Homemade Ghee Is Worth The Time

Ghee is clarified butter. I still remember when I made ghee first time on my own after getting married. I always watched my mom making homemade ghee from fresh butter. Back in 1960s we used to have cows at home in India. We had a big cowshed in our back yard. There was a special person assigned to take care of them. He would take them out to pastures. He would clean the cowshed and milk the cows. Little calves being born were a common sight in those days. My grandmother knew many home remedies using different forms of milk.

Back to my story of making ghee on my own first time. I grew up seeing my mom straining freshly made ghee into glass jars while it was still hot. So I did the same, the only mistake I made was I used a plastic strainer. And suddenly I was left with a ring of the strainer with no mesh in it! Needless to say I had to throw away my first ghee but learned a lesson that I would never forget.

I found a source of non-pasteurized, non-homogenized grass fed cow’s milk from http://www.realmilk.com near my home here in Texas. I get fresh milk to make kefir and yogurt, and unsalted butter to make ghee.

This is 2 pounds of unsalted butter. Let it melt over medium heat. Use heavy-bottomed saucepan.

After the whole butter melts, keep it covered with a wooden spatula still in the saucepan. If left totally uncovered it tends to splatter around because of the water content in butter. But do not cover completely. The spatula prevents boiling over.

Give it a stir every 5 minutes or so. After about 45 minutes the solids start to float.

After few more minutes the solids start to sink down a little. Continue cooking.

Finally, solids start to turn golden brown and big bubbles start to form – its done! Turn off heat and let it stand. It continues cooking because of retained heat in ghee. The whole process takes little over an hour for 2-pounds of butter and yields 32 Oz.

I let it cool down a bit more. The solids turn to light brown and totally settle down at the bottom of the saucepan after 20 – 30 minutes.

Time to strain ghee into a mason jar using a METAL strainer. Even if by this time ghee is not really hot, still I don’t take any chances using a plastic strainer!

Ghee will keep fresh in an airtight glass jar for many months. No need to refrigerate it.