Seasonal Treats - March, Birch Sap

[LordEoin]

Hi there Folks!

Soon there'll be nettles, and the gorse/furze bushes are starting to flower nice and bright, and dandelions!. Yay!
But for now, it's that time of the year again, the few weeks that you can tap birch trees for their sap.
We've had very mild weather, so everything's good. Snow and heavy frost would have made the flow-rate very slow.
You can tell when trees are ready to tap when you start seeing the first daffodils and leaf buds on trees start to swell.
They're things that tell you that nature's waking up after winter.

The sap itself looks like water and is the same consistency as water, it's got a very feint sweetness to it and it's very refreshing and good or you.

The first thing you need to do is find some birch trees. You'll see them a mile off, they have very light colour bark and they're a fairly tall straight tree.
When you get up close, you'll see the outer layers of bark are kinda like paper, with horizontal stripes.
This picture I stole off the interwebs will help you identify the tree:

Make sure that you only tap mature trees, at least a foot wide.
Avoid tapping the same tree two years in a row, It's good to have a rotation of your favourite trees to give them a break of a few years in between tappings.

Equipment wise, all you need is:
- a gallon water bottle
- 2  or 3 foot of tubing
- a hand-drill
- drill bit slightly thinner than the tubing (I use a 10mm auger bit)
- Some rope/string to secure the bottle
- A sharp knife or scissors to cut the string


Start off by making a 'bottlejohn' like option 2 here: how to - DIY bottlejohn
You want your tubing to fit tightly into the hole to stop bugs getting in.
On one end of the tubing, cut in two V's, so that you can taper it and squeeze it into a hole in a tree. The other end goes into your bottle top
There, your equipment is done!

I highly recommend that you practice the next bit on a shit tree like a sycamore or something first, to save damaging nice trees in your experimentation. You'll still get sap from them.
Sycamore is a tree planted by the devil to piss me off. drill them all full of holes. See if I care...

Next, rock up to your Birch tree, say hello and give it a hug. You're now a dirty hippy, harvesting nature.
Find the best place for your bottle. A bit off the ground to avoid foxes, cats and dogs pissing on them. Lash the bottle to the tree so it won't move. Remember it has to support up to a gallon of juice.
Once you've found a good spot, look for a nice open area of bark in reach of the tubing.
Drill a clean hole about an inch deep and tilting slightly upwards into the tree so that the sap will run down and out.
Push your tubing into the hole nice and tight to avoid wastage, then cap the bottle.
You don't want the bottle 100% sealed. Keep the top a bit loose or it'll swell up like a balloon with pressure.
Sit back, look proudly at the tapped tree and watch the sap drip drip drip slowly into the bottle.


Make sure to check the bottles the next day, and if you have enough disconnect the tubing and plug the hole with a homemade dowel made of a nearby tight fitting stick.
Don't take more than a gallon per tree, they need this stuff to grow and open leaves etc.

I went to check on mine tonight after a day, and one is half full and the other is about a third full.
I'll bring them home tomorrow.
Having spare caps without holes in them is a good idea for bringing your birch sap home.

You can freeze the sap without any problems an use it later.
It can be reduced (by 40) into something like maple syrup (if you're that bored)
I might keep it for my dandelion wine, I'm not sure yet.
I'll try and find a good recipe for the wine when I have time

[lampie]

Oh been looking for some birch trees aroun here but cant find a tree where i can get some juice..

I made some birch sap from carton that i bought at a russian supermarket and made some wine.. so will have to walk around in the parks here to see if i can find a birch to get some sap.. Maybe will give a collegue a call who works as gardner.. sometimes its nice to work at a local goverment office

oh and nice post BTW

[Ciderhead]

Half the SB trees in Bray are dead from Damo on his knees sucking the juice out
He made great hooch btw

[Garry]

Sycamore is a tree planted by the devil to piss me off. drill them all full of holes. See if I care...

Next, rock up to your Birch tree, say hello and give it a hug. You're now a dirty hippy, harvesting nature.

Gold

Great post. BTW, that tree you did tap looks nothing like the one you googled  Don't worry, I trust your judgement.

On a serious note, I think you should speak to someone about your sycamore phobia, it's not healthy man!

[Tom]

Sycamore is a tree planted by the devil to piss me off. drill them all full of holes. See if I care...

Next, rock up to your Birch tree, say hello and give it a hug. You're now a dirty hippy, harvesting nature.

Gold

Great post. BTW, that tree you did tap looks nothing like the one you googled  Don't worry, I trust your judgement.

On a serious note, I think you should speak to someone about your sycamore phobia, it's not healthy man!

Clearly some issues there, brilliantly expressed! Not a fan of Sycamore, but I feckin' hate Cyprus trees. They smell funny and their seeds are stupid looking.

Can't wait to try this. Thanks for posting.

[LordEoin]

Cyprus seeds look normal compared to sycamore seeds. Helicopters! Feckin' helicopters!
Anyway, enough about stupid sycamore trees and their crapness...

2 days later I went back to check on my harvest. I stumbled through the steep wooded patch in the moonlight and got to them.
Just over half a gallon per tree. That'll do me!

After unhooking the tubing from your tree, look around for any bits of branch that'll match the size of the hole you drilled.
I found one on a nearby sycamore. Perfect, no remorse.
You want to cut this fairly clean (i use a stanley knife, but a little hacksaw is just as easy and convenient) and to a little shorter than the hole is deep.
Hammer that into the hole to plug it tight.
It'll still weep a little but so would you if I drilled a 10mm hole in your face, drained a gallon of juice and plugged the wound with a stick...


Stepping out of the woods in the middle of the night with 2 gallon jugs of clear liquid, if anyone saw me they'd be down the glen looking for my still in the morning!
Probably looked pure like Tom & Tickle


I'm going to freeze my sap and keep it for another day when I have time to brew and a good recipe found.
You'll need about a kilo of sugar in this per gallon, the rest is up to you.
Probably something like lemonjuice/citric acid, tea/tannin, wine yeast, raisins/nutrient.
Keep the flavours low because it's a very light taste.

[Ciderhead]

pics like this are scaring me what is that and can you get a cream for it?

[mr hoppy]

That's amazing, said the city slicker!