Brown beef stock

Beef stock
I have wanted to make beef stock from scratch for a while. Unbounded ambition, that's me.

Ingredients:
As much chopped up beef marrow bone as you can get (I used 500g. The rest of my measurements are for that amount. Adjust your recipe if you get more).
One onion roughly chopped
3 carrots sliced length ways - I didn't bother to peel them, just washed
A tsp of peppercorns
A couple of whole cloves if you like
1.5 litres of boiling water
3 cloves of garlic with the skins left on
Whatever herbs you like - I used Sage because I had some in the garden.

Sourcing:

The marrow bones are from Fitzpatrick's butchers in the Tesco shopping centre in Celbridge. Tried most of the other butchers in Celbridge - including Tesco's and this was the first one to produce the goods. I could hear him hack sawing away in the back. He gave me about 500g of marrow bone and did not charge. I bought some shoulder of lamb to make a stew some day so I did not feel too guilty about making him do all that hacking. That's the marrow bones in the picture. Along with my wrecked roasting tray.
Sage was from my garden. The hardiness of this plant never ceases to amaze me. It has plenty of leaves on it now and the weather has been freezing.
The veg are from Aldi.
Peppercorns from Marks and Spencer - no particular reason. I was just there and so were they.

Method:
Roast the bones in a strong roasting tray for about half an hour at gas mark 8. This should brown them a bit. Then add all of the vegetables, but not the garlic, cloves, peppercorns or herbs to the tray and give it another 45 minutes.
Then scrape the whole lot into a large pot and add the boiling water and the rest of the ingredients. Turn the heat on under that one.
Then add a small amount of water - about a cup - to the roasting tray and deglaze it on top of the cooker. Use a wooden spoon to make sure you scrape all the nice crisped up bits into the liquid. Make sure you use an oven glove to hold the roasting dish when you are deglazing. Empty this liquid into the stock pot too. Bring it to the boil. Reduce to the lowest possible heat and allow to simmer for 5 hours. Let the stock cool and then put it in the fridge. The fat will set on the surface. Use a large spoon to skim this off. The stock is ready to use. I am going to make French onion soup with it. I'll post that when I have it finished. Here's a picture of what it looked like bubbling away.