Sima

Anyone else getting their Sima ready for May Day?

Sima sounds good, never tried any myself, the basic recipe for it could definetely be tailored into a mead or melomel. One could be started now for next year, no way it'd be ready for this year

I actually used 4 cups (~4 pounds) of honey and 2 cups of brown sugar for the fermentables, so I think you'd call it a mead. Also, from everything I've read it's meant to be made right before May Day, to remain traditional. I made mine on Thursday to be drunk on Tuesday - the taste is a bit rougher than an aged mead, but it's still pretty good and refreshing.

Ok, Im officially intrigued...

CreamyGoodness said:

Ok, Im officially intrigued...

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2 Gallons of bottled spring water
~4 pounds of honey (I used something local)
2 cups of brown sugar
10 lemons
yeast
raisins

This recipe is supposed to be traditional, so the sanitizing steps are different. Also, your primary fermentation takes place in the pot you'll mix ingredients in. Finally, this year is my first making it, so I could be wrong. My test batch went well; the picture above is a production run.

Zest the 10 lemons then peel. You want to use the skin and flesh of the lemons, but not the pith. This is the most time-consuming step, so should be done early
Boil 1 gallon of the spring water and thoroughly mix in the honey and brown sugar. Once everything is mixed and boiled, toss in the lemon flesh, lemon zest, and other gallon of spring water and put in an ice-bath to cool to ~90 F.
At this temperature, pitch in the yeast (traditionally bread yeast, but I used a dry wine yeast).
Cover with a lid and let ferment at room temperature for 24-48 hours. I also cover everything with saran wrap to reduce contamination.
After primary fermentation, drop a few raisins and a tablespoon of additional sugar into the bottles and fill them up. Loosely cap them and let ferment another 24 hours.
After 24 hours, the raisins should start floating. This is your sign that things are done. Tightly cap your bottles (make sure they can handle the pressure) and put in your refrigerator. Can be drunk once cool - should last a week or so.

Thank you for posting this. I am going to have to give this a go! Are you Finnish by nationality?

CreamyGoodness said:

Thank you for posting this. I am going to have to give this a go! Are you Finnish by nationality?

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Yeah, one-quarter. My extended family still kept a lot of Finnish food and traditions active, so I thought I'd give this a try.

Sima, eh? Man, I live right next to Finland and I never tried this. xD

There's been a couple of recent threads about Sima over at gotmead as well. I'm also wondering about giving it a try.......

interesting how fast it ferments out and ready to drink...on the to do list!

Just bottled it. One one-gallon jug and five one-liter flip-tops.

It's meant to be a low-alcohol drink (~2-3% ABV, or even less), which explains why the ferment time is so short.

Made some! I don't bottle it, I just pour it out of the fermenter--a one-gallon glass jug. That way some lucky people get the raisins. A fizzy sima raisin is a joy forever.

Two notes: (1) cold crashing slowed fermentation, but did not stop it; (2) the taste of this stuff grows on you.

fatbloke said:

There's been a couple of recent threads about Sima over at gotmead as well. I'm also wondering about giving it a try.......

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What recipe are you going to use??

I love sima, I've done it with my mum since I was a kid. Usually less lemon peel relative to raisins than suggested here and no honey added. The difficult things have always been finding the right type of sugar and the right type of bakers yeast (liquid if possible). Provides a light fizzy drink with just a tad of alcohol after 1-2 days of fermenting. Very popular with children! Btw, when I made it I never sanitised anything, just boiled the stuff in a big pot, left it a day and a night under a cloth with the yeast pitched in it and off to bottling into plastic bottles.

Now I'm trying a bigger version with half honey per pound of sugar added in and fermenting over a couple of months. Took a sample the other day and it was nice, sweet, fizzy and rich.