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Alcoholic drinks from South-west Nigeria

Agadagidi (Nigerian plantain wine)agadagidi

Agadagidi is a cloudy, fizzy, sweet-sour drink made from overripe plantain. The peeled pulp is blended with water, left covered to ferment on its own for about three days and then filtered through cloth. Yeasts and lactic bacteria from the fruit do the work, and the drink keeps only a short time.

Fully documentedAlcoholic drinks3 days

Recipe

Amounts from a sourceRatio from a study that made agadagidi by the traditional method (Malomo et al. 2023, after Omojasola et al. 2012).
Overripe plantain pulp, peeled1 part[malomo2023]
Drinking water5 partsPulp blended with water at 1:5 (w/v)[malomo2023]
Starterspontaneous

Total time across the recorded steps: 3 days

Start
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What changes: Overripe plantain pulp is blended with five times its weight of water

Step 1 of 4
Clean, peel and blend overripe plantain with water
Time
Not documented
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
Yeasts
Lactic acid bacteria

Output: plantain must.

Flavour
Not documented
Texture
Not documented
Colour
Not documented

Microbes at work in this step

Not documented for this step.

Method

Measured measured in a studySet fixed by a specification or tested recipeReported one source reports itTypical a general value, not sourced for this fermentUnconfirmed not yet checked against a source

At a glance

Agadagidi is a cloudy, fizzy, sweet-sour drink made from overripe plantain. The peeled pulp is blended with water, left covered to ferment on its own for about three days and then filtered through cloth. Yeasts and lactic bacteria from the fruit do the work, and the drink keeps only a short time. Made in 4 steps over 3 days. The longest step, ferment the must, covered, takes 3 days (Malomo A.A 2023). Saccharomyces cerevisiae (isolated from naturally fermented agadagidi), Saccharomyces bayanus and Pichia kluyveri and Lactobacillus plantarum and Leuconostoc oenos do most of the fermenting.

Key numbers
Main step3 daysReported[malomo2023]Ferment the must, covered
AciditypH 5.3–5.4Measured[malomo2023]Bottle and keep

What makes this one different

Agadagidi is a fruit wine. The whole pulp of overripe plantain is blended with water and left to ferment for about three days with no grain and no added starter [malomo2023]. Other Yoruba drinks are made from grain, such as otika from sorghum, or from palm sap, such as emu (palm wine) [olanbiwoninu2026].

Related ferments

Variants

  • Controlled-fermentation agadagidiMust sulphited with 0.1 % sodium metabisulphite, with or without a Saccharomyces cerevisiae isolate, some lots pasteurised at 70 °C for 15 min, fermented 24 h and stored three weeks [malomo2023].

Safety

In one study, adding 0.1 % sodium metabisulphite to the must generally reduced the initial lactic acid bacteria counts, and the sulphited, unpasteurised samples were judged acceptable over three weeks of storage [malomo2023].

Hazards the sources name: Candida albicans (isolated during storage).

History and sources

Every number is labelled with how it is known. How this atlas is made

History
The sources we found do not record its history.
  1. [malomo2023] Malomo A.A., Adeniran H.A., Balogun D.I., Oke A.O., Alakija O., Olaniran A.F., Iyiola O., Abiose S.H. 2023, Influence of pre-treatment on the microbiological and biochemical properties of wine produced from overripe plantain, Journal of Microbiology, Biotechnology and Food Sciences 12(4):e8258, doi:10.55251/jmbfs.8258paper
  2. [sanni1988] Sanni A.I., Oso B.A. 1988, The production of agadagidi - a Nigerian fermented beverage, Die Nahrung 32(4):319–326, doi:10.1002/food.19880320403 (abstract)paper
  3. [kambire2023] Kambire O., Yao K.M., Detto K., Kamate M. 2023, Microbiological and physicochemical variations during spontaneous fermentation of plantain must, International Journal of Food Science 2023:8611252, doi:10.1155/2023/8611252paper
  4. [olanbiwoninu2026] Olanbiwoninu A.A., Awotundun T.A., Afolabi J.F., Fashogbon R.O., Fagunwa O., et al. 2026, Ethnogeographic distribution of Nigerian fermented foods and the prospects for bioeconomy improvements, Foods 15:3087, doi:10.3390/foods15173087paper