To make bilona ghee at home, boil whole milk, cool it and set it into curd overnight, churn the curd until butter separates, lift and wash the butter, then heat it slowly until the bubbling quietens, the solids turn golden-brown and it smells nutty. Strain, cool and store dry. Expect very little: a few litres of milk give a small bowl of ghee.
The bilona, or curd-churned, method is the household way of making ghee in much of India. It is slower and less efficient than making ghee from separated cream, and the slow heating at the end is where ghee's flavour develops. What follows is the method step by step, with the signs to watch for at each stage, a realistic yield, and the mistakes that most often spoil a batch.
At a glance
- Seven stages: boil and cool the milk, set curd overnight with a starter, churn, gather and wash the butter, clarify slowly, strain and cool.
- Setting time under controlled conditions, per an IIT Kharagpur lecture: 16 to 18 hours in winter, 8 to 10 in summer.
- The ghee is done when the loud bubbling quietens, finer bubbles appear, the solids turn golden-brown and it smells nutty; dairy texts put the final temperature at about 110 to 120 °C.
- Yield: about 30 litres of cow milk per litre of ghee, so five litres give roughly 165 to 200 ml; the NDDB bulletin notes the traditional method recovers only up to 85 per cent of the fat.
- Store it in a dry, airtight glass jar away from light, with a dry spoon; moisture, air, light and copper or iron are what spoil ghee.
What do you need to make bilona ghee at home?
You need whole milk, a spoonful of curd or buttermilk from a previous batch as the starter, a deep pot for setting and churning, a wooden churn or hand whisk, a heavy-bottomed pan, a fine strainer or clean muslin, and dry, airtight glass jars. Everything that touches the milk, butter or ghee should be scrubbed clean and dried.
The traditional churn is the bilona itself, a wooden beater spun back and forth with a cord in a clay or steel pot. A hand-held wooden mathani works the same way on a smaller scale. An electric hand blender on low speed can stand in for it; stop as soon as the butter appears. If you want to see how the method looks at working scale, we describe it on the bilona process page.
How do you make bilona ghee, step by step?
There are seven stages: boil and cool the milk, set it into curd, churn, gather the butter, wash it, clarify it slowly, then strain and cool. Each stage has a sign that tells you it is finished. Learn the signs and you will not need a thermometer or a timer for most of it.
- Boil the milk, then cool it. Bring whole milk to the boil and let it cool to room temperature, or just lukewarm, before adding the starter. Dairy-technology guidance on improving the home method recommends filtering the milk and boiling it before making dahi, then cooling it to room temperature before adding the culture.
- Set the curd. Stir in a spoonful of curd or buttermilk from the previous day, cover, and leave it somewhere undisturbed. A lecture in the IIT Kharagpur food-technology course on NPTEL gives the setting time under controlled conditions as 16 to 18 hours in winter and 8 to 10 hours in summer. The sign: the curd is firm and set, and smells clean and sour.
- Churn. Add some cool water to loosen the curd and churn steadily. At first the curd simply froths. Then the sound changes, the liquid thins into buttermilk, and small yellow-white grains of butter begin to float. Keep going gently until the grains clump together. In summer, keep things cold: the same lecture recommends using cold butter during churning in summer to reduce the fat lost in the buttermilk.
- Gather the butter. Scoop the floating butter out with your hand or a slotted spoon and press it into a ball. Keep the buttermilk; it is good to drink or cook with.
- Wash the butter. Knead the butter in a bowl of cold water, pour the cloudy water off, and repeat until the water stays nearly clear. Buttermilk left in the butter adds water that has to be boiled off later and leaves more solids in the pan.
- Clarify slowly. Melt the butter in the heavy pan over a low flame and let it simmer, stirring now and then. It will foam and crackle loudly at first as the water boils away. Do not hurry this stage.
- Strain and cool. When the signs in the next section appear, turn off the heat and let the pan stand so the solids settle. Pour or strain the clear ghee through fine muslin into a dry jar, leave it uncovered until it reaches room temperature, then close it.
How do you know when the ghee is ready?
The ghee is ready when the loud, early bubbling has died down, a second round of quieter, finer bubbles appears, the milk solids at the bottom have turned golden-yellow to light brown, and a distinct nutty smell rises from the pan. Take it off the heat at that moment.
These signs are not folklore. A National Dairy Development Board technical bulletin on ghee manufacture describes the same sequence: plenty of effervescence with a crackling sound at first, both gradually subsiding as the moisture falls, then a subtler second effervescence with browning of the curd particles, at which point the typical ghee flavour develops. For the village method it notes that the extent of frothing is the index used to judge when to stop heating. An academic e-text on ghee technology adds that heating is discontinued as soon as the particles reach the desired golden-yellow or brown colour.
If you do use a thermometer, those dairy texts put the final clarification temperature for the desi method at about 110 to 115 °C (the NDDB bulletin) or 110 to 120 °C (the e-text and the IIT lecture). Treat that as a cross-check, not a target to chase. The real warning is in the bulletin: once almost all the water has gone, the temperature of the fat suddenly shoots up, so this is the moment to lower the flame and watch closely.
How much ghee will a few litres of milk make?
Very little. Curd-churned cow ghee takes about 30 litres of milk per litre of ghee. Divide the milk you start with by those two figures and you have a realistic range: five litres of cow milk gives roughly 165 to 200 millilitres of ghee, about a small cup.
The arithmetic, at about 30 litres per litre of ghee, and 25 for richer milk:
| Cow milk you start with | ÷ 30 litres per litre of ghee | ÷ 25 litres per litre of ghee | Expected ghee |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2 litres | 2 ÷ 30 = 0.067 litres | 2 ÷ 25 = 0.080 litres | About 65 to 80 ml |
| 5 litres | 5 ÷ 30 = 0.167 litres | 5 ÷ 25 = 0.200 litres | About 165 to 200 ml |
| 10 litres | 10 ÷ 30 = 0.333 litres | 10 ÷ 25 = 0.400 litres | About 335 to 400 ml |
That figure is the one Himdhara works to for curd-churned cow ghee, and a first attempt at home may well come in at the low end or below it, because hand churning in a warm kitchen leaves more fat behind in the buttermilk. The NDDB bulletin notes that the traditional method recovers only up to 85 per cent of the fat. Richer milk will do better; milk with some of its fat removed will do worse, in proportion. We explain where the missing fat goes in why bilona yields so little ghee.
What are the most common mistakes?
Most failed batches come from rushing one of three stages: setting the curd, churning, or clarifying. The commonest single mistake is heating the butter too hard at the end, after the water has gone, when the temperature of the fat climbs quickly.
- Too much heat at the end. The NDDB bulletin, citing earlier research, notes that heating ghee for 40 minutes or more at 120 °C gives a deep dark brown colour and a fishy odour. Lower the flame once the first loud bubbling fades.
- Stopping too early. If the solids are still white and the pan is still crackling, water remains. Ghee with water left in it spoils sooner.
- Unwashed butter. Buttermilk left in the butter means more water to boil off and more solids to scorch.
- Warm churning. In summer more fat is lost to the buttermilk; the IIT lecture recommends keeping the butter cold while churning.
- Leaving butter out for days. The IIT lecture lists low keeping quality and high acidity among the drawbacks of the home method as commonly practised. Refrigerate collected butter and clarify it soon.
- A wet jar or spoon. Even a few drops of water shorten the life of finished ghee.
How should you cool and store homemade ghee?
Let the ghee cool in a clean, completely dry glass jar, close it once it reaches room temperature, and keep it away from light and heat. Always take ghee out with a dry spoon. Light, air, moisture and contact with metals such as copper and iron are what make it go rancid.
The IIT lecture makes the household point directly: the habit of wiping the spoon dry before dipping it into the ghee jar matters, because traces of water speed spoilage, and ghee exposed to light or air oxidises. The same lecture recommends filling containers so that little air is left above the ghee. How the ghee sets also depends on cooling: the NDDB bulletin notes that ghee left at room temperature can separate into an oily layer, a granular layer at the bottom and harder flakes, and that storing it at 20 °C or below immediately after it is made prevents the layers. For how long ghee lasts and what spoilt ghee looks and smells like, see our guide to ghee storage and shelf life.
Food-safety sense applies to every stage before that, too. Boil the milk. Use a starter that smells clean and sour, not yeasty or off. Scrub and dry the pot, churn and strainer each time. If curd smells wrong, has coloured spots or grows mould, throw it out rather than churning it.
The short version
Boil whole milk, cool it, and set it into firm curd with a spoonful of the previous day's curd. Churn until butter gathers, lift it out and wash it in cold water. Clarify it slowly and stop when the bubbling quietens, the solids turn golden-brown and the pan smells nutty. Strain into a dry jar, cool, and store it closed, away from light, with a dry spoon. Expect roughly 165 to 200 ml of ghee from five litres of cow milk, and often less on a first try.
Sources
Further reading behind the figures above. Himdhara's own numbers — yields, batch results — come from our production records and the batch reports on the lab reports page.
- National Dairy Development Board (2020). Technology of Ghee manufacturing. Technews, Issue No. 99.
- INFLIBNET Centre. Technology of Ghee making – Direct cream, Creamery butter, Continuous method. Technology of Milk and Milk Products.
- Mishra, H. N., Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur. Lecture 40: Ghee (Butter Oil). NPTEL, Food Oils and Fats: Chemistry & Technology.