Hi All
Well, springs officially here :)
I've been meaning to make birch sap wine for the last few years. I've never been able to get my act together.
Last year I was telling my dad about the benifits of birch sap. He actually managed to tap a tree and collect a couple of litres :o
This year Im not going to fail!
I've done my research.
I've started to collect plastic 2l bottles, I have the hose and all the other stuff needed to tap.
I'm going to try and find a few healthy matureish trees which will hopefully provide the sap.
So, I should have 4-6weeks to prepare.
Have many others been sucessful with birch sap wine?
This has me very interested.
When do you know birch tree are ready to have their sap harvested?
Is it simple to harvest like mapel or rubber? (ie make a hole and stick a drain tube in)
Theres alot of info out there on tapping birch.
Basically, timewise were looking at early march. If you look closely at the buds they should be just beginning to swell.
Cutting into the bark with a sharp knife will also let you . This saves you from drilling holes into a still dormant tree which could possibly 'Bleed' out with it becomes active.
visions of you fellas climbing trees in your bare feet with hesian belts keeping you up there.
Careful not to ring the trees :(
You cal also do it with Sycamore which is basically what the canadians call Maple. I tried once or twice in a half assed way, but never really with any success.
I tapped a few trees last year and it was a lot easier than one might think. I can put up a few pictures if anyone is interested.
On the wine side of it I was not so successful. Igot a recipe from an old book "First Steps in Winemaking". As it was my first attempt at a wine I didn't take into account the efficiency of modern yeasts compared to the yeasts at the time the book was written and added way too much sugar. The stuff is kind of undrinkable but I'll leave it for a few years and see what happens.
I will repeat it this year with ess sugar and see how it turns out.
Acouple of things you have to be careful of when tapping the trees. Make sure the tree is big enough to handle being tapped, I've read that the minimum size you should tap is 8 inches in diameter. A gallon is the very maximum you should take from a tree and if you are taking that much then you should only tap it every second year. After you tap the tree make sure you plug the hole well, I use a whittled down wine cork.
Allan
For those of you who might be interseted.
I tapped 3 birch trees yesterday.
Im just back from checking up on them!
Out of the 3 bottles one was full and the other two are half full.
(http://i1049.photobucket.com/albums/s396/DamianFahy/IMG_0424_zps9930a55e.jpg)
I was lucky enough to find about eight mature trees within a 100 metre radius :)
I'll be heading out this eveing to collect the others and probably tap another few
I have to decide on the final recipe yet, but will more than likely go with:
Per 4.5l of sap
1 juiced lemon
1 strong cup of tea
800gms of sugar
handfull of raisans
500ml of grape juice
grape juice to back sweeten.
I'm planning on trying my hand at harvesting birchsap tomorrow.
I've got all the bits and pieces I need, just need to find me some good trees now ;D
@ Bogwoppit - I've heard that plugging the hole with corks or dowel is bad for the tree, and live wood(eg a thin branch) will do less harm
@Damo - Thanks for the recipe. If i manage to get enough sap i'll post my recipe too.
Hi
Ok, so I had a crack at this wine tonight.
Lordeoin, That recipe i muddled together myself :-?
Im a little confused! In the river cottage recipe they dont mention sugar at all, just a couple of tbls of runny honey. What do they expect to ferment?
I checked the OG. of the sap, It came in at around 1.004/5 out of the fridge.
Anyways, I kinda messed up a bit!
I thought id heat up the juice, sugar, raisins and lemon juice along with 3 tbls of honey. While that was cooling a little I added 2 bottles of sap to the demi through a piece of boiled cotton placed over a funnel.
The idea was to prevent thermal shock when I was to add the syrup mix, turns out I couldnt fit the entire syrup mix and brewed tea :o
So, My OG. came in at 1.070. ( I was hoping to be up around 1.090/1.095.
Lesson learned! Batch 2 and 3 will be better planned.
I might up the sugar to 1kg, and check gravity before I top up to shoulder height ;)
QuoteI've got all the bits and pieces I need, just need to find me some good trees now
Ha! Thats the hard bit
I've been searching for weeks >:(
Plenty of birch in urban areas, very few out and about in rural areas. Garden of Ireland my ass.
Avoid the very white paper bark type. They're suppose to be bitterish.
Best of luck with your search
Hey Eoin
Any joy on your quest?
I now have 3 demi's happily bubbling away.
On the second 2 I upped the recipe to 900gms of sugar and half a squeezy jar of aldi honey.
This brought the SG. to 1095 :)
I also added a really good squeeze of honey to the first attempt.
I plan on racking in approx. 3 wks then up into the attic for a couple of weeks to clear, I'll blend all 3 into the bottling bucket and then hopefully I'll have 18 bottles of nice birch sap wine.
I'm kind of following WOW's method!
I suppose it's wait and see now ;)
I found it pretty easy to find a few good trees all close to each other.
Practiced tapping on a sicamore tree then tapped the 3 birch.
It was bitter cold over the past few days and I think this slowed the flow so I got about 6 liters total.
The gravity of my sap came out at about 1.003
The river cottage recipe had me confused too so I ignored it and found this site (http://www.permaculture.co.uk/videos/natures-energy-drink-how-tap-tree-birch-sap-bens-laws-recipe-birch-sap-wine) which has instructions from birch to bottle, so I'm going to go with that recipe.
Now I gotta see if my wine yeast is still good, buy some raisins/lemons and hopefully brew it up tomorrow night :)
Update :)
I bottled up my 3 demi-j's of sap wine last night, ended up with 18 bottles.
This gear tastes great even at this early stage! Its reading 1.000 on the hydrometer after back sweetening.
I cant wait to taste it in 4-6wks from now.
I think this will be a yearly event, very happy with results so far ;D
Mine's still bubbling a little bit so I'm going to leave it another while.
I've racked it once and another layer of lees is forming.
I'll probably leave it a month or 2, rack it again, cork the demijohn, and leave it to clear before bottling.
I should be drinking it by the time I have to go tap another few Birch trees! ;D
For the future, the forester who did this on HFW's River Cottage used a plug of mud to fill in his drilled holes.
Quote from: Damo on April 28, 2013, 08:19:52 PM
Update :)
I bottled up my 3 demi-j's of sap wine last night, ended up with 18 bottles.
This gear tastes great even at this early stage! Its reading 1.000 on the hydrometer after back sweetening.
I cant wait to taste it in 4-6wks from now.
What about all them dead trees on the N11
+1 on the taste but it probably didnt need backsweetening