Making broth is not as simple as simmering a bunch of ingredients for as long as possible. Especially in Korean cuisine, certain ingredients need to be simmered for a specific time period, otherwise they can make your broth taste bitter or weird and or less healthy. These simmering timelines do not include the prep needed before simmering, such as soaking or blanching. This is about just the cooking timeline after prep is complete.
Simmering Timeline:
- Beef bones should be simmered for 4-6 hours. After simmering the first batch of broth, you can re-simmer the bones again to extract more broth. You can do this 2-3 times. If you simmer each batch of broth for 4 hours, you can make 3 batches. If you simmer each batch for 6 hours, you can make two batches. You may think the longer they simmer, the better, but if they are simmered too long, the bones can release things that make it less beneficial. Mix all the batches together at the end.
- Whole Meat Cuts (with/without bone) should be simmered based on whether they contain a bone or not. Whole meat cuts used for broth without the bone should be simmered for less than meat cuts with the bones. Simmer whole meat cuts for broth for about 1 hour. You can simmer meat cuts with bones until they are tender, at least 2 hours, but it can vary based on the cut of meat and your desired texture for the meat.
- Fish bones or clams should be simmered for 30-45 minutes. They need less time than beef bones. If simmered too long, it can make the broth taste bad.
- Dried seafood (specifically pollock, dried large-eyed herring, and dried shrimp) should be simmered for 1-2 hours. This way you can get a lot of the flavor from the ingredient.
- Dried anchovy is a little different it should be simmered for 10-15 minutes maximum 30 minutes, or the flavor can be less clean and have a stronger fish smell.
- Dried sheets of seaweed should not be simmered any longer than 15 minutes. If simmered longer, it releases vitamins that make the broth bitter.
- Vegetable broths (radish, onion, etc.) only need to be simmered for 30-45 minutes otherwise, they will begin to dissolve and make your broth cloudy.
