Made a batch six weeks ago, kept it in a sealed jar in the cupboard. Opened it tonight and it has a sharp cheesy smell, properly parmesan rather than nutty. No mould, no visible water, and it looks normal.
I cooked it until the solids were quite brown because I like that flavour, and I strained it through a sieve rather than cloth. Is cheesy a normal ghee note or have I made something that has gone off?
Worth knowing cultured butter makes naturally tangier, cheesier ghee too, so if you used a cultured butter that is a third contributor. Nothing wrong with any of it, it just is not the neutral nutty jar you were expecting.
For the next batch: cook until the water is genuinely gone, which you can hear as the bubbling and foaming dying down, and strain through fine cheesecloth or a coffee filter rather than a sieve.
Always a dry spoon into the jar. Water and crumbs are how a good batch goes off early.
Throw it out on fuzzy mould of any kind, on water sitting in it, or on a smell that is sharp and sour rather than strong and savoury. Fats go rancid with moisture, light, heat and air, and a cupboard in a warm kitchen is more of those than people think.
Clean dry jars, sealed tight, somewhere cool and dark for shorter keeping, and the fridge if you are making six weeks' worth at a time. Yours may well be fine; the spoon test will settle it faster than any of us can.
@strained_cloth · 3d ago · 3 replies
A sieve rather than cloth is probably your answer and it is a shelf-life problem rather than a spoilage one. Butter contains butyric acid, which in small amounts is part of what butter tastes like and in larger amounts smells cheesy, sour, or worse. Milk solids left behind push it that way and shorten how long the jar keeps.
Deeply browned solids also smell strongly toasty and savoury, which plenty of people describe as parmesan. Between the two, you have built a cheesy batch on purpose without meaning to.
Reply
Report
@jar_smells_cheesy · 3d ago
So how do I tell cheesy-because-of-that from cheesy-because-rancid? They sound like the same smell.
Reply
Report
@strained_cloth · 3d ago
Intensity and character. Mild cheesy or tangy is usually fine. Sharp, sour, soapy or crayon-like is rancid. Taste a little off a clean dry spoon, which tells you in about a second. And look for water droplets or a wet layer, because moisture is what gets you there.
Reply
Report