Traditional Finnish Lemon Mead (Sima)
Sima is a Finnish, lemon-flavored mead mostly consumed during the celebrations of the 1st of May. A glass of sima is traditionally accompanied by a funnel cake or sugar coated donut.
- Prep
- 13 min
- Cook
- 2 hr
- Total
- 2 hr 13 min
- Servings
- As written in source
- Difficulty
- Advanced
Timings are approximate — worked out from the method, not measured in a test kitchen.
Ingredients
Quantities are retained as written by the source and do not scale automatically. Tap an ingredient to check it off as you go.
Cooking instructions
Equipment
Container large enough to hold all of the sima (a big plastic bucket for example)
Equipment
Empty bottles
Equipment
Funnel
Procedure
Sterilize all of your equipment. A thorough process is described in the mead recipe. However, as the fermentation time of sima is very short (only a few days) and it is usually consumed within a week or so, just washing the bucket and bottles well and then rinsing them with boiling water right before using is generally enough to prevent spoiling.
Procedure
Boil 4 litres of water.
Procedure
Wash the lemons well and peel the zest, being careful not to include the bitter white pith. Put the zest into your container.
Procedure
Slice the lemons and remove the white pith from around the slices. Add the slices into the container.
Procedure
Add all the sugar into the container with the lemons.
Procedure
Pour the boiling water on top, and mix well until the sugar is mostly dissolved.
Procedure
Add 4 litres of cold water so that the mixture will be lukewarm, the right temperature for the yeast to activate. If unsure, check with a thermometer—the temperature should be between 35°C and 45°C.
Procedure
When the temperature is right, add the yeast. One way is to take a small cup of the mixture from the container, dissolve the yeast in it and then mix it back. Just dropping a crumb of fresh yeast into the container will also work.
Procedure
Let it stand overnight in room temperature.
Procedure
Bottle it on the next day: add one spoonful of sugar and a few raisins to each bottle before you pour the sima in.
Procedure
After bottling, let the bottles stand at room temperature out of direct sunlight for 2 more days. The raisins will bloat up and float to the surface.
Procedure
Move the bottles to your refrigerator. The sima is ready, and should be served cold. It will keep for at least a week in the refrigerator.
Notes, tips and variations
For a simpler process, just squeeze in the juice of 1–2 lemons instead of removing the pith.
Notes, tips and variations
You may use 1 kg brown sugar instead of mixing white and brown to make a darker sima with a stronger brown sugar flavour.
Notes, tips and variations
All the sugar may optionally be replaced with 1 kg honey.
Notes, tips and variations
You can put the bottled sima into the refrigerator immediately instead of fermenting overnight at room temperature. This will cause the fermentation to be slower; the sima will be ready in approximately 5–7 days.
Notes, tips and variations
Plastic soda bottles are recommended as pressure can build up in the bottles. An exploding plastic bottle is less dangerous than an exploding glass bottle.
Photo: Ville Koistinen · CC BY-SA 3.0 · http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ · Photo source and licence
Wikibooks contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0 · https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ · Adapted; quantities retained as written. · Original source
Read it through first
Skim all 20 steps before you start — it is the difference between cooking and firefighting.
Scale it
Use the quantities listed in the original recipe. Adjust them manually if making a different batch size.
Storage
Cool completely, then keep in an airtight container in the fridge for up to three days.
Reheating
Reheat gently with a splash of water in a covered pan, rather than blasting it, so nothing dries out.
Nutrition information is not available for this recipe yet.
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