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Thursday, July 07, 2011

Making Ghee

Making Ghee

I made my 2nd batch of Ghee yesterday, and managed to get a few photos of the process. I thought I'd share them here, for those of you who may be interested in how it's done. I'm no expert, remember this is only my 2nd time, so things may change as I do it more, but I do think I'm getting the correct finished product, even if I am doing it wrong. LOL (Course I've never had anything BUT what I've made...so I wouldn't know for sure on that either. *giggle*)

Making Ghee

I started out with 8 pounds of home churned butter! No I didn't churn all 8 pounds in one day...I had to accumulate it over several days, since we don't get THAT much cream in a day. LOL

I put it in a bowl, that was set in a big stockpot of boiling water...like a double boiler. This way it can melt and cook for a little while without me having to constantly stir it and watch it closely. (I had cheese to make that morning too...as you can see in some of these photos it's in the other stockpot beside the one with the ghee in it...so needed to be able to do that while the ghee was cooking...as well as doing other things around the kitchen.)

Making Ghee

I started out with to small of a bowl, because it was just big enough to rest on the lip of the pan...but when everything heated up, it started sinking down in a little. Oops! LOL

Making Ghee

DH had to come save the day, and help me get it out of the pan, before we totally lost it, and the butter mixed with the boiling water under the pan. Thankfully between the two of us, we managed to grab the bowl and get it out of the pan. I poured it into a bigger stainless steel bowl and set it back on the stockpot to cook.

Making Ghee

The butter finally all melted, and foam started rising to the top. I spooned the foam off, although I don't know for sure if I was suppose to or not. I wanted to be able to see the oil...so I did. LOL

Making Ghee

Once it cooked a while, the foam actually got easier to remove, and eventually I got almost all of it off the top of the oil.

Making Ghee

I cooked it like this for several hours, while I made butter, did dishes, cleaned here and there in the kitchen, made and ate lunch and churned the days butter. It cleared up pretty good, so I could see the bottom of the pot, so I finally turned the burner off and decided to see if I could filter it and have it be really clear in the jars.

Making Ghee

It turned out it wasn't as clear as it should have been, so I decided to pour it into my dutch oven, and cook it over direct heat for a little while to finish it off. I didn't have to cook it all that long before it cleared up, and the milk solids on the bottom turned brown, which meant it was finished!

Making Ghee

That's when I could bottle it in earnest. I tried our old milk filter, but it didn't want to let the oil through to well, so ended up using some of the coffee filters that I keep around to filter stuff through (we don't drink coffee around here LOL). The coffee filter wanted to slid right on through the one funnel thing I used...so put some cheese cloth over the funnel first, to hold it in place better.

The filtering took a while though, cause while it would go through the coffee filter, it wasn't real fast at it, but least I got the little particles filtered out, and ended up with 3 and 3/4 quarts of ghee, (see three of them in the top photo) and the bowl of foam, which we will use in cooking till it's used up.

From what I've read, my ghee is darker than some you buy in the store, because our cows are grass fed. There are more vitamins in it, than some you buy has....or than it would have, if I made it in the winter, when the cows are eating more hay.

My Ghee, cooled off

By this morning the ghee had cooled enough that most of it had turned to a semi solid, and is more yellow...like the butter. I can still pour it though, least my last batch that look like this I can, not sure what the winter will do to it, since the house is cooler then, but for now I can still pour it like other oils I've used in the past.

I do think I want to try it sometime from start to finish in my dutch oven...to see if it's any faster. Since I'll have to stir it more, and watch it closely, I wouldn't want it to take as long as it does the way I did it today...but if it's not to long I may do it the other way, just so it's not an all day affair.

I'm hoping to stock up on ghee now that I'm stocked up on butter in the freezer, that way we have it to use in the winter too, if the cows slow down on how much butter they give us. Ghee can be stored at room temperature for long periods of time (I've read anywhere from one year to many MANY years), without it going bad on you, so it's a better oil to have for long term storage, with the added benefit of being healthier than some. (Least from what I've read online...I may or may not be right, so study up on it on your own, if you are interested in ghee!!)

Praise God for the wonderful bounty of butter, ghee, cream, cheese & milk he is giving us! It's enough to make me fall in love with our cows, if I wasn't pretty much there already! :-))

3 comments:

  1. How wonderful to have such an abundance of milk to make the butter, then more left over for making Ghee! What do you do with all the stuff left over after making the ghee... like the foam?

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  2. Well last time we used it when we fried things, and I think DH used it like butter on toast...I prefer butter for that though. LOL I don't think it's smokeless for frying like the ghee is (well till it gets into the upper 300's for temp that is), but it still works for most things, so we used it instead of throwing it out to the animals. :)

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  3. That's pretty awesome! Right out from the Little House days. :)

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