Making and Canning Wild Game Bone Broth - Part 1 of 2

Another way to honor your prey and provide healthy self-provided ingredient to your kitchen is by making and canning or freezing your own bone broth.  The process in the beginning can seem like a daunting task but once you have one successful round under your belt you will feel confident that it will be a skill you will use for years to come.

After all the meat processing has been complete and I have stored the remaining bones in the freezer, the time after big game season and before turkey season is a great time to make this part of your annual wild game schedule.  These broths can be used for roasts and soups all year if you process enough.

Making the broth is an easy series of tasks that take a long time but are mostly low in intensity. It is easy to do this while doing other things like planning future hunts, logging game camera photos, maintaining hunting gear, reading a hunting book or doing other things (chores).

First, pull out about 4 to 5 lbs. of bones you will be using to make your broth, you can use more or less but I have been using this amount with about 2 ½ to 3 spring gallons of water.  I use bottled spring water because I am on a city water system and prefer water for this that is not chlorinated.  Choose your bone amount based on the pot size you have, an approximate 60/40 ratio of bone pound to gallons of water seems to work but there isn’t really a wrong answer. 

Thaw the bones if they are frozen and then place them on a pan to catch drippings from the meat and bone. Leave on meat, tendon and sinew, these add flavor, healthy fats, minerals and enzymes.

Put the pan in an oven that is preheated to 400 degrees for about 45 minutes.

The house will smell like roast is cooking, so make sure you have something to satisfy your taste buds when you begin to salivate.

After the 45 minutes are up, pull the bones from the oven and let them cool enough to handle them.  When you can grab them, use a tool to break them up to expose the bone marrow. 

This allows the broth to slow cook and absorb all the fat and minerals from inside the bone. I use a pair of vice grips and break them open.

Bone Marrow Exposed to Liquid

Place the broken bones and all meat, tendons and sinew into your large pot with the spring water (or clean well water).  I put other items in the broth to add flavor, onion, crushed garlic, celery, carrots, peppers and other veggies I may have saved from other menu items.  I also sprinkle cayenne pepper, chili powder, a few bay leaves, crushed black pepper and chunks of ginger in the broth mix.  I reserve the salt for when I am cooking with it it so mine is salt free, but feel free to add it in.  My approximate amounts are below but I am an “eye ball” cook so no batch is exactly alike.

BASIC INGREDIENTS
4 to 5 pounds of roasted bone with meat scraps, tendon and sinew
2 to 3 gallons of spring water
1 onion (skin, scraps in good shape)
2 to 4 green onions
3 to 5 cloves of crushed garlic
¼ to ½ cup carrot pieces (saved ends, scraps are fine)
1 to 3 cut up celery sticks with or without leaves
2 teaspoons of cayenne pepper
2 teaspoons of chili powder
2 teaspoons of black pepper
1 or 2 bay leaves
1 to 3 thin slices of ginger root
2 to 4 tablespoons of apple cider vinegar

The whole pot is brought to a boil and then immediately after it begins to boil, the heat is reduced to medium to low medium to maintain a slow simmer.  This is where the task becomes passive.  I will slow simmer this for 12-24 hours.  I choose to use a hot plate on my back porch and let it cook away without a cover. This leave the kitchen usable and keeps the slow steam from filling the house and seeping into everyone’s clothes.

After this lengthy slow simmer, you will notice the amount of liquid has been reduced by a few inches.  I then turn of the heat and use some tongs to remove all the bones, bone bits and veggies.

The liquid is then cooled overnight, by placing it back on the back porch if it is above freezing but below 45, but this time covered tightly with a lid and plastic wrap.  If it is to warm or to cold, I will take up space in the fridge. By morning, all the fat will have risen to the top and can mostly be skimmed off. Small particles of fat you cannot removed can be strained through a sanitized cheese cloth.

 I sanitize the cheese cloth by submerging it in boiling water in a small sauce pan, keep this water close to boiling to continue sanitizing the filtering cheese cloth. 

The cheese cloth will become clogged with fat and filter the broth slowly.  When this happens, stop, rinse the cheese cloth and dunk it in that boiling water again (it is also good to keep track of the top and bottom for better filtering).

When you have filtered the liquid, you have created the broth and now it is preservation time through canning or freezing.

Click Here For the Canning Process