Recipe
Sima - Finnish May Day Mead
This very easy mead recipe is a delicious, mild-tasting soft drink that's traditionally made for May Day (Vappu) in Finland.
Ingredient batch: 0.5× original. Base yield: 16 gallons.
Scaled amounts are simple math, not kitchen-tested. Times, temperatures, pan sizes and amounts inside the steps stay as written.
Ingredient display: US / original units. Rounded cooking measures; original amounts remain available on screen in alternate views. Printed ingredients use this selection. Recipe schema and any available nutrition describe the canonical base batch. Unit changes never alter cooking directions, times or nutrition.
- Yield
- 8 gallons
- Prep
- 2880 minutes
Ingredients
- 1 gallons water
- 1 cups brown sugar
- 1 cups sugar
- 4 lemons — original amount unchanged; adjust manually
- 1/8 cup lemon peels
- 3/4 Tbsp active dry yeast
Base draft — original amounts
The original draft batch is shown here for comparison; no public structured data is emitted. Base yield: 16 gallons.
- 2 gallons water
- 2 cups brown sugar
- 2 cups sugar
- 4 lemons
- 1/4 cup lemon peels
- 1 1/2 Tbsp active dry yeast
Instructions
- In a large pot, add 2 gallons of water and heat until near boiling. Remove from heat and add the sugars, the juice from the 4 lemons, and lemon peels. Allow liquid to cool 1-2 hours.
- After the liquid has cooled to slightly warmer than room temperature, stir in the yeast until dissolved.
- Cover the pot with a lid and let it sit at room temperature for 24 hours. Or, for fizzier sima, pour the liquid into two 1-gallon glass jars fitted with airlock lids instead of leaving it in the pot.
- After 24 hours, stir the liquid. Using a funnel, divide the liquid into clean plastic bottles and screw the caps on tightly. I used plastic bottles that hold up to 17oz.
- Let the bottles sit at room temperature until they feel hard when you try to press the sides, about 1-8 hours depending on the air temperature in your home. Then move them into the fridge to chill. They should be consumed within 1 week.
Notes
Use an apple peeler to remove the lemon peels. Carefully try to peel only the yellow part of the peel, the "zest." The white inner part of the lemon peel will make the sima more bitter. Sima is a traditional soda-like soft drink which contains a very low amount of alcohol.
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