Making chicken broth

We make our own very rich and delicious chicken broth.  We use it for so many things.....a base for soups and stews, flavoring stir fried vegetables, simple Asian noodles we have for breakfast, cooking chicken thighs.

The ingredients are lots of chicken/chicken bones (this batch has one whole chicken, three packages of necks and backs, one roasted chicken carcass), celery, onions, carrots, bay leaf, pepper corns, ginger.  I leave the salt out, which gives me more freedom when I use it.  You can always add salt.  The recipe makes about a dozen 24 oz containers ( 9 quarts) of very rich broth.  For some recipes, we thin it with water.  A concentrated broth takes less room in the freezer.

Here it is starting to cook.  We simmer it about four hours after it starts to a boil.  Then we strain it and refrigerate it.  The next day we package it into containers for the freezer.

Here it is starting to cook.

That's a five gallon pot.  Before we had it, making broth was a lot more time consuming and MUCH messier.  Our big farm sink helps, too.  We set the pot on a cutting board in the bottom of the sink for straining and packaging.  It's a much better height and any broth spills happen in the sink.  The sink is also great for washing huge things like that pot.  Can you tell I love my sink?