Skip to main content
Support

Browse by category

All categories
Home

Alcoholic drinks from Kigezi, south-west Uganda

Enturire (Kiga sorghum-honey beer)enturire

Enturire is a sweet-sour sorghum and honey beer from south-western Uganda. A slurry of malted sorghum flour ferments for about three days into sour obutoko, then honey goes in and it ferments two to four days more. It belongs to the obushera family of sorghum and millet drinks.

Recipe

Amounts from a sourceThe traditional process as rebuilt in a 2016 laboratory study (after Mukisa et al. 2010), per litre of water.
Malted sorghum flour125 gMade into a slurry with the water[mukisa2016]
Water1 L[mukisa2016]
Sorghum malt, added after cooling22.5 gAdded to start the fermentation[mukisa2016]
Honey190 gAdded to the sour obutoko after 3 days[mukisa2016]
Starterspontaneous (the traditional process; sorghum malt is added to start it)

Total time across the recorded steps: 8 days – 10 days

Start
Drag the bar or press Play
shapes, not to countLactic acid bacteriaYeastsSaccharomyces cerevisiaeL. reuteri

What changes: The sorghum sprouts and is dried and ground into malt flour

Step 1 of 5
Malt the sorghum
Time
3 days
Reported
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
Lactic acid bacteria
Yeasts
Saccharomyces cerevisiae
L. reuteri

The 72 h counts the 2-day germination and the 24 hr drying; the 24 hr soak comes first. Output: sorghum malt flour.

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

Enturire is a sweet-sour sorghum and honey beer from south-western Uganda. A slurry of malted sorghum flour ferments for about three days into sour obutoko, then honey goes in and it ferments two to four days more. It belongs to the obushera family of sorghum and millet drinks. Made in 5 steps over 8 days – 10 days. The longest step, add honey and ferment into enturire, takes 2–4 days (Mukisa I.M 2017). Lactic acid bacteria and yeasts and Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Limosilactobacillus reuteri do most of the fermenting.

Key numbers
Main step2–4 daysReported[mukisa2016]Add honey and ferment into enturire
Temperature90 °CReported[mukisa2016]Cook the malt slurry
AciditypH 4.5Measured[mukisa2016]Ferment into obutoko

What makes this one different

Enturire is obushera with honey. The sorghum slurry first sours into obutoko like the other obushera types, then honey is added and fermented two to four days longer into an alcoholic drink.

Finished enturire
pH 4.2–3.9, 9.7–12.9 °Brix and 1.9%–6% alcohol (Mukisa 2012, as cited)

Related ferments

Variants

  • Modified enturireHoney goes in at the start (to 16 °Brix) instead of after 3 days, which made a more acceptable drink in the 2016 study.
  • Starter-culture enturireFermented with S. cerevisiae, L. plantarum and W. confusa from obushera; it reached pH 4.5 in 12 hr and 9.2%–9.4% alcohol.

Safety

Enturire is made by spontaneous fermentation, so its quality and safety vary from batch to batch. In the 2016 study the traditional process took 31 hours to fall below pH 4.5.

History and sources

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

Enturire has its origins in south-western Uganda and is brewed in the Kigezi region, mainly for the Bakiga. Mukisa et al. described its process in 2010 and measured the finished drink in 2012 (both cited in the 2017 paper).

  1. [s1] Wikipedia (en), 'Enturire' (outline only)wiki
  2. [mukisa2016] Mukisa I.M., Ntaate D., Byakika S. 2017, Application of starter cultures in the production of Enturire, a traditional sorghum-based alcoholic beverage, Food Science & Nutrition 5(3):609–616paper
  3. [hawaz2025] Hawaz H. et al. 2025, Eastern African traditional fermented foods and beverages, Compr. Rev. Food Sci. Food Saf. (table entry for enturire)paper