I get that. I add my veg (except the alliums) later in the braise.
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The beef stew I made Sunday was very beefy, but I used red wine and beef broth. I added some fire roasted tomatoes but not the juice. I have used a packet of au jus instead of broth, making it with 2 cups of water instead of three. Or maybe just add a packet of beef gravy mix. I wonder if sweet vermouth instead of wine would help?
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Somewhere I saw the use of either or both baking soda (for browning) and gelatin (for smoothness). Beef consommé is my go to addition in stews and stroganoffs because I am l-a-z-y. Liquid umami in a can.
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The best quick suggestions aren’t beef.
Unless you make demiglace, the most bang for the buck comes from mushrooms, anchovies, browned tomato paste, maybe some 41 fish sauce and some bone marrow.
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Thanks everyone! I was so tempted to toss fish sauce or soy sauce in there, but that is the downfall of instant pot - can’t taste as you go.
I meant to add mushrooms, but forgot to grab some at the store. 
And great suggestions to brown the tomato paste and onions first. I don’t use beef broth or stock that often, so BTB has always been the most convenient option when I need it in a pinch. I almost never have bones and to make beef stock. Are there any other recommended brands of the shelf you like? Otherwise I will try to leave it more concentrated next time as many of you suggest.
To be honest, I only make beef stew to use up the chuck that’s in my meat share. It’s a grass fed, local organic meat share org, and so their products are generally very good quality. Maybe the next time, I’ll try to start this early enough and do it on the stove as well.
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Instead of wine, you could try hard apple cider. One of my beef stews uses hard apple cider. Much less expensive than wine and you can always boil the rest off with a little sugar to make an appley syrup for waffles and such.
+1 to all of the suggestions for using a strong beef stock and mushrooms. For a good, umami note I either throw in dry, crumbled porcini slices or I blitz them in a food processor and use the powder.
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IME, you have to be careful with BTB, lest you oversalt. Definitely use stock, the lowest salt you can find.
There is another alternative, too: instant “au jus” mix. Add some powder along with your stock. There are mixes available that minimize saltiness, but most are salt bombs, so taste!
There’s also… more beef. If you have a Costco nearby, pick up a pack of their shabu-shabu. Brown/caramelize some slices, mince it all up, and then Vitamix it with your stock before assembling the stew. The shabu makes excellent French dips and cheesesteaks, too.
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The place for the sugar is not in the liquid. Add it to the flour used in browning the meat, using maybe a tenth of the amount of flour. The browning caramelizes the sugar right into the meat. I have found, paradoxically, that chicken stock works better than beef broth for a good beef stew flavor. I also add 1/4 tsp of Chinese five spice or French quatre epices powder per pound of meat. And use a lot more garlic than you think you need. With all the browning and caramelization going on, I run two skillets at a time one for browning the meat and another for browning the onions etc. It saves a lot of time.
Strongly recommend you make your stew on a day when you’ll be around all day, brown and add product and seasonings stovetop then move the lidded dutch oven to oven and let bake at 275 - 300F for 3 to 4+ hours, checking liquid level a couple of times. Either serve same day or cool and reheat next day.
This recipe for Beef and Guinness Stew has become my “go to”.
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Heres our recipe:
Cube the beef, with a little fat on them, slice up some onions, add a little olive oil to the pot. When hot
add onions and sweat, keep the heat up, add beef and plenty of S&P, and brown, don’t cook all the way.
Do 2 batches if necessary. remove from pot and keep the heat up, add a can of v-8 and bring to a boil, get all the beef flavor from the pot off the sides and bottom. Add beef and onions back, celery leaf, beef broth and hot water to cover, simmer for about an hour and shut off. Let it sit for a bit, skim if needed. Then add vegetables in order of cook time, I do carrots and turnip first, then potatoes, then frozen peas. We don’t typically thicken our stew but you can add a flour slurry at the end if you want a thicker stew. We serve over biscuits, which works for us. It is a 3-4 hour process on a Sunday afternoon but lasts the week for lunch and/or dinner and freezes nicely.
I always keep beef consommé in my pantry to use for these dishes. It’s increasingly hard to find here. I never dilute it.
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I have used Campbells condensed French Onion Soup instead of canned beef stock.
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Coincidentally, the November/December issue of Cook’s Illustrated had a sidebar for exactly this sitch: Making Beef Taste Beefier. It reads:
“Although beef is considered a prime example of savory umami flavor, it doesn’t taste particularly beefy on its own. That’s because the meat contains relatively little glutamate - less than a strawberry has. Glutamate is the central umami amino acid, producing ultra savory taste by triggering umami receptors on our taste buds. But if you add glutamate-rich ingredients such as miso and soy sauce to beef as we do in our short rib recipe, the meat can taste exceptionally beefy thanks to a synergistic reaction between the glutamate and inosine monophosphate (IMP), a compound in beef. The glutamate stimulates umami receptors on our taste buds while the IMP effectively holds the glutamate in place on the receptors, intensifying the umami experience up to eightfold when the compounds are present in equal amounts.”
TL;DR - add a glug of shoyu or miso.
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Stew is always more flavorable on day two, imho.
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It is difficult to find. Long ago fashion models used to sip the stuff with a squeeze of lemon and a few turns of the pepper mill. Who knows, they may still. Vegan consomme with all that beefy umami? Maybe mushroom consommé
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I hope I don’t offend anyone on HO or Hestia, the Greek god of the hearth, but in the past I’ve used this product for stews to get that “beefy” umami essence. If I have offended anyone, I ask that I’m given some slack as I’m known to just do things which work for me as opposed to what may work for others.
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I use a blup of Gravy Master in my chicken and beef gravies, so no issues from me using Kitchen Bouquet for a beef stew!
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I’ve never used it in a stew, but I have been known to anoint the outsides of various roasts with it before cooking. For years.
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Is canned consomme a thing where you are? Including it in the mix gives a really beefy boost.
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I wonder how similar to maggi sauce this is, which I find to be the beefiest, umamiest (secret) ingredient for both beef stews and beef marinades.
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