Skip to main content
Support

Browse by category

All categories
Home

Soft drinks from Western Uganda

Obuteire (millet-malt obushera)obuteire

Obuteire is the Ugandan obushera made by inoculating a cooked porridge of unmalted millet (ekitiribita) with millet malt and fermenting it for 1–4 days. In a study of producers' batches its pH fell from 4.6 to 4.0 over four days, faster than ekitiribita, which reached only pH 4.4.

Fully documentedSoft drinks24 h – 2 days

Recipe

Amounts from a sourceProducers' batches of about 0.5 kg per 20 L (Mukisa et al. 2012, AJFAND, Table 1).
Unmalted millet flourMade into fresh ekitiribita first[mukisa2012aj]
Malted millet flour with the fresh ekitiribitaAbout 0.5 kg per 20 L batchTable 1 of Mukisa et al. (2012, AJFAND) gives one figure, about 0.5 kg per 20 L, for the malted flour and fresh ekitiribita together[mukisa2012aj]
Water
Starterspontaneous, through the malt

Total time across the recorded steps: 24 h – 2 days

Start
Drag the bar or press Play

What changes: Unmalted millet flour cooks to a thin porridge

Step 1 of 4
Cook unmalted millet porridge (ekitiribita)
Time
Not documented
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
Lactic acid bacteria

Output: thin porridge.

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

Obuteire is the Ugandan obushera made by inoculating a cooked porridge of unmalted millet (ekitiribita) with millet malt and fermenting it for 1–4 days. In a study of producers' batches its pH fell from 4.6 to 4.0 over four days, faster than ekitiribita, which reached only pH 4.4. Made in 4 steps over 24 h – 2 days. The longest step, ferment, takes 24 h – 2 days (Mukisa I.M 2012). Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Lactic acid bacteria do most of the fermenting.

Key numbers
Main step24 h – 2 daysMeasured[mukisa2012]Ferment
AciditypH 4.6–6 → 3.5Measured[mukisa2012]Ferment

What makes this one different

Obuteire adds millet malt to cooked unmalted porridge (ekitiribita) and sours in one to two days. Ekitiribita has no malt and sours more slowly, and obutoko is made from sorghum malt alone.

Related ferments

Safety

In a lab sorghum-porridge model inoculated with malt at 30 °C, the pH stayed above 4.5 for about 20 h. Obutiire sold in Mbarara carried high microbial counts, and obushera processors in that survey did not follow good hygiene practice. One study records infants being given this drink when it is mild. That is a record of custom, and we do not recommend it for infants. The malt goes in after cooking and nothing heats the drink again, and a mild batch is a young one with less acid to hold back germs. Obuteire reached 0.8–1.0 % ethanol (w/w) in that study, and acid-tolerant E. coli with a Shiga-toxin gene has been isolated from commercial obushera.

Hazards the sources name: High total viable counts in obutiire sold in Mbarara (median 4.25 log CFU/mL); Acid-tolerant Escherichia coli, some carrying the Stx2 gene, isolated from commercial obushera, the Ugandan sorghum and millet drink family this belongs to.

History and sources

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

Mukisa et al. (2012) describe obuteire as one of four distinct types of obushera and note that, although obushera production was becoming commercialised in urban areas, the process was still largely an unoptimised artisanal craft that relied on chance fermentation.

  1. [mukisa2012aj] Mukisa I.M., Muyanja C.M.B.K., Byaruhanga Y.B., Langsrud T., Narvhus J.A. 2012, Changes in physico-chemical properties and flavour compounds during fermentation of different obushera (sorghum and millet) beverages, African Journal of Food, Agriculture, Nutrition and Development 12(6):6665–6683 (Tables 1–2)paper
  2. [mukisa2012] Mukisa I.M., Porcellato D., Byaruhanga Y.B., Muyanja C.M., Rudi K., Langsrud T., Narvhus J.A. 2012, The dominant microbial community associated with fermentation of Obushera (sorghum and millet beverages) determined by culture-dependent and culture-independent methods, International Journal of Food Microbiology 160:1–10 (abstract)paper
  3. [mukisa2012aem] Mukisa I.M. et al. 2012, Influence of cofermentation by amylolytic Lactobacillus plantarum and Lactococcus lactis strains on the fermentation process and rheology of sorghum porridge, Applied and Environmental Microbiology 78:5220–5228paper
  4. [byakika2019] Byakika S., Mukisa I.M., Mugabi R., Muyanja C. 2019, Antimicrobial activity of lactic acid bacteria starters against acid tolerant, antibiotic resistant, and potentially virulent E. coli isolated from a fermented sorghum-millet beverage, International Journal of Microbiology 2019:2013539paper
  5. [kiprotich2022] Kiprotich A., Wangalwa R., Atwebembeire J., Kagoro-Rugunda G. 2022, Microbial contamination and antimicrobial susceptibility pattern of bacterial isolates from sorghum and millet derived local beverage (Obushera) consumed in Mbarara City, Uganda, preprint, not peer reviewed (abstract, via Europe PMC)other
  6. [s2] Wikipedia, Obushera (outline only)wiki