Pito - Nigerian Beer

[peoplesbrewingcoop]

I stumbled on this type of beer while I was researching the utilization of yeast sugar.

This is great homebrewing!

Pito is a type of beer made from fermented millet or sorghum in northern Ghana, parts of Nigeria, and other parts of West Africa.[1] It is made by small (household-level) producers, and is typically served in a calabash outside the producer's home where benches are sometimes provided.

It can be served warm or cold. Warm pito gets its heat from the fermentation process. Pito brewing can provide an important source of income for otherwise cash-poor households in rural areas. It is never found bottled or canned, and, as a rule, is purchased directly from the household in which it is brewed.

 

[MeatyPortion]

Very cool. Just out of curiosity: what the hell is a calabash?

 

[peoplesbrewingcoop]

Very cool. Just out of curiosity: what the hell is a calabash?

Maybe this?

The calabash or bottle gourd or opo squash (not to be confused with the calabaza) is a vine grown for its fruit, which can either be harvested young and used as a vegetable or harvested mature, dried, and used as a bottle, utensil, or pipe. For this reason, one of the calabash subspecies is known as the bottle gourd.

 

[MeatyPortion]

Interesting. All these years I had no idea what it was.

 

[peoplesbrewingcoop]

For anyone brave enough to ferment this beverage, I have the below paper and the 'recipe' they used. I would try but I am still thinking on how to make Pinapple flavored Kava Sake. I will go to a Nigerian grocery stores and see if any of this pito is for sale. The paper says that the taste is sour and alcoholic. The sour taste comes from Lactobacillus. I would suspect that instead of using Lactobacillus plantarum you could do what they do for sokujo method of sake making and add lactic acid at the beginning of fermentation.

The use of starter cultures to produce ‘Pito’, a Nigerian fermented alcoholic beverage

(1) Department of Applied Microbiology and Brewing, Nnamdi Azikiwe University, P.M.B. 5025 Awka, Nigeria
Abstract Pito a traditional Nigerian alcoholic beverage was brewed in the laboratory with pure cultures of Lactobacillus plantarum in combination with Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Pediococcus halophilus in combination with Candida tropicalis isolated from a local brew. The pH, colour, titrable acidity, alcohol content, specific gravity, taste and flavour of Pito produced by this method compared favourably with that produced by the traditional method. The method achieved a reduced fermentation time and an improved production process. It is recommended that Pito be produced with Lactobacillus plantarum in combination with Saccharomyces cerevisiae.

Author's Method:
Sorghum wort Production:
1) 1 kg of sorghum grains are cleaned, sorted out and soaked in water for 12 hours at 25 C in a plastic container and placed in a woven basked for 1 hour lined with banana leaves.
2) The grains are left to germinate for 4 days with occasional turning. Malting is halted by drying the grains under the sun for 4 days
3) 500 grams of the malted grains were washed twice with water and mixed with 1500 ml and allowed to stand in the water for 3 hours at 40 C, then boiled in a pressure cooker for 40 minutes.
4) The boiled mash is cooled to 30 C and then filtered through a fine mesh
5) 350 ml of wort is transfered to each of four 500 ml Erlenmeyer flasks and sterilized by autoclaving at 110 C for 10 minutes

Pitching culture - contains Lactobacillus plantarum and Saccharomyces cerevisiae.

1) Each of the organisms are isolated from a previously brewed pito and inoculated into a media containing 50 ml of yeast extract broth in a 250 flask and incubated for 24 hours at 28 C.
2) 50 ml of the two cultures are pitched and is incubated for 2 days at 28C for fermentation to occur.
3) Fermentation is stopped by heating the wort for 3 minutes at 100C

Traditional Method:
1) Soak the the sorghum grains over night
2) Pour the grains into a basket so the water runs off for 2 hours
3) Separate the grains onto leaves or mats of about 3 to 4 in diameter and covered with another layer of leaves. Water the grains on alternate days and occasionally turn the grains. This germination goes on for 4 to 5 days.
4) Spread the malt in thin layers under the sun to dry for 2 to 4 days and then ground the malt into a powder
5) The ground malt is added to a clay pot with water and stirred with a stick. The mixture is allowed to ferment for 2 days and then boiled for 4 hours and allowed to cool.
4) The product is filtered through a mesh of copper basket.
5) A small quantity of a previous brew is then added to the filtered product and allowed to mature for two more days.