Considering All Clad, open to other brands. Which would you choose?
As far as size goes, consider the weight of a full pot. What are you comfortable with?
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On my wish list is an Amazon Basics 7.3 Quart Enameled Cast Iron Dutch Oven – just because it can do multiple tasks (including being a great stock pot)
The down side – they are quite heavy.
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Are you also usually cooking for a lot? 1-3 or 4+? What do you usually like to add into your stocks? If you do a lot of bone broths, taller is easier to accommodate bigger bones or carcasses that don’t sit evenly in a pot.
I cook mainly for myself, and on occasion for dinner parties, so my go to pot is the 5/6qt. It fits 3 chicken carcasses, but when I try to throw in some pork bones for noodle broth, I have to break that carcass down more. But it’s perfect for the amount of stock/soup I get for 3-4 meals without feeling like I have to eat it for a whole week. If you’re cooking for more, definitely scale up.
I don’t have anything 5 ply. 3 ply works well enough for me, and I make a form of broth or stock maybe every 2 weeks.
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Good point, generally 4 pounds more for the 8 full vs 6.
OTOH, I’ve never in my life thought to myself, “Self, gee I wish I had a 6 quart stock pot vs. an 8q”. I did start off with a 6q long ago and often wished to have a larger one. I’ve also got a 14q or 16q - it’s up over the fridge and don’t use it too often; mainly for boiling lobster or making a huge pot of chili or bean soup for a charity type deal.
Written by Zoe!
Note they refer to 8 quart as “smaller”, and it seems they didn’t look at 6s.
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I’m usually cooking for 3. I am going to be cooking a lot more stock, and more chicken stock.
I have an electric range that makes it difficult to keep a slow simmer consistent. I was hoping a better pot, either 3 or 5 ply might help with that.
thanks!
thank you, Dan.
I will have to check in a kitchen shop. I was contemplating buying them online without checking them in person.
I’m currently using a fairly light stockpot that is not AllClad and I’m not sure if it’s 3 ply.
Even with gas stove, my stocks and broths were forever shooting into full boil mode whenever I turned my back, leading to cloudy stuff, and having to deal with the egg white raft clarifying step(s) if I wanted them clear.
If you have a pressure cooker, I highly recommend using that instead of stovetop. First, it can’t boil, so no worries about accidentally overboiling and emulsifying fats (exception - if you do the quick release steam blow off, then it can boil). Second, I estimate that 5 hours on pressure is worth about 24 stovetop, just based on how long either method takes until the bones are easy to crush in your hand.
Note if you sometimes use mirepoix to flavor, don’t put the veggies in the pressure cooker. Anything more than about an hour leads to a lot of bitterness. I extract everything I can from the bones and/or meat in the pressure cooker first, defat, then concentrate on the stovetop. Any veggies go in for about 45 minutes during the concentration stage.
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Having just made a bunch of chicken stock (about 7 qts), how much do you reduce your stock, and how long at what temp?
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I use an interface , something between the pot and stove top. It is located at another residence.
I looked on the internet: the interface may be a trivet. Cast iron,
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All Clad stockpots are priced comparably to high quality older copper stockpots on places like Etsy. I used to have a disc bottom stockpot and now have heavy tinned copper, same size. I love the copper, but it is heavy. It holds a “smile” for hours. The lowest gas flame has a very small diameter, and the copper spreads it out beautifully. Also, although I rarely sweat mirepoix when making stock (I prefer to roast vegetable scraps), a heavy tinned copper bottom is as good as it gets for the mirepoix task. IMO copper is at least worth looking into.
As for size, go with the largest size with which you are comfortable. Mine is 24 cm x 24 cm. I often cook things that barely come halfway up, but now and then more volume is handy. With a smaller pot that is not an option.
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Bear in mind that I typically use bones and just whatever meat is clinging, so it comes out fairly dilute. If I tried stock with a whole chicken, it’d be different and may not even work very well (might degrade flavor?(*)).
So first I’m concentrating at a very low simmer to taste when “I think it’s about right” in terms of salt and flavor. This is the period where I’ll add mirepoix for the ~45 mins if I want it, which is usually. The amount of liquid might be 3-4 quarts of the original pressure cooker liquid, down to about 2 quarts, I think, when it “tastes right”. Hour, or 90 min total? I’ll have to watch time next time so I’ll know - the only timeframe I’ve paid attention to is just when the vegs need to come out.
Then I’ll note the weight of the pan with the “tastes right” stuff, and continue concentrating still at low simmer down to a scant quart (probably 20-26 ounces but the quart freezer bag microplastics factories I store them in are never bulging). This usually takes a couple of hours, and I lid the pan every so often to get some wash down the sides, to loosen the collagen line and scrape it back down into the stock.
Once I’ve got it concentrated enough (eyeball), I weigh it again and mark the bag “dilute with (first weight minus second weight) grams of water”. Let it cool, bag it, put it in the fridge to collagen-thicken, then freeze. Fridge firm before freezing only because I stand them up in the freezer.
(*) My daughters love stealing my chicken and mixed chicken-turkey stuff. So I’ve tested flavors by keeping some of the “tastes right” concentration apart, then concentrating the rest, and freezing all. Then thawed and reconstituted out of sight and had them see if they could tell which was which - they couldn’t.
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I do the same, with the addition of a chopped onion.
Thx for elaborating on your process.
My method is from my restaurant days, though now I mostly use a pressure cooker as I’m lazy and does such a fantastic job (6qt Fissler). I use both meat and bones, from whole chickens or turkeys (after removing the choice cuts). I roast the carcasses and meat, with 1-2 onions, 1 carrot, a few ribs of celery, and some garlic. I add bay leaf, peppercorn, a small amount of rosemary and thyme, and sometimes some coriander. 35-40 minutes on high, slow decompress, then I reduce it by 50%. I freeze in deli containers once cooled, usually a mix of 250ml and 500s, which most of my recipes are based around.
More meat is more flavour, more bones results in a better texture (i.e., more gelatine). Roasting the bones and meat make for a deeply flavourful stock (if that’s what you want). Reducing saves space, and adding water later is easy. I’ve seen a few chef methods on youtube that use whole rotisserie chickens, shredded, with thinly sliced veg, and a pressure cooker. The gentle boil of a pressure cooker avoids the cloudy stock (assuming you depressurize naturally).
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Larger is better, be cause more versatile. As to “quality,” nothing fancy is required or, in most case, even justifiable. A stock pot is just a boiler, not something subject to heavy use. Don’t overthink this.
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Although a stockpot is used to boil liquids, it is primarily used to hold the most gentle possible simmer, called a smile (in French, of course) by French cooks. Holding such a simmer steadily definitely benefits from good heat dispersion, and having heat dispersion that includes the walls as well as the base becomes more beneficial in a taller pot, where the top of a simmering stock can easily be at too low a temperature, even as the bottom is making the odd bubble now and then. For those reasons I like copper, but I also like heavy aluminum and clad.
I’d vote for the 8 qt (bigger is always better for a stock pot imho.
3 ply - I don’t know why you’d need 5 ply for a stock pot.
If you’re having heat issues I HIGHLY recommend a “heat diffuser”. It’s essentially a flat metal disc that goes between your burner and your pot. It can do wonders to help with uneven heating, thin bottom pans, and reducing your burner temp. I have 3 different sizes.
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Thanks for mentioning the heat diffuser. I will look into this.
