Adding meat to beef stock

So I've found a source for beef bones, and I've got about 7lbs of knuckle and femur waiting to go in the pot.  I know I should add ~ 1 pound mirepoix, and that if I'm aiming for a brown stock (which I am) I should roast everything and add in a couple oz. of browned tomato paste.  All of that info I got from "The Professional Chef".  Here's the info I'd love from the experts on the board: In order to build beefy flavor into the stock, should I consider adding a bit of meat, as I do with chicken stock?  Also, I've read in several places that some red wine can be beneficial - is this true, and how much is "some"?  Thanks in advance, everybody!

 

Alright everyone, I'm letting the bone warm a little bit before roasting right now.  Thanks for your advice (especially about the wine), and wish me luck!

 

So.  I need some reassurance.  After almost 10 hours of labor and about $12 in ingredients, I find myself with the result: 1 1/2 qts of beef stock.  The stock seems like it'll be good stuff, but I won't know for sure until I cook something with it (I think I'm going to aim at making some French onion soup this weekend).

Regardless of how the stock turns out, this seems like a horrible rate of return.  I usually get between 3 and 4 quarts out of a batch of chicken stock (using two whole chickens, minus the breasts), plus a couple pounds of poached chicken.  I love my homemade stock - it just tastes better than the boxes - but I just don't see how homemade beef stock can be a sustainable proposition - especially as I would like to begin experimenting with the Espagnole sauce family. 

I guess my question is, how many of you make your own beef stock?  How many of you buy frozen stock at a gourmet foods store and then use that to make your soups and sauces?  And my other question is, did I really screw up?  I'm not sure how I would've been able to crank out more volume without really diluting the final product (at least, in that pot - maybe if I had a giant pot I could start with 2 gallons of water and just let it reduce down to one?).

Anyways, thanks again for everyone's help.  And on the plus side, sitting around watching the stock all day gave me plenty of time to plan and prep dinner (fajitas, beans, and rice).

 

Thanks, Ed.  I appreciate you confirming that $.25 an ounce is far too much for a home cook to be using on stock (and I'm sure this applies doubly in a commercial situation).  I skimmed the cooled fat this morning, and I must say that this stock has set up to a gel consistency FAR thicker than my chicken stock ever has.  I'm not sure if this is because my chicken stock is really more of a broth (plenty of meat and a good amount of mirepoix plus some herbs at the end) or because of the simmer time (about 9 hours for the beef and between 2 and 3 for the chicken).  In any case, I'm very happy with the quality of this stock, but I just can't afford to do it on a regular basis. 

I did save and freeze the bones, so I may try again.  This time I'll use a remouillage to start the stock, and I'll wait until I have a bigger pot.  If I could get 1 gal. out of $12 of bones, I'd be pretty happy.  Plus, if I continue to move the simmered bones forward to make a remouillage for the next batch, I'll feel like I'm getting a little more out of my money. 

Though this particular venture didn't go as well as I would have liked, I sure had a fun time making the stock, and I feel like I've learnt a lot.  Thanks again for all the help and support. 

And now for one final question: I've found canned stocks to have a really funny taste, something like the taste of canned tuna.  I'm not sure if this taste is from the process or from the can itself, but either way canned stocks are out.  I've used boxed stocks as Ed suggested, and I feel like they work pretty well for soups, but I'm considered about the amount of salt.  The stock I've used (Swanson) was so salty that I think it would quickly become inedible if I were to reduce it down enough for many of the French preparations.  Is there another brand that's a better choice, or should I perhaps try the "Low Sodium" variations?

Thank you all once more!

 

Thanks for the recommendation on the Butterball brand.  A couple of the smaller local specialty stores sell their own "homemade" stock, and I think I'll try those as well.  I ask because I am, in fact, looking to experiment with Demi-Glace and/or Glace De Viande, as it seems like a technique I ought to have at least tried, and also a technique with results that freeze well and can be made available relatively quickly.  Incidentally, could I make the Glace or the Espagnole sauce and then the Demi using a brown chicken stock instead of beef?  I know that the taste would then be chicken-y rather than beef-y, but apart from that, would I be breaking any major rules?

 

I feel almost certain that this is what I did, but I'm not sure what I'd do differently, given the same ingredients and equipment.  I am working in an 8 qt. pot, and once the ingredients were in, there just wasn't that much room left in the pot.  I am under the impression that an important part of preparing stock is allowing the liquid to cook down some and concentrate (the flavor and the texture), and once I let the liquid reduce a bit, this is what I was left with.  I think that at one point I had about 3 qts. of liquid in the pot, but I didn't feel all that comfortable adding more (I was withing about 1" of the top, and just didn't want to make a horrifying mess). 

I let the stock reduce until the flavor was significant, tasting along with a very tiny pinch of salt, as I didn't use any salt in the stock itself.  The final result, after cooling approx. 8 hours in the fridge, has a substantial body of taste, and after 8 hours has the texture of 3/4 set Jell-O.  I'm thinking that perhaps what I have now is 48 fl. oz. of highly reduced stock, which I can perhaps bring to a boil with a quantity of water to bring up my effective yield.  The problem then is that I think I'll lose most of the flavor. 

This is just extra frustrating because I'm used to getting 3-3 1/2 qts. of very flavorful chicken stock out of $10 of chicken and the exact same pot.

I'm not sure what the solution is.  In a perfect world, I would would be using a much larger pot and a higher initial volume of water, and I think I could substantially boost the flavor by using a remouillage (rather than water) to start the stock and by adding a bit of actual beef to the party.  The goal would be a 1 gallon yield from 8lbs of beef product (as given in "The Professional Chef").  That volume of yield would (for me) justify the cost and the time, but getting approx. one third of that is sort of a bummer. 

My goal, in addition to having a couple of quarts of stock available as a soup base, would be to have a quart of Demi-Glace, Glace de Viande, and/or Sauce Espagnole in the freezer and ready to be utilized spoon-by-spoon in making two-person quantities of sauce.  Eventually, I'd like to have the same thing set up with a quart of frozen velouté.  While my stock production method for white chicken stock is certainly sustainable, I remain skeptical of my brown stock pipeline.

And, as always, thanks to everyone for their support.

 

Here's an update:

First, thanks to everyone for being so helpful.  I was able to fund some cash for a new pot, and ended up with a 16qt stainless pot w/ a sintered bottom.  Not only can I make more stock at a time (6-8 qts quite easily, and I think I could push it up to 10 qts yield without too much trouble), but the increased volume makes it much easier to maintain a steady simmer that won't roll over into a boil.  I made beef stock again (the last batch turned into a really wonderful pot of French onion soup), using about the same amount of bones and 4 lbs of chuck (on sale).  The yield was just a touch over 7 qts, and I had to do much less hovering over the pot.  The stock came out very flavorful with a nice noticeable body. 

I made sauce espagnole and then turned that into a demi-glace which I froze up in my ice cube tray.  So, now I've got a quart of demi in 1-oz cubes and 2 cups of velouté.  I must say that using a reasonable size of pot made a huge difference.  I won't have to make chicken stock for a month now, and I can probably go 2 or maybe even 3 before I use up all of the beef stock.

Thanks so much for all the advice.  I just made a rice pilaf tonight, and was once again reminded how important good stock is to a good dish.