Bilona Method: The Science Behind Churning Buffalo Curd
Most ghee sold in Indian supermarkets today is made by a shortcut: cream is separated from raw milk using a centrifuge, then boiled directly into ghee. It's fast, cheap, and scalable — and it skips a step that Ayurveda has considered essential for centuries. That step is the Bilona method, and the difference it makes isn't just tradition for tradition's sake.
Curd First, Then Butter
The Bilona process starts differently: whole buffalo milk is boiled, cooled, and set into curd overnight using a small culture of previous curd (much like making yogurt at home, just at farm scale). Only after the milk has fully fermented into curd does the churning begin — using a wooden bilona (churner), moved back and forth by hand or a simple mechanical arm, for 45 to 60 minutes per batch.
This churning agitates the fermented curd until the butterfat separates from the buttermilk, rising to the top as fresh white butter (makkhan). That butter is then skimmed off and slow-cooked over a wood fire until the water content evaporates and the milk solids brown slightly, leaving pure, aromatic ghee behind.
Why Fermentation Changes Everything
Fermenting the milk into curd before churning does two things that direct-cream methods skip entirely. First, the lactic acid bacteria in curd partially break down the milk proteins and fats, which is widely believed to make the resulting ghee easier to digest — this is part of why Bilona ghee is traditionally recommended even for infants and those with sensitive digestion, under medical guidance. Second, fermentation develops deeper flavor compounds than fresh cream ever can, which is why Bilona ghee has a noticeably richer, more complex aroma than centrifuged ghee — closer to a slow-cooked reduction than a simple melted fat.
Slow Fire, Not Fast Steam
Commercial ghee production increasingly uses steam-jacketed kettles to cook cream into ghee quickly at scale. It works, but high, fast heat browns milk solids unevenly and can mute some of the more delicate aromatic compounds. Cooking on an open wood fire, as we do, requires constant attention — someone has to watch the pot, adjust the flame, and know by smell and color exactly when to pull it off the heat. It's slower, but it's also the only way to consistently get that deep, nutty aroma associated with genuinely old-style ghee.
The Honest Trade-Off
None of this is free. Bilona-method ghee takes roughly 20-25 litres of milk to produce just 1kg of finished ghee, once you account for the curd-setting time, hand-churning labor, and the lower yield of slow-fire cooking compared to industrial extraction. That's the real reason artisanal ghee costs more than the ghee at a general store — not packaging, not branding, but the sheer amount of milk, time, and manual work the traditional process actually requires.