How to make beef stock from scratch

I have wanted to do this for a while, but could not get my hands on the right beef bones - most butchers make excuses about them being all gone already. Not my butcher in Finglas though. Glad to help and chopped them up nice and small to go in the pot. So here goes.

Get about 2 kg of beef bones - large marrow bones are the ones to get. Place them on a roasting tray along with a couple of halved onions (don't peel them, just take off any dirt) and a bulb of garlic sliced across the middle to expose the flesh of all of the cloves. (Here is a post showing a picture of what I mean about the garlic) and put in a 200 degree C oven for about an hour until well and truly roasted - maybe even a bit burned at the edges.

Scrape all of this off the tray into a large pot (your biggest) and cover with water. Add in some roughly chopped carrots, a leek halved lengthways, a tablespoon of peppercorns - don't crush them and a teaspoon of salt. Bring the whole lot to the boil and let simmer for about 4 hours. Strain it while still hot and throw away all of the solid bits. Let the liquid cool overnight and then skim it. Mine had about 3 mm of hard fat on it at that stage. Then you can reduce the stock by simmering it with the lid off for an hour or 2. Split into batches and freeze until you need it.

There is quite a bit of work in this, but the end result smells quite good (if a little bit weird). I have not tried it in anything yet, but will make a beef stew soon to see how it tastes. This uses a lot of cooker time and is probably one to do if you have a lot to do in the kitchen anyway. Better still if you were using the oven anyway and just slid the bones in beside the other stuff for 'free' roasting.