"Milk, cheese, and eggs are better proteins, anyway..."

[gabriel79]

2. Peaty people buy them because it seems like a way to get some collagen/gelatin
along with their meat, but if you only cook the meat for an hour or an hour&a half, then there's
not gonna be a lot of collagen/gelatin in there.
.

. If you cook it for only 1 hour, all the collagen is there in the meat, instead of dissolving in the water. That's why I cook them for only 1 hour, to make it tender enough to eat

 

[narouz]

2. Peaty people buy them because it seems like a way to get some collagen/gelatin
along with their meat, but if you only cook the meat for an hour or an hour&a half, then there's
not gonna be a lot of collagen/gelatin in there.
.

. If you cook it for only 1 hour, all the collagen is there in the meat, instead of dissolving in the water. That's why I cook them for only 1 hour, to make it tender enough to eat

Here's how I look at it with shanks.
The shank is the lower leg.
So it's some meat around a bone.
There wouldn't seem to be a whole lot of cartilage/connective tissue/collagen/gelatin(when cooked)
in the cut.
Now...if you cook the bone--that could give you some gelatin maybe,
but...you'd have to cook that bone a long time.
Some say they've had success at getting gelatinous broth from such bones after 3 hours of cooking.
I haven't.
Anyhow, let's say you are able to.
But now you've overcooked the meat portion.

The way it would have to be approached, to my mind:
cook the meat part for an hour to an hour and a half, then remove meat part.
Continue cooking the bone (in liquid) for not longer than a total time of 3 hours--
and good luck with getting gelatinous broth at that time.
To really get any decent amount of gelatin from such a bone
I think you'd need to continue cooking at least past 4 hours.
Most pro bone broth-ers cook like 8, 12, 24, even 72 hours.

I don't think there's much if any gelatin in that meat part, gabriel.

 

[gabriel79]

The amount of connective tissue in a meat is what gives it tenderness or toughness. Tender meats like sirloin have very little collagen, while tough meats like shanks contain a lot of collagen in the muscle. That's why you boil it to tenderize it, you break the collagen structure. Shanks also contain more ligaments than other cuts.
So we're basically talking about the gelatin from different parts of the shanks.

 

[narouz]

The amount of connective tissue in a meat is what gives it tenderness or toughness. Tender meats like sirloin have very little collagen, while tough meats like shanks contain a lot of collagen in the muscle. That's why you boil it to tenderize it, you break the collagen structure. Shanks also contain more ligaments than other cuts.
So we're basically talking about the gelatin from different parts of the shanks.

You know...I hadn't thought of it that way--
that the "gristle" in a tough steak is cartiliginous.
So that would be an argument for eating tough cuts of meat.
It makes sense.
Odd that Peat never seems to bring this up--
that it better to eat tougher cuts of meat.

Well...I think some steaks are tough because they have no fat.

Still...the amount of gelatin one gets from the gristle portion of a tough steak...
I wouldn't think it would be all that much,
compared to, say, the gelatin in beef feet or chicken feet.
You look at those parts and they have a hugh amount of cartilage.
Even a really tough roast...just those relatively scant ribbons of gristle.

 

[gabriel79]

He does:
"The expensive tender cuts of meat contain excessive amounts of cysteine and tryptophan, but bone broth (gelatin) and the tougher cuts of meat contain more gelatin, which lacks those amino acids" RP
In the tryptophan article

 

[narouz]

He does:
"The expensive tender cuts of meat contain excessive amounts of cysteine and tryptophan, but bone broth (gelatin) and the tougher cuts of meat contain more gelatin, which lacks those amino acids" RP
In the tryptophan article

I stand corrected.
Thanks, gabriel!

 

[gabriel79]

Now, if you want to do a really gelatinous broth, I wouldn´t count on the bones for that; especially not the shank bones which are extremely hard to dissolve. I´d add some pig feet to the broth together with the shanks. In the time the meat has cooked (say 1 and half hours) they will have leeched enough gelating to the water. (Add some potatoes , onions and leeks before to the broth and it will taste great, but that´s my own not so Peaty part of it).

 

[narouz]

Now, if you want to do a really gelatinous broth, I wouldn´t count on the bones for that; especially not the shank bones which are extremely hard to dissolve. I´d add some pig feet to the broth together with the shanks. In the time the meat has cooked (say 1 and half hours) they will have leeched enough gelating to the water. (Add some potatoes , onions and leeks before to the broth and it will taste great, but that´s my own not so Peaty part of it).

So gabriel,
you've been successful with getting a densely gelatinous broth
(one that turns Jell-O-like in the frig)
with pigs feet after an hour and a half?

I agree about the shank bone not being much good for gelatin,
especially at the low (under 3 hours) cooking limit Peat supposedly recommends.

Since I discovered cow feet and chicken feet
I haven't tried low broth making times with them.
Maybe they would make good broth in under 3 hours.
But with regular beef "soup bones" (the non-jointed ones)
I never got any decent broth at under 3 hours.

(And you bring up the subject of onions.
I've never been exactly clear on what Peat thinks of them.
But he would seem to be favorably disposed to them--
at least to consider them not very harmful.)