How long to boil carcass for soup?

Answer 1

The time depends on the size of the pieces. Small pieces, around the size of a marble, can cook in 15 minutes or less. Quartered spuds may need to boil for 25 minutes or longer. If you want to test a small piece, smash it with a fork. It should not have a hard core.

If you put salt in the water, it will raise the boiling point and allow them to cook a bit quicker.

Answer 2

I assume you are trying to make the stock for the soup first, correct?

Don't forget to brown the carcass in the oven for an hour at 350 or 400 degrees first before putting it in the stock pot. This isn't absolutely necessary but ,you will get a richer, better tasting product. And consider adding some canned chicken broth to the stock pot as well, that will also improve the final product.

You actually shouldn't BOIL the stock, you just bring it up to a boil, then turn the heat down to a simmer. Boiling is too quick, you want to slowly cook the carcass to get as much flavor out of the bones and any little pieces of meat, and you want to get as much of the gelatine as possible as well. So you simmer it, possibly for hours depending on the volume of bones.

There isn't a set amount of time you should cook it, what you are looking for is the results. So don't worry so much about time, other than periodically checking the water level, look at what is happening in the pot. (And here I'm assuming you're making either chicken or turkey stock.) As the stock simmers, it will turn from a light yellowish color to more of a caramel color. That's good. Once the bones simmer long enough, the connective tissue will break down, and the carcass pieces will fall apart. When the stock is caramel colored, or almost so, and the chicken bones have lost their original shape and connective tissue and fallen to individual pieces in the pot, the stock is ready.

You can either strain out all the vegetables and bones at that point and use the stock right away, or you can remove everything, turn up the heat and reduce the liquid to a more concentrated form. Or if you want, you can pour the stock into a container, and once it cools, place it in a refrigerator overnight, and the chicken fat will collect all at the top, and you can just scoop any excess you don't want off.