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Fermentation Atlas

Alcoholic drinks

Beers, wines, rice wines, spirits and other drinks where yeasts make alcohol.

298 entries listed here, page 3 of 4.

Compare them

FermentRegionMain stepTemperatureSaltpH
Pulque in pre-Hispanic Mesoamerica (octli)Central Mexico3–12 months3–4
Qingxiang (light-aroma) baijiu — Fenjiu ground-jar processFenyang28 days17–30 °C3.5–3.8
Qinzhou spring-wine coarse qu and spring wine (秦州春酒麴 / 作春酒法)Qinzhou21–26 days
Quick white-mash and clear wines of chapter 66Northern China4–5 days
Qvevri wine (Georgian buried-amphora wine)Georgia, including Kakheti and Imereti5–6 months12–14 °C
RaksiNepal, Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh7–25 days
Red wineworldwide9–22 months3.3–3.5
RetsinaGreece13 days18–20 °C3.4–3.4
Rosé wineProvence, France, which makes 40–45 % of French AOP rosé and about 5 % of the world's rosé7–15 days16–20 °C3.4
Rượu nếp, rượu nếp cẩm and rượu đếVietnam8–12 days25–35 °C3.9–4.5
Sahti (Finnish juniper farmhouse ale)Hämeat least 7 days0–11 °C
Sake (base flow: junmai, sokujo starter)Japan6–12 months10–15 °C4.2–4.7
Sambudia (sambumbia, State of Mexico)State of Mexico36 h – 2 days
Sato (Isan rice wine) and lao hai / ou (jar wine)Isan5–10 days25–35 °C3.4–3.8
Sendechó (Mazahua/Hñähñu maize-and-chilli beer)State of Mexicoup to 15 days
Shamita (Ethiopian roasted-barley sour drink)Ethiopia24 h4.6 %3.8–4.2
Shanniang jiu (semi-sweet Shaoxing wine)Shaoxing, Zhejiang, Chinaat least 30 daysup to 20 °C
Shaoxing huangjiu, Yuanhong (dry); base flow for Shaoxing winesShaoxing, Zhejiang, Chinaat least 2.6 monthsup to 20 °C
Sherry — fino and manzanilla (biologically aged under flor)Jerez–Sanlúcar–El Puerto triangle, Andalusia, Spainat least 2 years
Shimiin arkhi (milk spirit)Mongolia, Buryatia, Kalmykia, Tuva, Khakassia, Inner Mongolia2–3 days20 °C3.3
Shu (Sichuan) tu wine (蜀人作酴酒法)Shu
Sīdhu (सीधु), sugarcane-juice wineAncient and early medieval India
Sidra de PunucapaPunucapa, Valdivia, Los Ríos Region, Chile3 months3–4
Soba shochu and kasutori shochuJapan42 h40 °C → 30 °C
Sōbōshu (temple sake of medieval Japan)Japan40–50 days
Sraa sar (Cambodian rice liquor) and red rice wineCambodia2 days30 °C
Sumerian beer with bappir (Hymn to Ninkasi)Sumer4 days24 °C
Sunda kanji (Tamil Nadu fermented rice drink)India3 days3.6–3.8
Taberna (coyol palm wine, Chiapas)Chiapas, Mexico12 h – 15 days
Tapai / tape ketan (fermented glutinous rice)Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei, Singapore7–10 days4
Tapuy (Ifugao rice wine)Cordillera of northern Luzon, Philippines30 days3–3.7
Taruzake (cedar-cask sake)Japan2–14 days15 °C
Tchoukoutou and chakpalo (Benin and Togo sorghum beer)Benin3–3.5 days3.2
Tej (Ethiopian honey wine)Ethiopia, Eritrea8–20 days3.7 → 3.29
Tella (talla)Ethiopia10–20 days20–25 °C4.7 → 3.87
Tesgüino (Rarámuri maize beer)Sierra Tarahumara5 days17.8–22.2 °C5 → 3
Themsing (Monpa millet or barley beer)India12 months – 3 years
Tokaji szamorodni (száraz and édes)Tokaj, Hungaryat least 2 years8–12 °C
TongbaEastern Nepal, Sikkim, Darjeeling6 months4.1
Traditional soju (e.g. Andong soju)Andong, North Gyeongsang, and other parts of Korea10–16 daysup to 4
Traditional-method sparkling wine (Champagne, Cava)Champagneat least 9 months2.8–3.4
Tuak (Batak sugar-palm wine with raru bark)North Sumatraat least 24 h
Ulanzi (bamboo sap wine)Southern Tanzania6 days4 → 3.63
Umqombothi (Xhosa/Zulu maize-sorghum beer)South Africa24 h25–30 °C3.5
Urwagwa (Rwandan banana beer)Rwanda6 days4.7
Vin jauneJura, Franceat least 5 years3.1–3.4
Vinho de talha (Portugal) and tinaja wine (Spain)Alentejo21–28 days3.7
White wineworldwide12 months
White-mash qu and white-mash wine (白醪麴 / 釀白醪, Huangfu family method)China21 days
Xaj / rohi (Ahom rice beer)Assam, India7 days25–30 °C6 → 3.3
Xiangxue jiu ("fragrant snow")Shaoxing, Zhejiang, China24 h
Yakju / cheongju (clear Korean rice wine)Korea12 months45 °C
Yamahai sakeJapan25–30 days5.8–10.4 °C
Yi qu and yi wine (頤麴 / 頤酒)China21 days
Zambumbia (Mexico)Mexico3–5 days
Zhou (酎) strong wines of broomcorn and proso millet (穄米酎 / 黍米酎)China6 months
Zutho (Angami rice beer)Nagaland, India4–7 days3.6
Keptinis alus (Lithuanian baked beer)northern Aukštaitija, Lithuania3 h280–300 °C
Midus (Lithuanian mead)Lithuania3–6 months5–18 °C
Other baijiu aroma types (catalogue stubs)China
Abati (Paraguay, Argentina)Paraguay, north-east Argentina
Agkud (Manobo rice wine)Bukidnon, Mindanao
Akaisake (red sake) and kuroshu (brown-rice sake)Japan
Åland shipwreck beer (1840s), a recovered historical beerÅland, Finland170 years2–4 °C
Ancient Egyptian beer (hqt, heqet)Egypt
Apong (Mising/Adi rice beer)Assam and Arunachal Pradesh, India7–10 days
Ara (Bhutanese grain spirit)Bhutan
Baekseju (Korean herbal rice wine)Korea3–4 days
Bahar (Sabah coconut palm wine with rosok bark)Malaysia12–24 h
Bais and kabarawan (Philippine honey wines, extinct)Mindanao
Bankhe-kham (Karbi cassava beer)India4–9 days
Basi (Ilocano sugarcane wine)Ilocos, Luzon, Philippinesat least 2 months
Bees wine (beer bees, Californian bees)Rural United States and Britain, from the 1850s to the mid-20th century7 days
Brem (Balinese rice wine; also brem cake)Bali15 days – 6 months
Buza (Tatar and Crimean millet boza, alcoholic)Crimea, the Caucasus and Turkestan
Charagua (Mexico)Mexico
Chengang jiu ("sinks-to-the-jar-bottom wine", Longyan)Longyan, Fujian, China
Chicha de muko (chewed-maize chicha)Andes
Chikokivana (Zimbabwean one-day malt brew)Zimbabwe24 h
Chiya (Kayah sorghum beer)Myanmar5–7 days

Bold names have a full page with the animated steps. Blank cells: no sourced value yet.

Short entries

What the sources record about each of these so far.

Abati (Paraguay, Argentina)Paraguay, north-east Argentina

Abati is listed by the FAO as an alcoholic maize drink of Paraguay and Argentina. No published source found describes how it is made, so the atlas shows it under the maize chicha it most likely resembles.

  1. Ferment maize
Agkud (Manobo rice wine)Bukidnon, Mindanao

Agkud is the fermented rice of the Manobo of Bukidnon, made with ginger, sugarcane juice and a rice starter called tapey (agonan). It is eaten as a fermented paste after about three days, and its liquid, left longer in a jar, is drunk as rice wine; aged further it becomes pangasi.

  1. Cook the rice
  2. Mix with tapey, ginger and cane juice
  3. Ferment in a jar
Akaisake (red sake) and kuroshu (brown-rice sake)Japan

Also called 赤い酒, 黒酒, red sake, kuroshu.

Akaisake is sake made with red yeast rice koji (Monascus purpureus), which gives it a pink-tinted appearance. Kuroshu is sake made from unpolished brown rice. No primary source describing either was found.

Colour (akaisake)
Pink-tinted, like a rosé wine, from brewing with red yeast rice koji (Monascus purpureus) (Wikipedia)
Rice (kuroshu)
Made from unpolished rice, that is brown rice, and said to be more like huangjiu (Wikipedia)

Made like Sake (base flow: junmai, sokujo starter).

Åland shipwreck beer (1840s), a recovered historical beerÅland, Finland

Five bottles of beer were raised in 2010 from a schooner wreck lying at 48 m off Åland, along with bottles of champagne. VTT and partners found two different hopped beers that had been fermented by brewing yeast and then changed by bacteria and enzymes over about 170 years on the seabed. Live beer-spoilage lactic bacteria were recovered from the bottles; how the beer was brewed is inferred.

  1. Boil the wort with hops
  2. Ferment with brewing yeast
  3. Bottle and cork
  4. Lie on the seabed170 years · 2–4 °C
Ancient Egyptian beer (hqt, heqet)Egypt

Also called ḥnqt.

Ancient Egyptian beer was brewed from malted emmer wheat or barley. Microscopy of dried beer residues suggests brewers mixed cooked and uncooked malt with water, strained off the husk and then added yeast, rather than simply soaking bread. The oldest known brewery, at Hierakonpolis, heated mash in large clay vats; all of the method is inferred from residues and remains.

Oldest brewery
Hierakonpolis locality HK11C, residue dated 3764–3537 cal BCE (2 sigma), about 3600 BCE
  1. Malt the grain
  2. Cook part of the malt and mix it with raw malt and water
  3. Strain off the husk
  4. Add yeast and ferment in jars
Apong (Mising/Adi rice beer)Assam and Arunachal Pradesh, India

Also called আপং, poro apong, nogin apong, sai mod.

Apong is the rice beer of the Mising and Adi peoples. Rice is mixed with a herbal starter cake and fermented as a damp solid for about a week, then water is run through it and the beer is drained off. White nogin apong is made from steamed rice; black poro apong adds charred rice husk and is filtered through ash, giving a dark, clear beer.

Consumption
The most consumed fermented drink in all 14 districts surveyed; men's consumption peaked at 75.2 % in Tirap
  1. Prepare the rice
  2. Mix in the powdered starter cake
  3. Ferment as a damp solid7–10 days
  4. Run water through and drain the beer
  5. Drink within days
Ara (Bhutanese grain spirit)Bhutan

Also called ཨ་རག་, arag.

Ara is Bhutan's home-made grain spirit. Cooked maize, barley, wheat, rice or millet is cooled on a bamboo mat, sprinkled with a dry starter cake such as phab, left to ferment wrapped in blankets and then distilled. Some ara is drunk only fermented.

  1. Make the phab starter
  2. Cook the grain in a large cauldron
  3. Cool on a bamboo mat and sprinkle with starter
  4. Ferment wrapped in blankets
  5. Distil (or drink the fermented form)

Safety: Distillation concentrates methanol as well as ethanol.

Baekseju (Korean herbal rice wine)Korea

Also called 백세주, 百歲酒, baekse-ju, Bek Se Ju.

Baekseju is a branded Korean yakju, a clear rice wine flavoured with ginseng, goji (gugija), omija and other dried herbs. Its maker grinds the rice raw instead of steaming it and ferments it with wheat nuruk, in a seed mash and then a main mash, before the wine is settled, filtered and pasteurised.

  1. Grind the raw rice with water
  2. Brew the seed mash with nuruk and herbs2–3 days
  3. Ferment the main mash3–4 days
  4. Settle and filter off the lees24 h
  5. Pasteurise at low temperature and bottle
Bahar (Sabah coconut palm wine with rosok bark)Malaysia

Bahar is the coconut palm wine of Sabah's Kadazan-Dusun. Fresh sap from the cut coconut flower stalk is mixed with rosok tree bark, covered and left for about a day, and turns red, sweet and slightly sour. It is commonly served at occasions such as Kaamatan and Christmas.

  1. Collect fresh coconut sap
  2. Add rosok bark, stir slowly, cover with cloth or banana leaf
  3. Ferment12–24 h
Bais and kabarawan (Philippine honey wines, extinct)Mindanao

Bais and kabarawan were Philippine honey wines. Bais was honey and water left to ferment, made by the Mandaya and Manobo of north-eastern Mindanao; Visayan kabarawan added the bark of the kabarawan tree. Both are extinct and known only from colonial-era accounts, so the steps here are an outline.

  1. Dilute the honey with water
  2. Ferment diluted honey
Bankhe-kham (Karbi cassava beer)India

Bankhe-kham is the Karbi beer made from cassava (tapioca) instead of rice. The cassava is cooked, cooled and ground to a paste, then fermented with a starter in pots as for apong, for about 4–9 days depending on the season. The Karbi draw the beer out with water through a bamboo pole and a dried luffa sponge.

  1. Cook cassava, cool and grind to a paste
  2. Mix with starter and ferment in pots as for apong4–9 days
  3. Add water and ferment a little longer (kodtak)8–9 h
  4. Draw the beer up a bamboo pole and squeeze it out with a luffa

Safety: Cassava holds cyanide-forming compounds that can cause vomiting, collapse and in some cases death. Our sources say only that the cassava is cooked; none measures cyanide in this beer or mentions a soak. FAO says simple boiling is not always reliable and bitterness is not necessarily a reliable sign of cyanide. An overview by S.K. Hahn on FAO's site recommends plain boiling only for low-cyanide varieties. This page is a record of the method, not a recipe to follow.

Basi (Ilocano sugarcane wine)Ilocos, Luzon, Philippines

Also called basi, basí.

Basi is the sugarcane wine of the Ilocos region. Fresh cane juice is boiled with samak bark and leaves, cooled in burnay stoneware jars, started with parek, and left sealed for months. The method is not standardised and varies from maker to maker.

  1. Boil cane juice with samak bark, then samak leaves, and skim
  2. Pour into a burnay jar and cool24 h
  3. Add parek, cover with samak leaves and seal or bury the jarat least 2 months

Safety: No sourced safety values were found for basi.

Bees wine (beer bees, Californian bees)Rural United States and Britain, from the 1850s to the mid-20th century

Also called bees wine, beeswine, wine bees, beer seeds, Californian bees, Palestinian bees.

Bees wine was a home-brewed drink made by keeping gelatinous grains of yeast and bacteria, the "bees", in a jar of water sweetened with brown sugar and treacle. The grains rose and fell on the bubbles of gas, and every week or so the fermented liquid was poured off and drunk and the jar was topped up with fresh sugar water. The result was a mildly alcoholic, rather sweet, slightly sour drink.

  1. Start a culture (if none is to hand)2 days
  2. Put the bees into sweetened water
  3. Ferment
  4. Pour off the drink and top up with sugar water7 days

Safety: The culture is a mixture of unknown composition. The National Collection of Yeast Cultures stopped supplying it to the public for health and safety reasons.

Brem (Balinese rice wine; also brem cake)Bali

Also called brem, brem Bali, Balinese rice wine.

Brem is a sweet, brownish rice wine from Bali. Glutinous rice, often black and white together, is steamed and fermented with ragi tape into a juicy tape mash for about five days; the liquid is pressed out and fermented a second time, for weeks to months, before it is bottled.

  1. Soak, drain and steam the rice1 h
  2. Cool and mix in ragi tape
  3. Ferment the rice as tape mash5 days
  4. Press out the liquid
  5. Second fermentation of the pressed liquid15 days – 6 months

Safety: Brem is an alcoholic wine, and the liquid brem in Sujaya's study held 8.6 % (w/v) ethanol.

Buza (Tatar and Crimean millet boza, alcoholic)Crimea, the Caucasus and Turkestan

Also called буза.

Buza is a thick, cloudy, lightly alcoholic drink of fermented cereal, usually millet but also oats or buckwheat. Russian dictionaries of 1880 and 1907 describe it as a braga-like hopped or plain drink that came into Russia with the Tatars.

  1. Pour boiling water over mixed groats
  2. Sour and ferment, sometimes with hops
Charagua (Mexico)Mexico

Also called charagua.

Charagua is a Mexican alcoholic drink listed by FAO as pulque syrup with chilli and toasted maize leaves, heated slowly and fermented. That one-line description is all the public sources give; no recipe, amounts, times or measurements were found.

  1. Combine pulque syrup, chilli and toasted maize leaves
  2. Heat slowly
  3. Ferment
Chengang jiu ("sinks-to-the-jar-bottom wine", Longyan)Longyan, Fujian, China

Also called 沉缸酒, 龙岩沉缸酒, Longyan chengang wine.

Chengang jiu is a sweet red-qu huangjiu from Longyan in Fujian. Its name, "sinks in the jar", comes from the way the wine jar is said to sink and float again and again during brewing. Wikipedia gives it about 20 % alcohol and 20 % sugar.

Style
A sweet huangjiu made with hongqu
Alcohol
About 20° (20 % alcohol), as given by Wikipedia citing a 1989 reference book
Sugar
About 20 %, as given by Wikipedia citing a 1989 reference book

Made like Hongqu jiu / Fujian laojiu (red-qu rice wine).

Chicha de muko (chewed-maize chicha)Andes

Also called muko, aqha (Quechua, chicha).

Chicha de muko is an Andean maize beer in which the starch is turned into sugar by chewing, not by malting. Maize flour is moistened in the mouth and formed into small balls (muko) that are dried; the muko is then cooked with water and left to ferment in large clay vats into a maize beer.

  1. Chew maize flour into balls
  2. Cook the muko with water
  3. Ferment in clay vats
Chikokivana (Zimbabwean one-day malt brew)Zimbabwe

Also called chikokivana, chikokiyana.

Chikokivana is a quick Zimbabwean home brew. Millet malt and maize meal are mixed with yeast and water, fermented for about a day in a clay pot or metal drum and strained. A 1999 review lists it with doroluthwala as Zimbabwe's alcoholic drinks from sorghum or millet malt.

  1. Mix millet malt, maize meal, yeast and water
  2. Ferment24 h
  3. Strain
Chiya (Kayah sorghum beer)Myanmar

Chiya is a grain-in sorghum beer of the Kayah people of eastern Myanmar, brewed only by women. Sorghum is boiled until sticky, mixed with a home-made yeast cake and left two days in a fibre basket, then sealed in a clay pot for five to seven days. It is sipped through a straw from the pot, grains and all.

  1. Boil the sorghum until stickyat least 1 h
  2. Cool on mats and mix in the yeast cake
  3. Rest in a fibre basket2 days
  4. Seal tightly in a clay pot5–7 days
  5. Sip through a straw from the pot

Numbers come from cited sources and carry a label that says how each is known. How this atlas is made