The Problem With Oxtail

[RobertJM]

Have you tried a few different stocks from UK supermarkets? Have you noticed any good ones or any bad ones to avoid? Where do you usually go for them?

I find Waitrose do the best one. It's called beef ladden stock and comes in a 500g pot. It costs £2.99 I think.

The downsides:

a) main ingredient is water. Doesn't state the quality of water
b) don't know anything about how long bones have been boiled
c) doesn't state anything about he health of the animals used
d) very expensive. £3 per day is £84 per month if you use one pot per day. Great Lakes gelatin (one can), will last me one month @£25 (which I still consider really really expensive!)
e) doesn't taste particularly great by itself. But that's why I always added enough salt, and some vinegar too (and turned into a broth which I would carry around in a 500ml metal flask all day @ work).

Tescos and Sainsbury's also do one for a similar price, but there's is 300ml.

In terms of digesting, it has always been flawless. And the effects most definitely are GABAergic, as you'd expect from gelatin.

 

[raypeatclips]

I find Waitrose do the best one. It's called beef ladden stock and comes in a 500g pot. It costs £2.99 I think.

The downsides:

a) main ingredient is water. Doesn't state the quality of water
b) don't know anything about how long bones have been boiled
c) doesn't state anything about he health of the animals used
d) very expensive. £3 per day is £84 per month if you use one pot per day. Great Lakes gelatin (one can), will last me one month @£25 (which I still consider really really expensive!)
e) doesn't taste particularly great by itself. But that's why I always added enough salt, and some vinegar too (and turned into a broth which I would carry around in a 500ml metal flask all day @ work).

Tescos and Sainsbury's also do one for a similar price, but there's is 300ml.

In terms of digesting, it has always been flawless. And the effects most definitely are GABAergic, as you'd expect from gelatin.

Thanks for the reply. Have you thought about emailing their customer service departments to ask how long they are boiled for? In my experience they are very helpful and tell me as much as they can find out.

 

[Lurker]

I think it was @narouz who said they are disinfected with bleach. Or maybe that was cow hooves he was speaking of....

Ray mentioned chicken feet are soaked in chlorine as disinfectant. If you’ve ever seen the inside of an industrial chicken house you’ll know why. But it’s not just the feet, they can soak all the meat in the US too...

https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/chlorine-washed-chicken-headlines/

 

[cyclops]

I'm beginning to think oxtail is really just like any other bone that you would discard after cooking and just keeping the broth. There is just too little meat and too much fat for me to use right now. Problem is they are too expensive for me to use this way, when there are cheaper options.

Good to know about the chicken feet. Guess If I want to make gelatin, I'll get some beef bones.

 

[RayPeatFan777]

yeah i hate them also. i tried to use them for a gelatin broth also, it does not make as quality gelatin as oxtail. it is not as much gelatin in the lamb one. came out more liquidy. maybe you have to open the lamb up or something, i feel like the meat, it feels like it is sealed kind of uncooked, maybe the gelatin is inside the cut. they also taste weird to me.

Did you boil the oxtail? it must be a very low simmer. Few small bubbles floating to the top.

I over-boiled oxtail broth once and it was watery. When I did a proper simmer there was 3x more gelatin than before.

Same amount of oxtail, same water, same timing.

I only cooked for 3-4 hours.

 

[aquaman]

I meant there is too much fat on the actual oxtail. I need to eat allot of protein and there is too much fat on the meat. I was wondering if there was a cut of meat that is gelatinous and muscle but very low in fat.

Beef SHIN.

It's highly gelatinous, *without* any bones - needs about 3 hours of low temp cooking, and when cooled after there's hardly any fat to skim off, but the juice turns into firm jelly in the fridge showing it's mostly gelatin.

Cook it with milk and red wine in the oven with veggies added near the end (eg greens), so you get a hit of calcium and gelatin, and you get the bonus of the muscle meat too so high in protein. It's also CHEAP.

Chicken feet are also fantastic, and very little fat to skim off. But no muscle meat.

 

[Lord Cola]

When you place in the fridge the fat solidifies into a solid block on top of the jelly. As a solid, I break it and easily pull it away from the jelly. This is when using oxtail, or any sheep or beef gelatinous joints, due to the saturated fats like stearic acid. Chicken fat will be softer not solid. So it needs to be scrape off with a spoon and you are more likely to have residual fat left on the surface unless you invest some time removing it.

Even when I skim the fat off the top of the oxtail broth, I still get a lot of fat when I heat the jelly back to liquid. The skimming process gets a lot of the fat, but it doesn't seem like it's possible to get all of it with commonly available methods. The broth ends up being so greasy when I look at it under bright lighting, no matter what.

 

[Michael Mohn]

Skin is the worst source of collagen. Skin has a high tissue turnover and contains lots of toxins. Skin contains small hair, which has indigestable keratin which is very irritating to the intestine. Pig and chicken skin has high high levels of pufa. Skin has high levels of oxidized cholesterol.

The best source of collagen is beef tendons. High levels of collagen, low tissue turnover low toxins high levels of mead acid but difficult to find in my area.

Second best source is rumen / stomach. High level of collagen, no hair/keratin, low fat, no pufa. A little bit smelly but takes up other flavours easily.