LEMON MEAD “SIMA”

Ingredients

5 litres of water
350 g of brown sugar
350 g of white sugar
2 lemons
¼ tsp yeast (ordinary baker’s yeast, either fresh or dry)
handful of raisins

First gather your equipment. You will need a container large enough to hold all of the sima (a big plastic bucket for example) and empty bottles, their number and size depending on how much sima you are going to make. Plastic soda bottles are recommended as pressure can build up in the bottles. You will also need a funnel for bottling.

• Wash the lemons well and peel the zest, being careful not to include the bitter white pith. Put the zest into your container.
• Slice the lemons and remove the white pith from around the slices. Add the slices, too, into the container.
• Add all the sugar into the container with the lemons.
• Heat half the amount of water to boiling and pour over the mead ingredients.
• Mix and let stand for a while under the lid.
• Add the rest of the cold water.
• Add yeast when the broth is at room temperature.
• Let it sit at room temperature under the lid until it starts to ferment a little, for about a day.
• Put a few raisins and 1 teaspoon of sugar in clean bottles.
• Strain the mead into bottles.
• Cork loosely.
• Take to a cool place. Watch out for fermentation. When the fermentation has stopped or almost stopped, you can close the caps more firmly.
• The mead is ready when the raisins have risen to the surface. This will take a few days.