Comments on: Double-boil chicken stock?

Question: Double-boil chicken stock?

nitor — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 17:23:39 -0800

Boiled some stock on Monday, stock sat out for 2 days. Can I salvage it?

I bought a BBQ chicken on Monday night. After picking it to pieces, i threw the bones, skin, and whatever else was left in a pot with some hot water and boiled it to make stock. I forgot about it. Yesterday (tuesday) came and went, and it is still sitting on the stove. Today is Wednesday. If I boil it again for a bit of time, will it be ok to eat? Have I waited too long to salvage it?

By: handful of rain

handful of rain — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 17:29:40 -0800

I'm usually on the "just eat it, already" side of the fence but...no. Dear god, no.

By: Good Brain

Good Brain — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 17:33:05 -0800

Pitch it, sorry. Broth is the perfect thing for growing bacteria. It doesn't matter if you kill the bacteria by boiling it again, because they've already produced the endotoxins, which is what is going to make you sick. The endotoxins aren't going to be inactivated by boiling either.

By: Blazecock Pileon

Blazecock Pileon — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 17:37:40 -0800

Bacteria love broth. Yummers. And they divide pretty quickly at room temperature. So I'd throw it out.

By: cjorgensen

cjorgensen — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 17:38:35 -0800

Boiled some stock on Monday, stock sat out for 2 days. Can I salvage it?

And here I thought this was going to be a Bernanke quote.

And I agree with handful of rain on this one. Both on the "just eat it" part, and the "Dear god, no" part, and I am an atheist.

You're talking about the parts you would have pitched anyway. What are you out? Get rid of it!

But if you do decide to eat it, let us know how that goes, ok?

By: rokusan

rokusan — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 17:48:10 -0800

My advice is definitely "throw it out" but I also know, in my heart of hearts, that unless it already had green fuzzy things, I'd just boil it again and use it.

By: i_am_joe's_spleen

i_am_joe's_spleen — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 17:59:07 -0800

Get rid of it. Do not eat it.

Repeating what Good Brain said. It is full of bugs. The bugs have made lots of poison. Heat will not destroy the poison, even if it kills the bugs.

By: kuujjuarapik

kuujjuarapik — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 18:29:12 -0800

Less than all you want to know about heat stable enterotoxins here. Your broth may be full of them, and may not be full of them. But it's only bonewater for f*&k's sake. Why risk it? Throw it out.

By: Listener

Listener — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 18:47:26 -0800

Wait a sec. Throw it out? Depends. I keep my house cold, and if I made that stock and then never took the lid off to let any air and bacteria in, that is if the last thing before forgetting was that the stock pot boiled for 5-10 minutes without the lid on, then, yeah, I'd boil it up again, and see if it smells okay. I have a sensitive smeller though. And I trust it. If you're not sure the lid is tight or contents might have been exposed to air, or if you kitchen is very warm (like tropics, e.g.) then I would chuck it. Open it up and see if it seems funky. If not, there's a good chance it's okay in a cool kitchen.

I'm not a biologist though. :) But rereading your question, it looks like it sat for ONE day. I imagine it's fine. I do that all the time. (In a cool kitchen. Not in the heat of summer.)

By: Listener

Listener — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 18:48:31 -0800

Ah, damn, blush, it IS two days. Still, it could be good. As I stated above.

By: jessamyn

jessamyn — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 18:58:10 -0800

I eat candy I find on the ground and I would not even think about eating that. The combination of chicken + warm and not being rare and/or irreplacable all point to hell no.

By: The Light Fantastic

The Light Fantastic — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 19:35:52 -0800

No way, no how.

By: The Monkey

The Monkey — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 19:36:54 -0800

I wouldn't go anywhere near this stuff.

By: TungstenChef

TungstenChef — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 20:24:54 -0800

Please please PLEASE don't follow Listener's advice. Most bacteria that will make you sick cause no discernable difference in the food. After 2 days in a good growth medium like broth, even at a relatively chilly room temp of 60 degrees, those bacteria are having an orgy of Caligulan proportions.

It's probably a food quality at this point too, whenever I throw stock bones away they smell like death the next day if I don't take the trash out right away.

By: ikkyu2

ikkyu2 — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 22:28:47 -0800

This stock was sterile when you were done boiling it, and there shouldn't have been any heat-stable toxins in it before then, because it hadn't been sitting out before that.

The question is what happened after you were done boiling it. If you feel quite certain that not even 1 bacterium could have gotten in, then the stock is still sterile and probably safe to eat.

Unfortunately, even in a lidded pot it is possible for a bacterium to settle out of the air right next to a crevice in the lid and sneak in via capillary action. If it was a nasty bacterium, then your stock is now a nasty case of food poisoning waiting to happen, because stock is just exactly the kind of stuff that bacteria thrive upon.

I wouldn't chance it.

By: mary8nne

mary8nne — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 02:47:55 -0800

2 whole days even in a cool kitchen with a lid on. I would not risk it.

I think my limit is the morning after cooking it the night before.

By: beelzbubba

beelzbubba — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 12:38:58 -0800

Pitch it. My dear sainted Mom thought that a microwave oven had the same food storage properties as a refrigerator and would let things sit there for a day or two before nuking them back up. Perhaps her system was used to it, perhaps growing up in the 1930's Depression era she ahd eaten for more questionable stuff, but on one visit home, she served us some soup that had been stored like this (of course unbeknown to us) and the food poisoning was just barely shy of hospitalization.

Moms: "Oh, I do that all the time!"

Us: "Hey Mom, let us cook tonight!"