Hop

MayDay is soon here. That's why I have set up TheSima getting ready for the fest.

What is "sima"? It is mead. The origin of the word itself means a drink made of honey. Already vikings made it and drank as a wine or beer like people drink today. They believed it rose up the fighting spirit! No doubt about it that they were right indeed!

In Finland they have been making mead from 1700's in the way we still do it. Some housewives may have their very own secret recipe for it. But it used to be only rich people's privilege because sugar and honey were extremely expensive which ordinary people usually could not afford. Starting from 1800's sugar started to be more common and the meaning of honey decreased an sugar started to be more popular in making the mead. And when ordinary people could afford the mead making it started to be connected to the working class celebration at May Day. It hardly contains alcohol so even toddlers can drink it.

Hop plant (Humulus lupulus) is used when making traditional mead. By The Middle Ages workers' daily wage included 3 liters of beer. Finland had no such production of hop plants so they needed to import it which was expensive. At 1347 they wrote the law where they ordered the hop plants had to be planted and if not the fines had to be paid and still plant it. They had to plant every year 40 roots so that at the end each house had 200 hop plants; even more if possible.

I have 4 hop masts in MyGarden. Approximately 12 hop plants form out them. But I don't need to pay fines because the law was taken down on 1915! The cultivation of hop started to go down by 1850 when breweries changed their methods when the hop import ban was taken down. I found MyHops from this bewildered and rank garden when we bought this old house built at 1947 after TheWars. Traditionally hop was still planted for houses' own use. Even sprites were believed to live in hop gardens.

So I harvest again MyHops last summer for this moment. I need of course something more for the mead.

I make it always for 8 liters. IKEAs 10 liters kettle is perfect for it. Usually Finns make it in a Plastic Bucket. We are called a BucketNation and people make jokes about buckets and us. They even have bucket discounts of free bucket for first 100 clients! But hey! This is the reason, didn't you know that. We always need clean buckets! We don't want to spoil out mead!

Well, I use IKEAs 10 liters kettle. It was cheap enough when I bought it. Not too high for me to use. And so I don't need to buy new bucket every year. Yes, you can wash up buckets too but mine always end up into the garden so this is more practical in MyHouse and eco-friendly too.

You need to keep it in room temperature for about 24 hours and then sift it.

Then you bottle it all up and store in cool place for a week. You put raisins on the bottom of each bottle. When raisins pop up to float on the surface the mead is ready.

So, now we just wait!