Preserving and Using Jello or Hide Glue

I used to save my extra bone broths (and meat) in heat sealing mason jars and store in a second fridge. The plastic from the lid was getting into my broth, so that method was partially discarded; if this method is used its done for short term storage and the content is not sterril. 

Make broth, and gelatinize the liquid. The liquid should be able to stay sold at room temperature for some time; this is difficult with just bones in your average broth, so it will need much tendon and or scraped hide, chemical and contaminant free, from a wild, clean animal; this will make it as thick as possible.

Scoop the jellow onto a stainless steel rack (not chrome plated one) in large chunks so that they are not touching much. If you use a glass plate, once dry, they will stick well enough to pit the glass and leave it in your food. These glass shards you absolutely dont want eat so you'll need to use a tallow, oil, or bees wax on the plate to prevent sticking.

Blow fans on the chunks so that the surfaces cant stay moist initially for very long; keeping the fans blowing for 4 days or so in a well ventilated coolish room. At some point, after a few days, flip the hardening chunks and finish dehydrating.

Eventually you will be left with sharp, "things", of dehydrated jellow which can be taken outdoors, used as hide glue (provided there is no oil on the chunks from drying), added to a soup, just left to melt in the mouth, and simply stored in a dust free container.

If the gelatin is not quite thick enough just pour it onto the the plate , with a layer of game tallow covering the surface, and the puddle will dry and begin to lift away from the plate after a couple of days.

You must coat the surface of your translucent, not colored, glass plate first or the glue will pit the surface, pulling the glass right off when you try to remove it later.

Im still working on how to do this outdoors. The chunks tend to want to melt into a sloppy puddle and smell in short.

To use the gold glue shards, simply warm water in a clay pan (some use double boiler) and swirl the shard until it has dissolved into the water. The direct heat will weaken the glue so hence the clay or bouble boiler.





Just flipped.



You can also do this with cooked meat in the jello too to preserve a meat stew.