The bilona method makes ghee from cultured curd rather than from separated cream, which roughly triples the milk required per litre of finished ghee. Industrial ghee needs about 10 to 12 litres of milk per litre; bilona needs around 30.
Where does the yield go?
Culturing the whole milk into curd, then churning that curd, leaves a large share of the fat behind in the buttermilk. A cream separator recovers fat far more efficiently — that is what it is engineered to do. Bilona trades that efficiency for the flavour compounds fermentation creates.
What do you get for the loss?
- Aroma. Fermentation produces diacetyl and short-chain fatty acids that a cream route never develops.
- Grain. Slow wood-fire clarification lets fat crystals form large and irregular.
- Digestibility. Culturing pre-breaks much of the residual lactose.
Why the price follows
At 30:1, the milk alone in a litre of bilona ghee costs about three times the milk in a litre of industrial ghee — before accounting for hand labour and firewood. There is no way to make this method cheap. That is the honest answer.