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Fermentation Atlas

Alcoholic drinks from Egypt

Bouza (Egyptian bread beer)بوظة

Most of the wheat is made into thick loaves that are baked only on the outside, and the rest is soaked or sprouted. The loaves are broken into water with the wet grain and a little old bouza, left to ferment for a day or more and then sieved. The result is a thin, sour, yeasty gruel of about 4–8 % alcohol. Made in 6 steps over 24 h. The longest step, ferment, takes at least 24 h (Luoma E. 2009). A yeast resembling Candida krusei (strain EG1), isolated from Cairo bouza bread material does most of the fermenting.

Key numbers
Main stepat least 24 hReported[luoma2009]Ferment
AciditypH 3.7Measured[kaken-teramoto]Ferment
Fully documentedAlcoholic drinks24 hMore alcoholic drinksMore from Egypt

Recipe

No fixed amounts recordedThe amounts are proportions of one batch of grain, from the published accounts summarised in Luoma 2009. No fixed batch size is given.
Wheat, ground, kneaded with water and shaped into loaves (three quarters of the grain) · Baked lightly, so the middle stays raw[luoma2009]
Wheat, soaked in water (some accounts say sprouted into malt) (one quarter of the grain)[luoma2009]
Water[luoma2009]
Old bouza, to seed the batch (a small amount) · Optional[luoma2009]
Starter: backslop (a little old bouza), or spontaneous

Total time across the recorded steps: 24 h

Start
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What changes: The wheat is cleaned and most of it is ground to meal

Step 1 of 6
Clean the wheat and grind three quarters of it
Time
Not documented
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
Yeasts

Output: wheat meal.

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

What makes this one different

Bouza is brewed mainly from bread, not from a boiled malt wort, and it is drunk cloudy while still fermenting. Despite the similar name, it is a different drink from the boza of Turkey and the Balkans.

Related ferments

Variants

  • Grain choiceWheat is preferred, but barley, millet, sorghum or maize can be used.

Safety

Bouza is sold while it is still fermenting and its alcohol rises day by day (3.8 % to 4.5 % in two days in one study). No safety limits specific to bouza were found.

History and sources

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

The standard model of ancient Egyptian brewing rests on tomb scenes and on modern bouza, made by Nubian and Coptic brewers. Residue studies by Delwen Samuel have questioned that model. In the 1920s Alfred Lucas sampled 16 bouzas around Cairo; all were thin gruels in active fermentation.

  1. [luoma2009] Luoma E. 2009, Egyptian brewing, the production of beer based on archaeological evidence, senior project, University of Wisconsin–La Crosse (summarises Lucas and Harris 1962 and Morcos, Hegazi and El-Damhougy 1973, J. Sci. Food Agric. 24)paper
  2. [kaken-teramoto] Teramoto Y. 2002–2003, Rediscovery of rare alcoholic beverages in Muslim countries and India and application of their microbial resources, KAKENHI grant 14580156 final report (Cairo boza sample)gov
  3. [WP:Bouza (beer)] Wikipedia, Bouza (beer) (outline only)wiki