How to Make Ghee the Vedic Way

1. Cook the butter on a low flame.

2. After it melts, it will go through various stages of bubbling:

   • big bubbles – this is the Kapha dosha being released (purifying the vitiating earth and water elements out of the butter)

   • medium bubbles – this is pitta (purifying the excess fire element from the butter)

   • small. hard, quick bubbles – this is vata (purifying the air and space element from the butter). This is one of the final stages of the ghee making process.

3. There are also various stages of “foaming” throughout the process. This is mostly early on in the ghee making process. Sometimes, there are two stages of “stillness” – when the top layer of the ghee is still. The first stage is usually “still foam”, and the “second stage of stillness” is after the second

4. The ghee is ready when there is a still “crusty” layer at the top. There are hardly any or no bubbles, and the layer is crusty with a reddish/brown colour.

5. Don‘t touch the ghee throughout the process as much as possible. Let it be.

6. At the end, you can move the crust/foam with a clean spoon to peak through. You should see what looks like a reddish/dark brown coating on the base of the pot. It may looked burnt and others would even say you burnt it because there is dark gunk stuck to the base of the pot. But it should not be. It can be burnt (black colour, smells burnt), of which is not good. You do want that coating (slightly burnt milk solids and butter impurities) on the case which kind of looks like honey comb stuck to the base.

7. Scoop out the crust – Scoop out majority of the crust for easier straining. I let this crust sit in a strainer over my plate to collect the drips (every drop is precious).

8. Strain the liquid gold through a fine sieve + clean cheese cloth (that doesn’t shed strings. I keep my cheese cloth for ghee only in a ziplock bag, which I change every few times of making ghee).

9. Pour into clean sterile jars and enjoy!

As said earlier, the time to prepare ghee absolutely changes according to the unique factors (butter quantity, flame strength, pot used).

It takes me 10 hours to prepare 6.5kg of butter on my stove (see time-lapse part of ghee-making video, where 10 hours is turned into 36 seconds, highlighting the preperation stages).

The Importance of Proper Purification and Cooking

Here is another factor that will distinguish your ghee from others ghee – cooking it for a long time to properly purify the butter and remove the impurities.

Most people don’t do this for a few reasons:

1. They don’t understand the importance of proper purification

2. They are scared to burn the ghee

3. They are commercially making ghee and/or want more bang for their buck

I Burnt My Ghee, What To Do?

You can tell if you burnt your ghee as it will be a brown or dark golden colour. The main factor is you can smell it burnt, but you can also taste it.

The only use I know of burnt ghee is to use it as fire fuel or for oil lamps. Not for eating.

Note, it may take a few goes to “get to know” your ghee set up (stove, pot, butter amount etc.) before you nail it.

Keep an eye on the ghee, don’t leave it as it can burn very quickly. Don’t leave the stove unattended. Give it your divine attention.

This is a big process of making ghee, particularly if you are doing quantities like 6.5kg per pot.

Cleaning the pot:

1. With a scraper and without much force, scrape off the excess milk solids at the bottom of the pot and dispose.

2. Soak the pot in hot water + natural soap + lemon juice for an hour or more.

3. Again scrape with more force the base of the pot and remove basically all the large parts of the gunk.

4. With steel wool, clean the final remains of the pot and finish.

Cleaning ghee cloth:

I just use very hot water and rub it together. That’s it. Dry in the sun if possible.

Cleaning utensils (ladles, spoons, pouring jugs, etc):

I wipe with paper towel to remove oil and then clean as usual.