Maroua cochette from cooked rice and malt

A rice beer alongside sorghum bili-bili

Cochette is a traditional rice-based beer produced in Maroua, northern Cameroon.

It is closely related to the region's broader cereal-brewing traditions, but its use of rice makes it different from sorghum-based bili-bili.

The documented Maroua method combines cooked rice material with malted rice or sorghum, then inoculates the mixture using a local starter called chai or previously fermented bitter bili-bili.

The resulting drink is fermented, filtered and diluted.

Cochette is especially associated in the survey with women producers from Chadian communities living and working in Maroua.

This should be understood as an observed cultural association, not an exclusive origin claim.

Names and terminology

Term — Meaning

Cochette — Traditional fermented rice beer

Mourou cochette — Cooked rice preparation used in brewing

Gouille — Filtered beer liquid, a Sara-language term

Chai — Local fermentation starter

Rice — Oryza sativa

Sorghum malt, alternative — Sorghum bicolor

The source uses French-language and local-language terminology in its description.

The spellings are retained as documented.

History and production culture

Cochette belongs to the wider cereal fermentation culture of northern Cameroon and Chad.

The use of rice introduces a different agricultural raw material from traditional sorghum beer.

The 2023 producer survey documents both the local method and its economic role.

Women producers brew and sell the drink as part of local informal food commerce.

The paper identifies production in Maroua neighbourhoods including Palar and Pitoaré.

It does not establish a specific historical invention date.

The recipe can therefore be presented as a documented contemporary traditional method, but not as an unchanged ancient formula.

Ingredients

Ingredient — Documented quantity

Rice flour — 3 kg

Boiled water — 5 L

Malted rice or sorghum flour — Fraction described, exact usable quantity unresolved

Chai or bitter bili-bili starter — Quantity not specified

Water after filtration — Approximately 2 L

The method describes a portion of the total rice grain being malted and states that the cooked rice preparation is mixed with the remaining one-sixth.

However, it is not fully clear whether the documented 3 kg rice-flour quantity represents the complete grain input or only the cooked-rice fraction.

This ambiguity affects the malt quantity and prevents a fully reliable scaled recipe.

Why rice needs malt

Rice contains starch.

The cooked rice is primarily a source of gelatinized starch and cereal solids.

Malted grain supplies enzymes able to release smaller sugars from accessible starch.

Malted rice can be used, while malted sorghum provides an alternative.

These alternatives may differ in enzyme activity and flavour.

They should not be treated as identical ingredients merely because both are malted.

Stage 1 — Prepare rice grain

The surveyed producers commonly soaked, dried and milled rice grain.

The full soaking and drying parameters are not quantified.

Stage 2 — Prepare the cooked rice base

Mix 3 kg rice flour with 5 L boiled water.

Cook until a substantial cooked preparation, mourou cochette, is obtained.

The source does not specify an exact cooking temperature or duration for this stage.

Stage 3 — Cool

Allow the cooked rice mixture to cool for approximately eight hours.

No numerical cooling temperature is specified.

Stage 4 — Incorporate malt

Add the malted grain fraction.

This may be malted rice or malted sorghum.

The paper refers to a one-sixth fraction of the rice grain, but does not provide enough information to reconstruct an unambiguous total batch quantity.

Stage 5 — Knead

Mix the cooked rice and malt thoroughly by hand until homogeneous.

The purpose is to distribute the malt through the gelatinized rice substrate.

Stage 6 — Add starter

Introduce the traditional chai starter or use bitter bili-bili as the inoculum.

The amount is not specified.

Stage 7 — Ferment

Leave the mixture for eight to nine hours.

No numerical temperature is documented.

Stage 8 — Filter

Separate the liquid from the solids.

The filtered liquid is called gouille in the local Sara terminology recorded by the survey.

Stage 9 — Dilute

Mix the filtered liquid with approximately 2 L water.

The final yield is not specified.

Stage 10 — Serve

The resulting cochette is an opaque, alcoholic cereal beverage.

It is consumed fresh.

How the process works

Cooking changes rice starch from its raw granular form into a hydrated, gelatinized structure.

Malt enzymes act on accessible starch.

The resulting smaller carbohydrates can be metabolized by microorganisms introduced through chai or previous beer.

Yeasts produce ethanol and carbon dioxide.

Lactic acid bacteria can produce acidity.

The final flavour depends on the balance between these organisms and the remaining cereal material.

The short final fermentation stage does not mean alcohol formation is absent.

Measured characteristics

The 2023 Maroua survey reported these mean values for sampled cochette:

Measurement — Mean

pH — 3.58

Titratable acidity — 0.9%

Alcohol — 2.5%

Soluble solids — 6.18 °Brix

Dry matter — 11.1%

These values describe the sampled commercial or artisanal beers, not mandatory parameters of the recipe.

They cannot replace missing starter quantities or fermentation controls.

Differences from bili-bili

Bili-bili uses malted sorghum as its principal grain.

Cochette uses rice, with a separate malt fraction.

The rice preparation is cooked and kneaded before inoculation.

Cochette's reported alcohol level in the survey was lower on average than that of bili-bili.

This does not establish that every cochette is weaker than every bili-bili.

Serving traditions

Cochette is consumed as a local beer and sold by artisanal producers.

Its filtered form may still contain suspended cereal material.

It is usually a fresh beverage rather than a clear matured beer.

The precise serving vessels and meal pairings are not described in sufficient detail to establish a canonical practice.

Problems and safety

Cooked rice is particularly important from a food-safety perspective because of the potential for Bacillus cereus contamination.

Spores can survive ordinary cooking, and inappropriate holding may allow growth and toxin production.

The long cooling stage in the traditional recipe is not accompanied by a validated pathogen-control schedule.

The Maroua field study also found microbiological quality concerns in sampled cochette.

A sour taste does not prove safety.

Use properly cleaned and sanitized equipment, but recognize that sanitation alone does not validate this multistage fermentation.

No finished-product storage limit or safe room-temperature shelf life is established.

This record is therefore a documented production method rather than a fully validated home-brewing recipe.