minimum stock-cooking time for gelatin?

[caedmyn]

Is there a minimum amount of time that stock needs to be cooked for it to have a decent amount of gelatin in the stock? I know longer is better for minerals and such but I'm primarily concerned about the gelatin aspect of the stock, and I need to cook it for the shortest possible amount of time.

[Josette Marie]

Originally Posted by caedmyn

Is there a minimum amount of time that stock needs to be cooked for it to have a decent amount of gelatin in the stock? I know longer is better for minerals and such but I'm primarily concerned about the gelatin aspect of the stock, and I need to cook it for the shortest possible amount of time.

I'd say 6 hrs, but that is from experience. I don't have the reason.

[newcastlemama]

I usually cook mine at least 24 hours and it is solid jello. This time I think I did it a little less and it did not gel at all. So that is what my experience is.

[gabella06]

From my experience, it depends on the amount of bones I use in the stock. The more bones I use, the less time it takes to gel. The minimum time in which I had gelling (sp?) is 3 hours. Of course, this is before I knew stock was supposed to gel and I thought something was wrong with it so I tossed it. duh. I usually keep it on for 16-24 hours, though to extract everything I can out of the bones.

[RootBeerFloat]

My mom makes chicken broth using water and a whole chicken, and it takes and hour to poach the chicken, which she then removes and pulls the chicken off the bone and reduces the broth by half. It has mad gelatin in it, and tastes really good. I'm sure it doesn't have anything by way of minerals, but it is very gelly.

[tanyalynn]

Seems like lots of surface area (cutting the bones into small pieces) would help for both gelatin and mineral content. And feet are good gelatin sources (not your question, but in case you hadn't considered it). Chicken seems to go faster, overall, than beef. Maybe a longer soak time before the heat is applied would help as well. Is gelatin powder problematic? Seems like it may be, or at least unknown (I don't know how it's really manufactured).