jema
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Does anyone run a "perpetual" stock pot?I am thinking of trying this. Basically adding new stock each day as I use the old, boiling daily to keep it from going off.
I figure with well condensed stock a little 2 pint saucepan should do the trick nicely.
The idea is that the stock grows ever more interesting. But I have never tried it before.
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hardworkinghippy
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That's how we do our dogs' "soupe" which we add to kibble and they love it and do really well on it. We just keep adding whatever we have (chicken feet, chicken heads, pork fat etc.)
Sometimes I'm jealous because it smells so good!
When we run out of things to add we wash the casserole out - about every three months.
In the winter, we usually have a pot going for ourselves too, but I've never kept it for more than about a week. The longer it's kept going the better it tastes though ! 
Be careful about adding bread or anything with yeast and keep it outside (or somewhere cool) because in the right conditions the stockpot can ferment. You'd be put off eating it by the smell and that gloopy puffy look, so you're unlikely to get ill, but it's a shame to waste good food.
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cab
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Stock can go off and be unfit for human consumption within hours in summer. Not all bacterial toxins are broken down by heating, and not all bacteria are killed by boiling. So you can get a progressive build up of toxins with time, thats even assuming you don't have it go off fast (within the day!).
If you ARE going to do this, use your pressure cooker. I don't know about the one you've got, but with the Prestige high dome, if you don't open it or fiddle with the weight it'll stay sterile inside if you've heated it at full pressure for 25 minutes or so (some may say 20, but that's assuming even heating from the start of it hissing onwards, and that doesn't always happen). Pressurise it as soon as you can after opening and taking stock out every day.
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Sarah D
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An ordinary stock pot needs to be boiled up every day to keep it good. In my experience.........etc etc 
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cab
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| Sarah D wrote: | | An ordinary stock pot needs to be boiled up every day to keep it good. In my experience.........etc etc |
Even boiled every day, theres a risk involved in leaving stock 24 hours uncooked. By that time, it WILL be full of bacteria.
Don't just go on your own experience here, life is too short to rely just on that when we've got a century and a half of microbiology to go on (and microbiology is basically all about making stock and growing things in it).
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Sarah D
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Bernie66
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My food safety training from my days in Sainsburys would scream NO NO NO at me about doing that. Why don't you heat and reduce the stock down to virtually nothing and freeze it in ice cubes. Then bring it out to mix with new stock as and when. It would be safer.
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judith
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It's one of those things that I thought about, but couldn't quite see the point since the Good Lord has seen fit to give us fridges and freezers. I would consider it if I didn't have a freezer and fuel for cooking became prohibitively expensive, otherwise I don't think it's worth the risk.
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cab
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| Sarah D wrote: | |
Of course, boiling the stock every day will reduce the risk of food poisoning, but it won't stop it.
Cast iron fact. More sort of  than
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maryb
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perpetual stock potMy mother had a weekly one. Bones in on Saturday and boiled up each day. It was great.
maryb
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dpack
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it isnt once a day but all day n night ,
a stock pot on the main fire always simmering is safe .
make stock / make more stock .unless it is always on .
once ,twice, three times its dog food .
if it is always on ,change the bones or you make glue .
thread hijacks making glue  and growing dangeroos micro-organisms in tasty stock :alien:
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Cathryn
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A little off topic (just for a change  ) but I can clearly remember the frying pan being kept under the sink unwashed with bacon fat in it from one week to the next. My mother strongly denies this but then she says we never argued, refused to go to bed on time, never answered back.... 
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nettie
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| dpack wrote: | it isnt once a day but all day n night ,
a stock pot on the main fire always simmering is safe .
make stock / make more stock .unless it is always on .
once ,twice, three times its dog food .
if it is always on ,change the bones or you make glue .
thread hijacks making glue and growing dangeroos micro-organisms in tasty stock :alien: |
Love it 
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dougal
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I, too, agree with dpack.
On nutrition and flavour grounds, quite apart from microbiological ones, all solids need to be removed from the stock as soon as they have given up their flavour.
Cook them longer and you are on a downhill quality slope...
Generally adding extra material to a skimmed and strained stock won't be ideal either. You won't get as good extraction into the existing stock and boiling the stock for longer won't improve it either.
Wouldn't it be better to freeze the materials as they arise and have one stockmaking session once a week or a fortnight? And then freeze the stock in using quantities (silicone bakeware is great for this).
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Erikht
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The perpetual stockpot is a thing of the past, when a non-stop boiling(or simmering) stockpot were safer than trying to keep stock without refridgeration. Also, those solid cast-iron ranges, quite often the main source of heat in the house, would keep warm most of the night, so the stock-making would not interfere with the fuel bill.
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jema
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So what about a cycle.
Make stock,Freeze
Make more stock, defrost existing stock, mix in new stock, refreeze.
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dougal
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But why thaw, mix and re-freeze?
I don't see the attraction of creating a 'composite' stock with anything and everything. Chicken stock and beef stock are better kept distinct, IMHO.
If you have them, separate in the freezer, and if ever you really want chicken+beef, you can easily use an icecube of each... but you simply can't get the beef out of a combination stock when you just want chicken for a risotto!
Isn't the point about aware stock-making to extract the maximum flavour (and potentially nutrients) ??
Its a fallacy that the longer a stock is cooked, the better it gets.
There comes a point (very early for a fish or soft veg stock) after which, the more it is cooked, the worse it gets.
The thing is to catch it at its peak.
Although I only all-too-rarely make quantities of stock, I think the floppy silicone bakeware is great for making appropriate-sized (and non-cubic) lumps of frozen stock - to be unmoulded immediately they are frozen and stored in boxes or bags.
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Erikht
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I would write someyhing here if I felt that there was anything that needed to be added to dougal's comment. But I don't so I won't.
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