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Alcoholic drinks from Western Ethiopia

Ogol (Majangir honey wine with mange bark)ogol

Ogol is a honey wine of the Majangir people of Gambella in western Ethiopia. Pounded bark of the mange tree is mixed with wild honey and water and left to ferment for about two weeks. A little more water is added, the mixture ferments without air in a hot place for 12 to 36 hours more, and the wine is filtered through a cloth before it is served.

Fully documentedAlcoholic drinks15 days – 16 daysFamily: Mead (base flow)

Recipe

Amounts from a sourceTraditional process with no fixed batch size. The review that describes it gives no amounts for the bark, honey or water.
Pounded bark of the mange tree (Blighia unijungata)Pulverised and mixed in with the honey and water; no amount is given[fentie2020]
Wild honeyThe main substrate[fentie2020]
WaterHoney to water about 1:3A 2018 paper gives this honey-to-water ratio for ogol, citing Teramoto et al. 2005[cisse2018]
Extra waterA small amount added after the first fermentation[fentie2020]
Starterartisanal starters, according to Cisse et al. (2018), who say ogol is prepared from them following ancestral practices

Total time across the recorded steps: 15 days – 16 days

Start
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What changes: The bark of the native mange tree is pounded to a powder

Step 1 of 5
Pulverise the mange bark
Time
Not documented
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
Yeasts
Saccharomyces cerevisiae

Output: bark powder.

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

Ogol is a honey wine of the Majangir people of Gambella in western Ethiopia. Pounded bark of the mange tree is mixed with wild honey and water and left to ferment for about two weeks. A little more water is added, the mixture ferments without air in a hot place for 12 to 36 hours more, and the wine is filtered through a cloth before it is served. Made in 5 steps over 15 days – 16 days. The longest step, ferment for about two weeks, takes 14 days (Fentie E.G 2020). Saccharomyces cerevisiae does most of the fermenting.

Key numbers
Main step14 daysReported[fentie2020]Ferment for about two weeks
AciditypH 3.8Reported[fentie2020]Add water and ferment without air in a hot place

What makes this one different

Ogol is made with pounded bark of the mange tree, where tej is made with honey and gesho. Tej is the most widely consumed Ethiopian honey wine, while ogol is one of several regional ones. The bark and honey are left about two weeks before a short second fermentation of 12 to 36 hours.

Related ferments

Safety

No safety limits or studies specific to ogol were found. The review notes that Ethiopian alcoholic beverages have no standardised processes or starter cultures, so their quality varies.

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. [fentie2020] Fentie E.G., Emire S.A., Demsash H.D., Dadi D.W., Shin J.H. 2020, Cereal- and fruit-based Ethiopian traditional fermented alcoholic beverages, Foods 9(12):1781 (ogol in section 3.2, Table 1 and Table 4)paper
  2. [cisse2018] Cisse O.I.K., Ndiaye B., Faye P.G., Ayessou N.C., Gueye M., Cisse M., Diop C.M. 2018, Traditional mead "Bessoudioury" from Senegal, process and characterization, Food and Nutrition Sciences 9(12):1424–1433paper
  3. [berhanu2023] Berhanu M., Desalegn A., Birri D.J., Ashenafi M., Tigu F. 2023, Microbial, physicochemical and proximate analysis of Tej collected from Amhara regional state of Ethiopia, Heliyon 9(6):e16911 (introduction lists ogol, booka and grawa as other Ethiopian honey wines)paper