I would not consider it a failure if it doesn't gell. In order to gell you have to have enough, well, gelatin, which is primarily in the joints. There is a lot of nutrition in the bones, ligaments, marrow, etc. even if that doesn't set up as nice. That is in some ways more versatile because you can just drink it, make pan sauces from it, etc. I use bone broth to braise cabbage.

Starting from raw pieces will provide a broth that is lighter in flavor, more clear, and more versatile than roasted pieces, which provide broth which is darker and more flavorful. I prefer both for different reasons, and sometimes mix them. I keep a gallon sized freezer bag in the freezer and when I make roast poultry of any kind (chicken, duck, game hen, quail), during prep I put the unused giblets and scraps in the bag, and after dinner i coarsely chop up the remains and add them to the bag, then after 2-3 meals I have enough for a big pot of stock.

You can't really go too far wrong unless it is so thin that it tastes like water... Don't worry.

I've made stock numerous times by simmering it on a stove for long periods of time (even 48+), and it always fails to live up to the results you can get with a pressure cooker. Collagen doesn't break down into gelatin until you hit about 175 F, and it's tough to keep a stock pot at >175 F without it boiling too vigorously over a long period of time, and even then you're limited to 212 F. A pressure cooker can go up to 250 F at 15psi at sea level, and the rate at which collagen breaks down accelerates exponentially with respect to the temperature increase. I've used pounds worth of chicken feet in conventionally made stock, and it still wouldn't gel, while I've used just a whole leg quarters in a pressure cooker and had it gel wonderfully. Here are some resources:

http://www.saveur.com/article/Recipes/From-the-Test-Kitchen-Perfect-Pressure-Cooker-Chicken-Stock

http://www.thepauperedchef.com/2010/06/under-pressure-how-to-make-superb-chicken-stock-in-about-an-hour.html

http://www.dadcooksdinner.com/2011/01/pressure-cooker-beef-stock.html

I would try using the more joint-y (probably not a word) part of the animals. Chicken backs work well, and are often sold for practically nothing. And beef knuckle bones. I've had good luck with the bones of a roasted or rotisserie chicken after we've eaten all of the meat off of it.

I also do weird things like throw in egg shells, which I hear adds calcium, and some seaweed.

This is what I do:

Whole chicken, roasted, for dinner. I then strip the leftover meat for a future use (chicken soup, salads, eating cold, etc.) and throw the carcass into a slow-cooker with about 4-ish quarts of water and a little vinegar or white wine. Set on low for about 24 hours. Strain, cool, refrigerate. It almost always gels perfectly that way for me. You can get a good lot of bone broth out of one chicken.

I rarely throw in full meaty drumsticks, etc., mostly because I can't afford to let the meat go to waste and I prefer roasted chicken to boiled.

Just a note--If you can get them, chicken feet or necks work really well. Or chicken or turkey wings, which are far cheaper than the legs.

Bonus: Add a few peppercorns, a bit of sea salt, and a bay leaf or two for extra flavor.

blueballon's method is pretty similar to mine. When I buy chicken, I always buy bone-in. ALL bones/skin/cartilage gets thrown into a large ziploc bag in the freezer. When the bag gets full, I dump it into my crockpot, cover with water, and toss in a couple of tablespoons of white vinegar. Put it on low overnight (12 hours-ish) and that's it. Unplug it, let it cool, then strain the stock off, strip the bones of any meat (use in soups, stew, etc) and toss the bones. Stock goes into jars which go into the fridge and gel perfectly each time. Good luck!

(By the way, I've tried making stock from raw chicken..it just tastes WRONG to me. Much prefer it made from "leftover" bones)

Boil it down more. If you don't get gel, take it out the next day and boil it again, letting the water evaporate. My broths give much more jelly when I don't use raw bone-in cuts of meat.

Roast the meat first and de-bone it leaving some small meaty chunks on it to flavor the broth and chuck the bones in a pot with some fresh thyme, carrots, celery and garlic. Cover with water so there's plenty of sloshing room, but don't drown the bones in too much water. Add a glug of vinegar. Keep an eye on it, adding water as you need to. If you do it at a higher temp, like a gentle bubble rather than slow simmer, it should only take a couple hours. Strain and put in the fridge and the next day take the fat layer off and simmer it gently letting any scum rise to the top to skim.

This technique makes a super jelly for me.

This is going to sound crazy, but try chicken feet. It always makes the most amazing gelatin rich broth, chickeny and delicious. I get mine from my friendly local free-range farmer for $1 a pound. The stuff is gelly at room temp, I have to heat it after I scrape off the fat before I can put it in freezer containers. I always throw a few veggies in mine just for flavor (carrots, celery, and onions), and I use it in just about everything.

When trying to make gelled stocks, connective tissue is your friend. As others have mentioned, backs, necks and feet are good for this. Buy whole chickens, and learn to bone them yourself. Save the backs and wings, and when you have four or five chickens worth of those, make some stock.

Packages of chicken wings are my go-to if I need to make some stock and I'm out of saved "parts"; the bone to meat ratio is poor for eating, but great for stock. As an added bonus, since they're less desirable, they're cheaper!

Other than that, your recipe sounds right on. I tend to like a more traditional stock, so carrots, celery and onions go into mine, along with salt and pepper.

Stock is made in 3 phases: The first one is optional.

1) Roasting/ Blanching: Roast the bones for extra flavour and colour. It also draws out impurities: discharge the fat and any muddy liquid after roasting the bones. Deglaze the roasting pan and add the liquid to the stock. For extra purity the bones can be quickly blanched before making stock.

2) Drawing gelatine and nutrients out of the stock: Cover the bones with cold water and bring the stock slowly to the boil. Vinegar is optional, I would not put too much. Restaurants don't use it. However, they use tomatoes, which are acidic, too. Acidity draws out nutrients from the bones but also heavy metals from a stainless steel pot. Skim off the grey foam. Optionally repeat by adding cold water or ice to lower the temperature and bring to the boil again whilst skimming and removing more impurities which might make the stock cloudy. Simmering lets impurities and fat rise to the surface where they can be skimmed off. Boiling will lead to impurities and fats stay in the stock. Furthermore, boiling your stock might draw out more nutrients but also draw out proteins too violently and make the stock go cloudy and bitter. Always top up with water so the bones are covered. If they are not covered you are not drawing out nutrients/ gelatine.

3) Reducing: Keeping the bones covered with water at all times ensures the maximum gelatine is drawn out of the bones. Although at the end of your 2, 4, 8, 16 or 20 hours you have drawn out all the gelatine that can be drawn out in that time, your stock is diluted (necessary to get all the gelatine out) and may require reducing.

If your finished stock does not gel a) the bones have not been covered with water during cooking, b) it has not simmered for long enough, c) the bones are too chunky/ not cut up and nutrients and gelatine cannot be drawn out properly, d) the bones are not gelatinous enough: as a general rule, try to include bones and tough cuts from tail, neck, head, joints, feet and wings, or e) it has not been reduced enough.

If your stock is cloudy you have a) used the roasted bones with all the muddy roasting juices, b) used unsuitable vegetables, c) not brought the stock slowly to an initial boil whilst skimming, d) not skimmed the stock whilst cooking, e) boiled the stock instead of slowly simmering, f) not changed the pot when the sides of the pot got dried or burnt stains from reducing too much, or g) smashed the boned before or during cooking and so released loads of impurities .

For a super clear stock clarify with egg whites, minced meat and mirepoix.

I had never made chicken stock before last night. In my attempt I ended up with a 1.25 quart mass of jelly. I thought that I had done some thing wrong- since any of my store bought stock (in my experience) is liquid. Yet, every post here seems to be attempting to create a jelly. I used the carcass of one 4.75lb baked whole chicken and boiled the bones/skin/remains for about 5 hours in an open stock pot. I did add some shredded carrots, 1/2 an onion, and a bay leaf during the boil. But then figured that people use alcohols to extract essential oils from all sorts of things and that vinagar was sometimes used to push bone stocks along. So in went some saki...

Does anyone else use wine/alcohol/saki to make stock? And does any one think that may have been a contributing factor to facilitate the generation of the jelly? Also, why does every one seem to be wanting the stock to be in jelly form?

So weird. I get gelatin from chicken carcass (cooked, demeated), and lamb leg bone (cooked, demeated, like the prior - ie eaten) with just three hours boiling, no vinegar or any added anything. Its not like jelly, but kinda like a apple puree jelly consistancy. Maybe its the pre-cooking, and perhaps also lack of vinegar (or shorted cooking time). I use it for beef stews....

Beef feet will provide ample amounts of gelatin. Just drop a few into your selection of bones.

I believe the reason why it's white, as opposed to red, is that it's mainly composed of connective tissue and cartilage. Beef muscle contains much more blood vessels, and hence the color of red meat. The connective tissues contain collagen, the necessary ingredient to create gelatin.

This lady got 12 days worth of gelatin from the same batch of bones! http://www.traditional-foods.com/bone-broth/

Something to remember is to not boil the broth, but simmer it - just under about 180 degrees should be good. Lastly, from what I've seen in recipes, you don't want to use much more water than 2 cups per lb of bones. The dilution could prevent the gelatin from forming.

I am also a broth-making fail. I have tried many methods - roasted chicken carcass, raw chicken cut up, adding feet or not adding feet, etc. etc. I usually add veggie scraps, so I guess I'm a stock fail. It never gels, but it does have a beautiful color. It always tastes/smells a little funny though, so I never just drink/eat it, but always have to add lots of stuff for soup, or just use it in recipes.

The other day, though, I just used a leftover chicken carcass, no veggies/vinegar, and simmered it for about ~5 hrs because I was tired of investing 20+ hours in a stock that was disappointing.

That time it was a very cloudy, white color - no nice golden chicken-y color (maybe because I didn't include onion skins like usual?), but it smelled AMAZING and it gelled perfectly. Tastes good too, but I am disappointed about the color.

Point is - maybe 12+ hrs is too long? I think I'd rather do it for 4-6 hrs, strain the broth and jar it, then try again with the same chicken bones and see how long I can keep it going.

I never new you were supposed to make broth for that many hours. I know my mom doesn't do that. But we're Italian, maybe they do it differently. Anyway, I have gotten gel from just a 45 minute simmer. So it can't be lack of time. I think it definitely has to be the joints.

I make bone broth and get my bones from the 99 Ranch Market chain in Southern California. The store I get my bones from stopped carrying beef feet / hooves for sale individually (now they sell them in 4 packs, too much hoof for me) so I have in the past two broths subbed beef tendon.

Godfrey Daniels, it turns into meat jello when its done. BTW, I don't use meat, just bones and it is delicious.

Unfortunately, not grass fed bones, but with the tendon (1 pound tendon to 6 pounds of roasted bones) it is fabulously gelled when cooled.

http://www.jadeinstitute.com/jade/bone-broth-health-building.php

http://www.westonaprice.org/food-features/broth-is-beautiful

Are chicken bones from any ol' chickens fine?

Or should I stick with free range/organic/as natural as possible chicken?