Never boiled, never stirred
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If you read the back of our pouch you will find four words doing a lot of work. Never boiled, never stirred.
They sound like the kind of thing a brand says to seem careful. They are not. They are the two decisions that separate a broth you want to drink from one you have to season into submission.
What boiling does
Water boils at a hundred degrees and moves violently doing it. In a pot of bones that violence has three consequences.
It emulsifies the fat. Fat floats, which is convenient, because it means you can lift it off. Agitate it hard enough and it breaks into droplets fine enough to stay suspended in the water instead. Now it is in the broth permanently, and it brings a heaviness with it.
It breaks proteins apart. The fragments scatter light, which is why boiled broth goes cloudy, and they carry the taste people call gamey.
It knocks solids loose. Bones and vegetables colliding in a rolling pot shed fragments that end up in the liquid.
What boiling does not do is extract faster in any way that helps. Collagen converts with time at temperature. Pushing the temperature past a simmer buys you very little and costs you the clarity.
What stirring does
Stirring is the same problem applied by hand.
Through a long cook, impurities rise. In the first hour they come up as a grey foam that can be lifted off with a spoon and discarded. Fat rises too and sits on the surface, where it belongs.
Every stir sends both back down. The foam you could have removed in ten seconds dissolves through the pot instead and stays there for the next twenty-three hours. The fat goes back into suspension.
So a broth pot is one of the few things in a kitchen that rewards being ignored. You skim it early, and then you leave it alone.
What a true simmer looks like
Barely moving. A bubble breaking the surface every few seconds, somewhere. If the surface is rippling across its whole width, the heat is too high.
This is the hardest part of the method to write down, because the right setting depends on your pot and your stove. It is easy to see once you know what you are looking for and almost impossible to hit by following a number.
Why it takes twenty-four hours
Because the temperature is the one thing you cannot push, time is the only variable left. Collagen in connective tissue converts to gelatin slowly at a low simmer. Stop early and you get a thin broth that will not set when chilled.
Twenty-four hours at a temperature that never crosses into a boil. That is the trade, and it is why this is an expensive way to make broth and a slow one.
The four steps, in full
Source. Whole cuts of grass-fed beef and bones, free-range turkey and chicken, free-range chicken feet, organic carrots, celery and onion, sea salt, whole spices, water.
Simmer. Twenty-four hours. Never boiled, never stirred.
Strain. Once, by hand, through fine mesh, slowly. Push it and you cloud it.
Flash-freeze. Frozen fresh, so nothing has to be preserved.
There is no fifth step where something gets added back. No vinegar, no concentrate, no powders.
The method comes from Emilia-Romagna in northern Italy, where broth has its own place at the table.
Common questions
Should bone broth simmer or boil?
Simmer, and gently. Boiling emulsifies fat, breaks proteins and clouds the result without speeding up extraction in any useful way.
Why should you not stir bone broth?
Stirring pushes risen impurities and surface fat back into the liquid, where they stay.
What temperature should bone broth be?
Below a boil, at the point where bubbles break the surface only occasionally. Judge it by eye rather than by a dial setting.
Can you use a pressure cooker?
You can, and it extracts quickly. It will not give you a clear pour, because the process is inherently violent.