~289 cal · 9g protein · 64g carbs · 3g fat (estimated, per serving)
🍽️
Calabash of cloudy red sorghum beer
🇹🇩 N'Djamena
Bili-bili is the millet-and-sorghum beer of southern Chad, brewed by women in huge earthen pots from red sorghum and sold from open-air "cabarets." Cloudy, reddish, and gently sour, it is ladled warm into calabashes and drunk communally — a cornerstone of social life across the Sahel.
Sign in to save recipes to your book and leave reviews.
Make it yours
Toggle a diet and the ingredients rewrite themselves with regional substitutes.
🥕 Vegetarian
🌱 Vegan
🌾 Gluten-Free
🥛 Dairy-Free
🥜 Nut-Free
🥚 Egg-Free
Ingredients
Serves 8 —
•
4 cups red sorghum, malted and ground
•
14 cups water
•
1/4 cup wild yeast starter
•
2 tbsp sugar (to feed the ferment)
Instructions
1
Simmer the malted sorghum in the water for an hour and a half, stirring, to make a sweet wort.
2
Strain and cool the wort until just warm to the touch.
3
Stir in the yeast starter and sugar, cover, and ferment in a warm place for 1–2 days.
4
When cloudy, reddish, and tart, ladle it warm from the pot into calabashes to serve.
Southern Chad cabaret tradition.
Ratings & reviews
Sign in to rate this recipe once you’ve cooked it.
No reviews yet — be the first to cook it.
🌏 While it simmers — know your destination
📍
N'Djamena. A Sahel capital of millet balls and okra daraba.
🗺️
Chad. Sahelian crossroads of millet balls and okra stews.
🌍
Africa. Fifty-four countries of tagines, stews, and fire-kissed grills.
The story behind this dish is up top — worth a read while the pot works.
👩🍳
Richard Moore & Kelsey Tucker
Recipes cooked, tested, and researched by the creators of Spin the Globe. How we build our recipes →
More from Chad
Daraba
A silky Chadian okra-and-greens stew enriched with peanut butter and tomato, eaten with millet.
Bouillie de Mil
A Sahelian millet porridge studded with soft dates and a swirl of groundnut, sweet and sustaining against the desert morning.