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Alcoholic drinks from Indonesia

Pangasi / bulak (Dayak Agabag cassava jar wine)

Pangasi is a cassava jar wine of the Dayak Agabag of North Kalimantan. Boiled cassava is mixed with a rice ragi starter, lemongrass, ginger and pepper, sealed in a jar called a talipuk and left three to four weeks to become bulak. At ceremonies drinkers sip it from the jars through bamboo tubes, and each jar is topped up after every turn.

A short entry: the sources we found record only what is said here about Pangasi / bulak itself.

Short entryAlcoholic drinks21 days – 28 days

Recipe

No fixed amounts recordedCeremonial brewing with no amounts in the source; drinkers sit in a row to match the number of jars.
Cassava, boiled[diksipro2024]
Ragi made from finely ground rice[diksipro2024]
Lemongrass, ginger and pepper[diksipro2024]
Starterragi, a starter made from finely ground rice

Total time across the recorded steps: 21 days – 28 days

Start
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What changes: Cassava is boiled

Step 1 of 4
Boil the cassava
Time
Not documented
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented

Output: cooked cassava.

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

Pangasi is a cassava jar wine of the Dayak Agabag of North Kalimantan. Boiled cassava is mixed with a rice ragi starter, lemongrass, ginger and pepper, sealed in a jar called a talipuk and left three to four weeks to become bulak. At ceremonies drinkers sip it from the jars through bamboo tubes, and each jar is topped up after every turn. Made in 4 steps over 21 days – 28 days. The longest step, leave until it becomes bulak, takes 21–28 days (Diksipro 2024).

Key numbers
Main step21–28 daysReported[diksipro2024]Leave until it becomes bulak

What makes this one different

Pangasi of the Agabag is made from cassava, not rice, and spiced with lemongrass, ginger and pepper. It is drunk in a measured ritual, each drinker sipping down to a marked line through a bamboo tube before the jar is topped up. It is not the Philippine rice wine also called pangasi.

Related ferments

Safety

The source warns that bulak contains alcohol and that drinking too much makes people drunk. It does not say which cassava is used. Codex keeps direct cooking for low-cyanide sweet cassava, because cyanide-forming compounds survive heat [codex-rcp73]. Do not make this from bitter cassava.

History and sources

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

  1. [codex-rcp73] Codex Alimentarius, CAC/RCP 73-2013, Code of practice for the reduction of hydrocyanic acid (HCN) in cassava and cassava products (copy hosted by the Slovenian food administration)spec
  2. [diksipro2024] Diksipro, 'Mengenal tradisi ginum pangasi', 11 January 2024 (no byline; cited by Wikipedia, Tulin Onsoi)web