).
8. Let the device cool a little.
9. Strain the liquid to separate the bones, meat bits, and vegetables from the broth.
10. Store in jars or plastic bags and refrigerate for up to a week or freeze it.
11. Reheat a cup of broth per day and drink it like hot tea, or use it as a base for soups, stews, and other recipes.
NOTES FOR ALL COOKING METHODS
- There will be a nice layer of fat that rises to the top when the broth starts to cool. You can see that in the above picture of our broth. This is normal! Keep it on your broth, or not. This is a healthy source of fat from a pastured animal and is not full of additives or chemicals. You can choose to skim off the layer of fat after you let your strained broth cool a bit (speed up the cooling process by placing the broth in the refrigerator) or you can leave the fat in the broth to make rich and flavorful soups and stews.
- Your broth will gel when cooled. You’ll know you have some quality bone broth if it looks somewhat like brown jell-o after it cools. When you reheat it to drink or put in soup it will return to a liquid state.
Pick one of the below methods of cooking to try!
METHOD OF COOKING: Stockpot on the Stove
Thaw out a small or medium bag of our grassfed beef bones (depending on the size of your stockpot) and put them in the pot on the stove. Add in any extras like vegetables or herbs if using. Fill the pot with water. However many quarts of bone broth you want back is how many quarts of water you’ll put in, but make sure you cover the bones with water and leave room for it to boil. Add 1 TBSP. of apple cider vinegar to the pot for every pound of bones used, this helps extracts minerals from the bones. Heat to boil and then simmer on the stove for at least 12 hours (the longer the better up to 24 hours). Take the bones out and strain the broth if necessary. Your broth is ready to store in the refrigerator in jars for up to a week. The broth can also be frozen in jars, but make sure and leave a 1 inch headspace. Or store in plastic bags and then freeze them flat.
METHOD OF COOKING: Crockpot
Put a small bag of thawed grassfed beef bones, and any extras like vegetables or herbs in the pot. Add water along with 1 TBSP. apple cider vinegar per pound of bones. Fill the crockpot only 2/3 full and cook on low ALL day for 18-24 hours. Follow the crockpot manufacturer’s instructions for additional information. Strain the broth and store in the refrigerator in jars, or in bags or jars in the freezer.
METHOD OF COOKING: Instant Pot or Other Electric Pressure Cooker
Put a small bag of thawed grassfed beef bones (and add in any extras like vegetables or herbs if you want) in the pressure cooker and fill with water up to the max line on your device. Add in 1 TBSP. of apple cider vinegar per pound of bones. Cook using the right setting for your brand of *pressure cooker. We use the custom setting on our Elite 10 qt. pressure cooker for 90 minutes. Use the natural release. Strain the broth and then store in the refrigerator or freeze.
*Consult the manufacturer’s directions for making broth with your particular brand of pressure cooker.
METHOD OF COOKING: Stovetop pressure cooker/canner
We have a huge vintage Mirro-matic 22 qt. pressure cooker/canner that is not electric. We use this device the most. We cook the bones for 10 lbs. of pressure for 60 min. on our stovetop. We then let it naturally release and strain the broth and store it.
*Follow the instruction manual for your pressure cooker or instant pot to know the appropriate pressure settings and water amounts to add to those cooking devices.
Ready to try adding a bit more to our basic recipe? Let’s get fancy!
• Increase flavor by roasting your bones on a baking sheet in the oven on high heat (400 degrees) for a few minutes prior to making your bone broth.
• Roughly chop and add aromatics like an onion cut in half, whole bulbs of garlic, shallots, and fresh herbs like parsley, thyme, sage, rosemary, bay leaves, and peppercorns to your bones and water to increase flavor. Vegetables like celery and carrots (or whatever vegetables you have on hand) can be added. No need to peel or chop any of these. The herbs and vegetables in the bone broth will be strained out and not eaten.
• Use the leftover meat from the bones after you make your bone broth. We typically harvest off any meat found on the bones and use it for soups or stews.
Are you ready to dive in and make bone broth? Start with the basics and keep it simple at first, then try your hand at making larger quantities or adding vegetables and herbs if you have them on hand. Heat up a cup of bone broth every day and drink it like hot tea. You can add it as a base to soups and stews, and other crockpot or instant pot recipes.
We sell Grassfed Beef bones year-around, and have them in convenient bag sizes that are approximately 3, 5, or 10 lbs. of bones per bag. You can choose what size you need!
Start off with some smaller bags that might fit in a 6 or 8 quart crockpot or stock pot and see how it goes from there!
Reserve on our website if you’d like beef bones, they are $2/lb.