I make my own Indian Ghee from grassfed butter, using these instructions:
http://thehealthyfoodie.com/homemade-ghee/

I have done this maybe 15 times, always successfully, and I end up with a
golden honey color. Today I tried a new local butter, and I ran into
disaster and need to try to understand what happened.

Normally what happens is in the last five minutes, the butter starts to give
off a burning smell and the milk solids sink to the bottom of the pan. You
pour this over a good filter and what gets through is a pure fat without the
dairy proteins (purified butter).

Today, the ghee turned black, almost like a cup of coffee. Normally what I
see happen is that the milk solids burn off and separate from the ghee.
This happened this time, but in addition it looks like the ghee itself has
been burned, maybe ruined. I am typically cooking the ghee at under
boiling temperatures for water, so I don't see how this is even possible.
Purified butter has a smoke point of 450 degrees and I am not cooking at
anywhere close to that temperature.

Half of me is wondering if the butter still has dairy solids bound into it
and needs to be cooked even longer to burn these off. The other half of me
thinks maybe the butter I am using (Strauss Family Creamery) has some
characteristic that makes it difficult to use for ghee:
http://strausfamilycreamery.com/products/organic-butter
and I have ruined the batch.

I don't understand how ghee could end up black and looking and smelling
burned. Does anyone have a theory about what went wrong here, and is there
anything that can be done at this point?

--
W