IKEA Dryck Lingon experiment

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Jayjay1976

Jayjay1976

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My wife and I kinda have a love thing going on with IKEA. Throughout our 20 years of marriage and moving back and forth between two continents and 8 apartments, our IKEA furnishings in their unapologetic Swedishness have always provided a familiar sense of foreign dislocation that actually made us feel at home no matter where we were. To me, visiting an IKEA store is like stepping through a time portal that takes me back to all of the spaces we've called home, and recalls vivid, palpable memories of how it felt settling in to strange new surroundings and finding happiness.

We still pop into our local IKEA from time to time even if just to enjoy the familiar meal of meatballs and boiled potatoes with gravy and of course the delightfully foreign and festive lingonberry sauce. Sweeter and milder than cranberries, we've come to really enjoy IKEA's lingonberry jam and drinks over the years.

Recently, I discovered a forgotten bottle of lingonberry drink concentrate in the back of the skåp (cupboard to the layman) and thought it might be a fun project to ferment it like a wine, distill it, and then backsweeten it with more lingonberry juice to make a marginally palatable sipping liqueur, and finally repackage it back into its humble glass bottle. I'm really curious to find out whether it can be made into something worth drinking, and perhaps enjoy some alongside swedish meatballs.

Call it an IKEA hack if you will, or a Swedish berry blasphemy, but my objective here is simply to seek out a happy buzz that I assembled myself and can be proud of.

View recipe here: IKEA Dryck Lingon experiment | Alternative Sugar Beer Extract Beer Recipe | Brewer's Friend


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Sounds like a good idea to me.
Do you have or have you had IKEA cabinets? I’m seriously looking at them for my old house rebuild.
Thanks
 
AkTom said:
Sounds like a good idea to me.
Do you have or have you had IKEA cabinets? I’m seriously looking at them for my old house rebuild.
Thanks
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Yes, we have had IKEA cabinets, and in our experience the quality was actually pretty good, depending on how much you spend obviously.
 
Calculating gravity and alcohol potential, the bottle contains 400g total sugar, brewersfriend tells me that diluting to 1 gallon gives an OG of 1.041/5.32% ABV. Since I'll need a second bottle of concentrate to backsweeten, if I add 250ml of that bottle to boost the must density, I get 1.060/7.99% ABV, which seems to be the sweet spot for my tabletop still. I'll run to IKEA this afternoon to pick up another bottle.

Next I'll add yeast nutrients, the jar says 1tsp/gallon, and that just leaves pH adjustment. I'll take a measurement and if it's super low I'll adjust with gypsum. Not sure if this step is even necessary.
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Save yourself the trouble and burn some brännvin (unflavoured grain spirits) instead and use that to make Vargtass ( Wolf's paw), spirits flavoured with lingonberry juice.
Two things are imporant here, the brännvin must be hembränt (moonshine) and optimally flavoured with raw lingonberries for just a minute or so. As is said here " If I want to taste only lingon I would drink lingon juice"
If you do not wear only flannel shirts, own at least 3 chainsaws and a tractor and use lössnus, you can mix it with lingonberry juice to make a grogg. I personally own only one chainsaw and mostly wear flanell when out in the woods so I do it the latter way.
Skål och vi ses i dimman! (Cheers and we'll catch up in the mist!)
 
Okay, using a bottle of concentrate + a jar of fruit spread, the OG is 1.056/7.4% ABV. Here it is all mixed up and ready to go.
 

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Erik the Anglophile said:
Save yourself the trouble and burn some brännvin (unflavoured grain spirits) instead and use that to make Vargtass ( Wolf's paw), spirits flavoured with lingonberry juice.
Two things are imporant here, the brännvin must be hembränt (moonshine) and optimally flavoured with raw lingonberries for just a minute or so. As is said here " If I want to taste only lingon I would drink lingon juice"
If you do not wear only flannel shirts, own at least 3 chainsaws and a tractor and use lössnus, you can mix it with lingonberry juice to make a grogg. I personally own only one chainsaw and mostly wear flanell when out in the woods so I do it the latter way.
Skål och vi ses i dimman! (Cheers and we'll catch up in the mist!)
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Well I can juggle 3 chainsaws and I wear a flannel codpiece. I'm not sure if those are relevant qualifications, and I appreciate your contributing a cultural perspective, but I'm afraid I may have given an incorrect impression of the the goals of this experiment.

My intention in producing a distilled beverage made from items that anyone can buy at an IKEA store anywhere in the world is less an endorsement or celebration of Swedish culture, and more of a love letter to global capitalism, and its achievement in reducing the entirety of the world into a flat packed cardboard parcel that can be loaded into the boot of a Lada or a Peugeot or a pervert's windowless van depending on the location and circumstances.

The objective is to pull together commonly available IKEA ingredients that can be fermented and distilled to produce a palatable beverage.

An IKEA tea kettle-based still is in the planning stages but that is beyond the scope of this initial experiment.
 
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I appreciate your effort and sincerity, altough I personally find this global capitalism rather degenerate and a tool to erase all cultures and replace them with a hivemind of consumer drones.
BUT, a flanell shirt is obligatory while making this, otherwise you might anger the gods, you don't want Tor to send a lightning your way and have your house burn down do you?.
My main concern is that
A: both the juice and the jam contains a lot of additives, lets just say that IKEA is not the highest quality option of lingon products. You migh be better of trying to get your hands in some frozen lingonberries
B: the berries them selves contain a lot of sour acids and tannins.
I just as you enjoy experiments, but just be aware there is a high risk it Will taste shite.
 
McMullan said:
I agree, use capitalism lingonberries sparingly. I think another base for your 'wash' is needed and this might be of some use. Looks great for a mini mash.
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Great find! I spent some time wandering through the cookware department and didn't see this! Will definitely pick one up on my next trip to IKEA.
 
I’m interested to hear how this turns out, I’ve got a bottle of that and some other berry concentrate that I was going to add to some cider to change up the flavor.
 
Transamguy77 said:
I’m interested to hear how this turns out, I’ve got a bottle of that and some other berry concentrate that I was going to add to some cider to change up the flavor.
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I'm planning to try their blueberry concentrate for my next batch, I've heard that blueberries make a very fine spirit and IKEA had quite a lot of that in stock.

On the remarks above about IKEA lingonbery products containing additives or questionable ingredients, a quick check of the labels proves otherwise, and both the syrups and fruit spreads are certified organic.
 
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Just wanted to add a post in appreciation of IKEA's LACK coffee table. We bought our first one in ~2004, it lasted a few years until an unfortunate occasion when a beer bottle left overnight after a party took a ring of the dark wood laminate with it, revealing the pith of compressed wood fibers that lay beneath. We promptly replaced it with another identical unit that served us well until we sold off all of our furniture and most of our earthly possessions via craigslist and moved to Germany in early 2009.

When we landed in Germany, we were briefly introduced to our new apartment for maybe 15 minutes. Just enough time to release our two cats from their carriers, who promptly planted their flags in a makeshift litter box, before we were whooshed off to the IKEA in Sindelfingen to choose all of the furnishings we thought we'd need to outfit our new home. After more than 12 hours spent traveling, we were in a bit of a daze but easily decided to purchase a third LACK coffee table in dark brown, because it was familiar and reliable. Ditto with our REGOLIT arc lamp and several other pieces I can't recall off the top of my head.

When we left Germany in 2013 we once again sold all of our furnishings, this time with the help of quoka.de, and returned to our estranged homeland in a similar daze where we purchased our 4th LACK coffee table in dark brown. Over the years I've become adept at assembling this LACK table and have become intimately familiar with its quirks and have noticed the running changes that have been made to it, and know well where a dab of carpenter's glue can enhance the already sturdy design, and just how far the fasteners can be tightened before they'll strip out of the granola wood.

I'm actually sitting here now hunched over our LACK coffee table typing this post and I'm amazed after all this time how sturdy it's lower shelf is and how resilient the finish is today despite all of the sticky beer bottles it has seen. #LACKisLOVE

Side note, the price has gone up from $39 to $49. Not quite sure I'd pay that for a fifth one, quality is kinda sus :p

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MaxStout said:
Cool...IKEAberry wine.

You might need one of these.
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This is an awesome start to a custom label. Stay tuned.

Edit: after a quick google, IKEA labels and assembly manuals use verdana font. This label is going to be more than lit, it will be REGOLIT!

Edit 2: According to Wikipedia, IKEA founder Ingvar Kamprad was partial to the drink, later in life claiming to have controlled his alcoholism by drying out three times a year.
He was also known for being frugal, often stopping in at his IKEA stores for a cheap meal, and was known to save packets of salt and pepper from restaurants. He also encouraged his employees to use both sides of paper to conserve resources.

I feel like this experiment is paying homage to him while also channeling his energy.
 
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MaxStout said:
I think you need to come up with an appropriate name for your IKEA hootch. Something that includes vowels with umlauts.
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I'm also a big fan of umlauts. English pronunciation would be so much easier to learn if the alphabet used them..

I was thinking about calling it Flåt Påck Herø, though not sure the term 'flat pack' is as universal as I think it is, nor that everyone will get the song reference. Maybe it's just understandable enough to get the job done, like IKEA instructions.
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I hear Johnny Cash singing that in my head.......

(MaxStout's lyrics, that is. Folsom Prison would be a good fit...)
 
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McMullan said:
I agree, use capitalism lingonberries sparingly. I think another base for your 'wash' is needed and this might be of some use. Looks great for a mini mash.
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Awesome! And, in some 1gal brewing sites I've been going thru, I think I've seen exactly that used!

But, has anyone been able to find that in the States? Was sad to see its not available at my So Ca store's site...

Hmmm... further searching finds lots of other, similar stuff. Though I would like a hair more than 5L, most are even smaller, some crazy expensive... and some lack that nearly hop spider fine basket, that would simplify BIA, uh, Basket. I guess there's always using a bag...
 
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JP_BeerFan said:
Awesome! And, in some 1gal brewing sites I've been going thru, I think I've seen exactly that used!

But, has anyone been able to find that in the States? Was sad to see its not available at my So Ca store's site...

Hmmm... further searching finds lots of other, similar stuff. Though I would like a hair more than 5L, most are even smaller, some crazy expensive... and some lack that nearly hop spider fine basket, that would simplify BIA, uh, Basket. I guess there's always using a bag...
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Yeah I can't find it here in Chicago either, the link above was to the UK website. Ditto on other options on Amazon. I was hoping to use it as a small still boiler, I'll keep my eyes peeled for another option.
 
I'll look further as well. A 6qt, with the fine basket, would be nice. There's one or two commercial restaurant supply stores near by.

Hot tip, find one of those in your area for a huge selection of pots, pans, and a massive amount of cooking tools of all kinds! Uh, but that's heading away from the "all things come from IKEA" concept.

Interested in how this ends up as well. A while back it occurred to me that Lingonberries in a Mead might be something worth trying out...
 
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I'm watching the bubbling slow down as the fermentation progresses and fighting the urge to add more lingonberry jam, which has me wondering about yeast health. At the beginning I added a teaspoon of DAP nutrient, but that doesn't seem like enough by itself. Are there other things I could be doing to ensure a thorough fermentation? I've read about stirring daily to punch down fruit, though the berry hulls have sunk by now, and about periodic degassing, though I don't know whether that is to aid fermentation or clarification. Any thoughts from more experienced wine makers?
 
JP_BeerFan said:
I'll look further as well. A 6qt, with the fine basket, would be nice. There's one or two commercial restaurant supply stores near by.

Hot tip, find one of those in your area for a huge selection of pots, pans, and a massive amount of cooking tools of all kinds!
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My wife is in the industry so we go to restaurant depot from time to time, lots of really neat stuff for homebrewers. Next time I'll be looking for a large sack of cornmeal ;)
 
Interesting post! I look forward to an update regarding a tea kettle still (and the drink you're making), as I need a little gin still!

Last year I put the contents of a jar of lingonberry jam in a pint mason jar, and filled w/ 90% shine. I still have a little left, I wonder how it's aged? Was good to share w/ my Swedish American father-in-law at last Christmas eve's dinner!

K
 
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