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Fermented milk from Sudan

Rob / roubروب

Rob is Sudanese sour buttermilk. Milk, boiled or not, matures for about 24 hours in a clean closed container, soured by its own flora or with 2–3% of earlier sour milk, then is shaken in a gourd until the butter separates; the buttermilk left is rob.

Fully documentedFermented milk24 h

Recipe

No fixed amounts recordedFAO gives the starter rate (2–3%) but no batch size.
Cow, sheep or goat milkBoiled or not[fao-tmp-ii][afr26]
Sour milk from an earlier batch2–3% of the milk, or none when the milk's own flora is used[fao-tmp-ii]
Starterbackslop (2–3% of earlier sour milk) or spontaneous

Total time across the recorded steps: 24 h

Start
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shapes, not to countLactobacilliYeastspH 3.4–3.6

What changes: A little rob from the last batch is set aside to seed the next milk

Step 1 of 4
Take rob from an earlier batch as inoculum
Time
Not documented
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
pH 3.4–3.6
Measured
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
Lactobacilli
Yeasts
Lactic acid bacteria

In the Khartoum study, rob used as the inoculum for fermentation was sampled at seven production sites. Output: rob inoculum.

Flavour
sour
Texture
Not documented
Colour
Not documented

Microbes at work in this step

the inocula held lactococci and lactobacilli at 10^7–10^8 and yeasts at 10^6–10^7 cfu/mL

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

Rob is Sudanese sour buttermilk. Milk, boiled or not, matures for about 24 hours in a clean closed container, soured by its own flora or with 2–3% of earlier sour milk, then is shaken in a gourd until the butter separates; the buttermilk left is rob. Made in 4 steps over 24 h. The longest step, mature the milk, takes 24 h (FAO 1990). Lactic acid bacteria isolated from roub and identified by phenotype and Lactobacillus fermentum, Lactobacillus acidophilus, Lactococcus lactis and Streptococcus salivarius, the predominant lactic acid bacteria of rob from cows' milk in Khartoum do most of the fermenting.

Key numbers
Main step24 hReported[fao-tmp-ii]Mature the milk
AciditypH 4.2–4.5Measured[abdelgadir2001]Mature the milk

What makes this one different

Rob is the buttermilk from churning soured milk for butter, so it is a liquid low in fat, with an acid taste and a yeast-fermented aroma.

Related ferments

Variants

  • Rouaba (Chad)The same product; its butter is called gibde in Chad.
  • Mish (Sudan)Backslopped for 24 h with curdling spices (black cumin, fenugreek, garlic and green pepper).

Safety

FAO says the milk may be boiled or not, and the buttermilk is ready for immediate drinking. If the milk is raw, CDC says raw-milk products can expose people to Campylobacter, Cryptosporidium, E. coli, Listeria, Brucella and Salmonella, and that children under 5, adults over 65, pregnant women and people with weak immune systems are at higher risk.

History and sources

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

FAO (1990) records roab or rouaba, the sour buttermilk left from butter making, as made all over Sudan and in the Arbouchatak area of Chad.

  1. [fao-tmp-ii] FAO 1990, The technology of traditional milk products in developing countries, Animal Production and Health Paper 85, section II 1.2 (roab, rouaba, amacunda)gov
  2. [afr26] Nodem Sohanang F.S. et al. 2026, Unlocking the microbial potential of traditional African fermented milk products, a systematic review, Frontiers in Food Science and Technology 6:1847264 (tables of microbes in roub, citing Abdalla and Hussain 2010)paper
  3. [abdelgadir2001] Abdelgadir W.S., Hamad S.H., Møller P.L., Jakobsen M. 2001, Characterisation of the dominant microbiota of Sudanese fermented milk Rob, International Dairy Journal 11(1–2):63–70 (abstract)paper
  4. [cdc-raw-milk] US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Raw Milk (31 January 2025)gov