How to clarify stock

I seem to learn something new everyday!

This morning I woke to my lovely pot of stock which was simmering on low all night long, it was beautiful, only thing was that I tend to add more water overnight just so that if any evaporates I don't end up burning my house down!

I've only lost less than a quarter of the water and needed to reduce the stock to something more concentrated, so I set it on boil and went to watch some TV.

When I returned my stock was foggy, but I thought no big deal of it and strained the bones out. I remembered this same situation last time, though the stock I normally tend to make is for my kitten to spice up her home made cat food but this time it wasn't acceptable for whatever I was going to make with it, chicken and dumplings... chicken noodle soup ..

I needed an answer, I wasn't about to let all this hard work go to waste!!

Upon some quick googling after I've remembered reading somewhere about this situation with others I found this article It sounds absolutely bizarre but I had no choice but to give it a try.

Got some egg whites, water, vinegar and whisked it then brought my stock to a simmer and added it in slowly increasing the heat to a roaring boil then simmering again for 5 mins and off the stove for another 15. All that was easy enough, crushing the egg shells into the mix was the hardest/strangest part but I hadn't realized that straining was going to be an even bigger issue.

I had no cheese cloth on hand, and I strained a bit through my wire sieve, that only made the white bits divide into smaller bits, horrible!

A towel of some sort was my only option, but then I saw the roll of paper towel, it was worth the try before looking for a clean dish cloth. I split the paper towel (sponge pockets by scotties) in half meaning I divided it, like you would peel a sticker off it's backing sort of thing.

I layered the strainer with the paper towel and poured some stock, it worked! With some patience and 5 pieces of paper I managed to strain all the stock then restrained it again just to make sure it was clear enough.

And there it is!! It's amazing I think, hope you think it's as interesting as I did ;-P


Lesson learnt: DO NOT BOIL Stock, just simmer it.