A Week at Our Gir Cow Farm in Jasapar: What Actually Goes Into Every Jar of A2 Ghee

Monday morning starts the same way it has for years -before sunrise, before the Gujarat heat sets in, when the Gir cows are still settling after their first feed. I’ve written before about what A2 Gir Cow Ghee is and why the Bilona method takes as long as it does. This time I wanted to just write down what an actual week at our farm in Jasapar looks like, without turning it into a sales pitch. Just the week, as it happened.

Monday: Meeting the Cows Again

There are mornings I still stop and just watch the herd for a minute before starting work. Our cows are all Gir -one of India’s older indigenous breeds, originally from this part of Gujarat, near Sasan Gir… If you’d like to see how we maintain our cows and their natural environment, explore our **Gir Cow Gaushala in Jasapar** . They’re smaller than the crossbred cattle you’ll see on bigger commercial dairies, and they’re slower producers too. That’s not a flaw we’re working around; it’s the reason the milk behaves the way it does once it becomes ghee.

Gir cows naturally produce what’s called A2-type milk-meaning the beta-casein protein in it is only the A2 variant, not a mix of A1 and A2 like you’ll find in many crossbred or foreign cattle breeds. Nobody engineers that. It’s just how this particular breed’s milk has always been.

Tuesday: Why We Still Make Curd Before Butter

Tuesday is usually a curding day. This is the part that surprises people most when I explain it -we don’t skim cream off the milk and heat it directly, which is how most commercial ghee is made today. We first turn the milk into curd, let it set overnight, and only then hand-churn it into butter using a wooden bilona.

It’s slower. A lot slower. An industrial cream separator can process in minutes what our churning takes hours to do by hand. But this is the traditional Bilona process, and it’s the reason people describe Bilona ghee as having a different aroma and texture compared to ghee made by direct cream separation -the extra fermentation step from curding does something the shortcut skips.

Wednesday: The Actual Churning

Wednesday, more than any other day, is when you can smell the difference in the air near the churning shed. Hand-churning curd into butter takes real time and real effort -this isn’t a machine running in the background while someone checks their phone. Someone is physically working the churner, watching the butter separate from the buttermilk in real time.

By the time we’re done, what we’re left with is white butter -not yet ghee, just the first result of the whole week’s work so far.

Thursday: Slow-Cooking the Butter Into Ghee

Thursday is the day the butter finally becomes ghee -slow-cooked over a controlled flame until the water content evaporates and the milk solids separate out, leaving behind clear, golden liquid ghee. This step is where patience matters most. Rush the heat, and you risk burning the milk solids, which changes the flavour. Keep it low and slow, and you get the aroma that’s supposed to define a good Bilona ghee.

This is also usually the moment I remember why we called this A2 Gir Cow Bilona Ghee in the first place -every word in that name is describing an actual step you can watch happen, not just a label on a jar.

Friday: Filtering, Cooling, and Jarring

Friday is quieter. The ghee is filtered, left to cool and set naturally, then jarred. No shortcuts here either -rushing the cooling process can affect the texture. By the end of the day, what started as raw milk from our Gir cows on Monday is finally sitting in jars, ready to leave the farm.

What This Week Reminded Me Of

I write about A2 ghee, Bilona methods, and Gir cow breeds fairly often, in fairly technical terms. But weeks like this one are a good reminder that behind all of that vocabulary is just a very physical, very unhurried process -cows, curd, a wooden churner, and a flame that isn’t allowed to rush. That’s really what “traditional” means here. Not a marketing word. Just a description of how long things actually take.

If you’re curious about the process itself in more technical detail, I wrote a separate piece comparing Vedic Bilona churning to industrial centrifugal ghee-making a while back.

A Few Things People Often Ask

Why is it called Gir Cow Ghee specifically?

It’s named after the Gir breed -one of India’s indigenous cow breeds, originally from the Gir region of Gujarat. Gir cows naturally produce A2-type milk, which is the basis for A2 Gir Cow Ghee.

What actually makes a ghee ‘A2’?

It comes down to the cow, not the process. A2 refers to the type of beta-casein protein in the milk. Indigenous breeds like Gir naturally produce only A2 protein, while many crossbred or foreign-breed cows produce a mix of A1 and A2.

How is Bilona ghee different from the ghee I usually buy?

Most commercial ghee is made by separating cream directly from milk and heating it. Bilona ghee starts with curd, which is hand-churned into butter first, and only then slow-cooked into ghee -a longer process most large dairies have moved away from.

Is this process the same for every batch?

Yes -the sequence (curdling, hand-churning, slow-cooking) stays the same regardless of batch size, which is part of why it takes the time it does.

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