Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Perpetual broth, part 2, and Kombucha, part 0

So as I wrote in my last post, I tried Perpetual Broth with a whole chicken.  This was a "mature chicken" with relatively less fat on it than regular chickens.  On day 5, I had to throw it all away. It looked and tasted burned and had a thick layer of fat on it.  Not that I mind fat.  But this fat didn't smell good.  Just to make sure I had to throw it away, I drank a cup of it for breakfast, after adding salt and a little garlic, and unfortunately I can still taste it as I write at 10 p.m.

My crockpot keeps a temperature of 180F on "Warm", which is where it has been since day 1 of Perpetual broth-making.  This morning we woke up to an unpleasant burnt smell, the broth was very dark, and tasted burnt.  What went wrong?  Was it because we haven't developed a habit of drinking several cups of broth a day and just left it slowly simmering for all those hours?  I did get 3 nice soups out of that mature chicken, 2 more than I usually do, so I'm still ahead. 

So I did some research (Google research) and must inform you, there is a difference between bone broth and meat stock.  Dr. NCM recommends just a few hours of simmering for the meat stock.  So did my bone broth turn bad because I used a whole chicken and not bones? 

Last question: I received an ad for a supplement that uses eggshell membrane as a source of glucosamine, chondroitin and collagen.  Anyone know how to use eggshells to extract those goodies from the membrane?  Could (free-range) eggshells be dropped in a broth or stock for example?  My mother says during WWII in her country people would crush eggshells to a fine flour to add to children's food, for the calcium.

So... Perpetual Broth: Not.  Well, not even the week it was supposed to last.  But, not a loss either.  I'm ready to try again.  Might add a dimmer to my crockpot to tone the temp down to 160F. 

KOMBUCHA: it is my intent to make some of this awesome drink at home.  So I obtained the starter,or "mother", called SCOBY, from a fellow Kombucha maker.  Looked up instructions on various websites and from the email of the nice SCOBY sharer.  Hmm.  Need a gallon glass wide-mouth jar.  Biggest one I have holds 7 cups.  And after the tea & starter sit for a while I'll need swing-top bottles to pour the kombucha into so it will get fizzy.  So, this is why this is part zero: stuck on GO for lack of bottles.  Yes, I could order them from Amazon, but that's a capital investment I wasn't counting on and which would pay for a quite a few store-bought bottles of Kombucha.  Which taste really nice, have great flavors like Ginger and Lemon, and when you think about it, are one of the VERY FEW THINGS you can buy ready-made when following GAPS nutrition protocol.  Am I just

No comments:

Post a Comment