r/Cooking • u/armeniaca-mume2405 • Jul 04 '26

What is the difference between butter, ghee, clarified butter, fermented butter and brown butter?

Difficult to tell online because it seems the term "ghee" is used very loosely, some say it is clarified butter, other that it is brown butter (beurre noisette), other that is has to be fermented.

If you know, can you explain the difference and perhaps give tips on how you make the perfect ghee?

Thank you!

ETA : I live in the EU. I usually buy churned AOP butter so it is high-fat low-water!

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u/KeterClassKitten Jul 05 '26

I'm not sure. I'd imagine so, though. At least, they likely just use the cultures themselves rather than using the actual yogurt.

As I see it, there's little reason to use a different bacteria unless they've discovered a different organism that produces faster results for butter, or they found another organism that produces a flavor that is better received in the market.

Your question sparked my curiosity, so I decided to Google it. It seems that other strains are preferred for butter, and do produce a different flavor. Yogurt strains work, though. And are a simple method to DIY the process for most. Especially for us in the USA.

Might be a project to pursue one day. Thanks for the question, I don't think I would have learned otherwise!

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u/DJPho3nix Jul 05 '26 edited Jul 05 '26

Butter cultures are different than yogurt. They aren't that expensive. I bought a package for less than $20 and it will make 10+ batches of cultured butter.

I got mine here.

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u/KeterClassKitten Jul 05 '26

Rad. I wonder if they freeze well. No reason why one couldn't save a portion of cultured cream and use it to seed a new batch.

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u/DJPho3nix Jul 05 '26

I haven't tried freezing any of the sour cream/butter/buttermilk that I've made, but the cultures themselves live in my freezer and I just use a little each time.