Sima
Another food (ish) post, one of the traditions that our family has developed over the years has included the inclusion of a traditional Finnish drink into our holiday menus. Now in Finland I understand this is a drink for the spring not the fall and winter but hey, we like it.
The drink is called Sima and it is basically a light mead. Fermented honey.
It is exceedingly simple to make.
1 gallon of water
1 lemon
2 cups of honey (or brown sugar)
yeast
raisins
Take your lemon and grate the zest off it. Add the zest to the water.
(for those who are curious, the zest is the yellow part of the peel. NOT the white part)
Juice the lemon. Add the juice to the water.
Add the Honey or brown sugar to the water.
Heat sufficiently to dissolve the honey/sugar. (no need to boil)
Allow the mixture to cool until it is luke warm. Add yeast. (how much yeast takes experimentation, it depends on how much yeasty flavor you like.)for 1 gallon of water I'd go with about a 1/4 of a tsp.
Let the mixture sit for several hours until foam starts developing on the surface and the yeasty smell permeates the room.
NOTE: the longer it sits in this state the more ALCOHOL develops in the Sima. I don't drink booze so I bottle it now, if you like stronger drink let it sit longer.
Bottle the mix. I use Grolsch or St. Paulies Girl beer bottles because they have resealable caps. Soda bottles work just as well but don't look as cool.
Put a couple of raisins in the bottle and a little sugar. Fill the bottle leaving some space for pressure build up at the top. (if you over fill the bottle will break)Seal and let sit until the raisins are floating. Chill and drink.
The drink is called Sima and it is basically a light mead. Fermented honey.
It is exceedingly simple to make.
1 gallon of water
1 lemon
2 cups of honey (or brown sugar)
yeast
raisins
Take your lemon and grate the zest off it. Add the zest to the water.
(for those who are curious, the zest is the yellow part of the peel. NOT the white part)
Juice the lemon. Add the juice to the water.
Add the Honey or brown sugar to the water.
Heat sufficiently to dissolve the honey/sugar. (no need to boil)
Allow the mixture to cool until it is luke warm. Add yeast. (how much yeast takes experimentation, it depends on how much yeasty flavor you like.)for 1 gallon of water I'd go with about a 1/4 of a tsp.
Let the mixture sit for several hours until foam starts developing on the surface and the yeasty smell permeates the room.
NOTE: the longer it sits in this state the more ALCOHOL develops in the Sima. I don't drink booze so I bottle it now, if you like stronger drink let it sit longer.
Bottle the mix. I use Grolsch or St. Paulies Girl beer bottles because they have resealable caps. Soda bottles work just as well but don't look as cool.
Put a couple of raisins in the bottle and a little sugar. Fill the bottle leaving some space for pressure build up at the top. (if you over fill the bottle will break)Seal and let sit until the raisins are floating. Chill and drink.
posted by exMI | 12:55
4 Comments:
exmi
You never cease to amaze me..You are a man of many tallents.
I cant wait to try this.
I love this blog!
"if you over fill the bottle will break)"
I believe "explode" might be a better word than "break"
Depends on the bottle. Don't use apple jiuce bottles, or plastic soda bottels that have had the plastic wrapper taken off.
When the beer bottles go usually the botton pops off.
(there have been some "interesting" decompression incidents with various bottles in the past. too much yeast (hence too much fermentation) can be a bad thing.
I only found your blog as I was looking up "sima", from a mention at one of the many homebrewing sites.
Grolsh type bottles would be Ok, as would champagne type bottles (you'd have to make sure that you wire down the tops).
Plastic "soda" type bottles would also probably be fine - I use them for cider, after it's finished it's ferment, but I add about a teaspoon of sugar so it will naturally carbonate it.
If it's left for a couple of days, when it's fermented down most of the way, then bottling in glass as above should be fine - especially if it's chilled, as that will prevent too much further fermentation.
I'm trying to think of how it should taste, yeasty or not ?
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