Dunkelheit

Sima - Finnish Lemon Mead

This is a recipe for making Sima, which is a Finnish lemon mead drink. I learned it from my Finnish flatmate at uni so it is 100% trad approved.

Ingredients

• 5 litres of Water
• 4 Unwaxed Lemons
• 900g honey
• Yeast of choice. (I recommend Lalvin EC-1118)
• Oil Free Raisins (Optional) (Recommended)
  • Chopped

Equipment

• Fermentation Vessel (1 gallon demijohn)
• Syphon

Directions

1. Activate your yeast in warm water.
2. Wash, zest and juice lemons.
3. Add lemon zest and honey to a pot or bucket.
   • Optional: You may add raisins at this stage for more raisin flavour.
4. Boil 2 litres of water and add to the honey mixture.
5. Mix the honey and boiling water until it is one fluid.
6. Add the remainder of the water to reduce temperature and thin the “syrup”.
7. Add the lemon juice and stir until it is a runny liquid.
8. Continue stirring and wait for the fluid to reach blood temperature or colder (safe range for your yeast).
9. Add yeast.
10. Pour the liquid into your fermentation vessel.
11. Allow to ferment until the yeast is finished.
12. You may now bottle the Sima.
13. You may now carbonate the Sima using your preferred method.

Notes

1. This recipe is proportional, if you want a smaller batch, adjust each ingredient by the same fraction.
2. You can use a combination of sugar and honey if you want to keep the cost down.
   • If doing so I recommend Muscovado sugar.