84
Methods of Preparation of Ghee
adulteration. Therefore, it is exported and sold as butter to the consumer. The consumer
melts the butter into ghee before use or storage.
The animals are milked twice a day. The times of milking are soon after sunrise
(5 to 7 a.m.) and sunset (7 to 9 p. m.). Tinned brass, or similar metallic vessels are used
for drawing milk. Samples of raw milk were taken immediately after the milking was over.
Acidity was determined without delay at the spot.
Milk is not processed for butter making. In the evening it is seeded with half to one
ounce of buttermilk from the previous batch. The volume of seed curd remains the same
irrespective of the quantity of milk or season The interval of time between milking and
seeding is one half to two hours. Samples of buttermilk used for seeding were tested for
acidity. Souring takes place for 8 to 12 hours over night. Souring is done in an earthen-
ware vessel or chatty and the top is covered with a lid. In all houses clay pots are used
for this purpose, except in one in which a tinned copper vessel was used. The vessel is only
washed after use and may be scrubbed with straw. The morning milk after meeting other
demands is seeded, or laid aside, and mixed with evening milk and seeded. Sometimes the
morning milk is placed in the clay vessel over the smouldering remains of the kitchen fire
after cooking to warm up for one to two hours. The temperature of the milk never exceeded
70°C. in this treatment. Generally, the animals, cattle-shed, housing, milking and souring
vessels are very unclean, a condition which calls for better attention and improvement.
Even the udders and the milkman's hands are not properly washed before milking.
The curd is churned next morning in a village churn for butter. The texture of the
curd is ropy with enclosed gas bubbles inside and separated into two layers, the curd on
the top, and the serum at the bottom. The flavour is not very sweet. Samples of curd
were taken before churning. The volume of water added during churning depends on
whether it is to be used by the farmer or offered for sale. In the former case 25 per cent
to 30 per cent of water was added and in the latter case 100 per cent. Butter is never washed
after it is taken out of the butter milk. The daily yield of butter is stored in buttermilk,
which is changed daily, till it is taken away by the Mandya merchant. The merchant who
generally advances money to the villager sends his agent once a week to collect the butter
from the villager's home. Samples of butter were taken immediately after churning.
In villages wherever possible control experiments were carried out under identical
conditions using only the villager's vessels and equipment. The only difference was that milk
was boiled for five minutes in the clay vessel in which it was to be soured and seeded with
2½ per cent laboratory seed curd.
Curds in the control experiments were invariably better in flavour, firm and uniform in
texture and there was no separation of the solid and liquid layers. The butter was melted
into ghee immediately by the desi boiling off and decantation processes. The results are
given in Table I.
Storage of butter. As mentioned before the practice in Mandya taluk for butter
collectors is to go round the villages with old kerosene tins to collect butter once a week
from house to house. They in turn sell or hand it over to merchants in Mandya Town.
The Mandya merchant sends it at once by rail to Bangalore. Therefore, the stocks with
Mandya merchant are one to seven days old heterogenous collection of butter. Samples were
taken from Mandya merchants just before despatch to Bangalore (Table II). The
Bangalore retailer in his turn offers Mandya butter for sale and stocks it in his shop. He
retains it for sale so long as the colour and flavour are not bad. It is then melted into ghee
and sold as such. This length of time was found to be 10 days.
Three samples of butter prepared in the Bilideglu village including the control were
stored in three small tins for six days and analysed fresh, after three and six days. A portion
of it was boiled at each stage into ghee and analysed. This represents the effect of storage on
butter from the manufacturer to collector at Mandya (Table III). In another trial Mandya
butter as stored in a Bangalore retailer's shop was taken every third day till they were
17 days old and analysed. This tin had just arrived in Bangalore and was six days old from
the date of manufacture. Another control sample of butter prepared as before was placed
side by side in the shop in a tin that was open in the day time and covered up in the
night as is the practice. Butter samples were boiled into ghee and analysed. (Table IV).
The temperature varied during this period from 24°C. to 27°C. The induction period of ghee
from, the first and last samples were determined. The vitamin A content of ghee from
stored butter was determined in the above set to find out the effect of the procedure
(Table IV and Fig. 1).