Bilona Method Ghee-Making: Traditional vs Modern

Long before centrifuges and industrial churners, Indian households made ghee the same way for generations: by hand, with patience, using a method called bilona. It's slower, and it's still the standard many traditional ghee makers hold themselves to, from home kitchens to small dairies across the country.

What is the Bilona Method?

The bilona method starts with curdling milk into dahi (yogurt), which is then hand-churned with a wooden bilona (churner) to separate out makhan (butter). That butter is slow-cooked over a low flame until the milk solids caramelize and the pure fat separates as ghee. Every step is done in small batches, by hand.

Traditionally, the curdling happens overnight in an earthen or steel vessel, using a spoonful of the previous day's dahi as a starter culture — the same principle used to set fresh yogurt at home. The churning itself uses a wooden bilona or mathani, turned by pulling a rope wound around its handle, a technique many households still teach the way it was taught to them.

The Bilona Process, Step by Step

While the exact timing varies by household, the bilona method generally follows the same five stages from milk to finished ghee. None of these steps are difficult on their own, but each one has to be timed correctly — curdling at the wrong temperature, churning too briefly, or cooking the butter on too high a flame all change the outcome.

• ✓Culturing: Milk is boiled, cooled to a specific temperature, and set with a small amount of starter culture, then left undisturbed overnight to form dahi.
• ✓Churning: The set dahi is churned by hand, usually early in the morning, until butterfat separates and rises to the surface as makhan.
• ✓Collecting the butter: The floating makhan is skimmed off by hand, while the leftover chaas (buttermilk) is set aside for drinking or cooking.
• ✓Slow-cooking: The makhan is heated on a low flame in a heavy-bottomed vessel until the water content evaporates and the milk solids brown, leaving clarified ghee behind.
• ✓Straining: The finished ghee is strained through a fine cloth to remove the browned milk solids, then cooled and stored.

Bilona vs Modern Production

• ✓Starting point: Bilona starts from curdled dahi; industrial methods typically separate cream directly from milk.
• ✓Churning: Bilona uses a hand or manually-operated churner; modern plants use centrifugal separators.
• ✓Batch size: Bilona is inherently small-batch; industrial production is built for volume.
• ✓Time: A single bilona batch can take a full day of curdling, churning, and slow-cooking.

Because bilona doesn't use a centrifuge to separate cream directly from milk, it typically yields less ghee per litre of milk than industrial processing. That lower yield, combined with the labor involved at every stage, is one of the main reasons bilona ghee costs more to produce than centrifuge-made ghee.

Why the Process Matters

The curdling step is what gives bilona ghee its distinct grainy texture and deep aroma — a byproduct of the fermentation that industrial methods skip entirely. For households that grew up with homemade ghee, that texture and smell is often the marker of "the real thing."

Many households also tie the process to specific seasons rather than making ghee year-round. Milk tends to be more abundant right after a cow or buffalo calves, so families often batch their curdling and churning during these flush periods, storing the finished ghee for the months when milk supply is lower.

Regional Variations Across India

The exact bilona technique varies by region. In parts of Rajasthan and Gujarat, some households maintain the same curdling culture across many batches rather than starting fresh each time, passing it down within the family. Across the Gangetic plains of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, buffalo milk is commonly used alongside cow milk, producing a heavier ghee owing to buffalo milk's higher fat content. In several South Indian households, part of the churned makhan is kept aside to use directly, while the rest is cooked down into ghee.

The finished ghee also varies with the season and the animal's diet. Ghee made from milk collected during the monsoon and post-monsoon months, when fodder is greenest, often has a deeper yellow color than ghee made in drier months. None of these regional differences change how the ghee is used in the kitchen — it still goes into everyday cooking, tempering, and traditional sweets the same way across regions.

Conclusion

The bilona method takes more time and more hands than industrial ghee-making, but for many Indian households, that trade-off is exactly the point — a slower process for a product that tastes the way it always has.