Anonymous wrote:I roast a chicken, we eat the meat, I save the bones in the freezer. When we have 2-3 saved up, I throw the bones in the crockpot with an onion, some celery, carrots, garlic, peppercorns, and bay leaves. Cook on low for 24 hours. Strain everything out.

I don't do 24 hours, but I do use our slow-cooker.

If you want to cook it for 24 hours, check the manual to see if your cooker will shut off automatically after 12 hours or whatever. You don't want to come home to a sad salmonella medium.

The meat, especially the white meat adds very little to the stock and boiled white meat is pretty useless except for chicken salad and I'm the only one in my house that likes it. If I don't have leftover chicken bones from something that I've made, you can get chicken backs as another PP mentioned or I just get a cheap family pack of chicken wings. I take a cleaver or big chef's knife and I chop the wings in half (across the bones). You don't need to cut them apart, just break the bones, then toss them in with your mirepoix and herbs. Afterwards, I strain out the solids, toss them and refrigerate the stock and skim off the fat. Works great and pretty inexpensive.

The crock pot is the way to go, folks.

I use most of the chicken, but don't get my magnifying glass out or anything. I try to use two chickens for broth.

Very much like 9:45, I add carrots, celery, onion, a few bay leaves, pinch of salt, pepper and garlic to the crockpot, then a few tablespoons of apple cider vineger over the bones, cover with water and on low it goes for 24 hrs. If you have enough bones, you'll get a good gelatin broth after refrigerated.

I know some folks don't like to add salt, but I've tried it both ways and prefer to add some in to the broth while in the pot, rather than whenever we use it.