Birch Tapping one Month Away

Actually birch beer was a old Russian thing for centuries. They killed off whole forests of it over tapping for birch beer before anybody though of syrup. It's supposed to have some kind of health benifits also. Makes a different kind of syrup. The trees over there look like our paper birch.
By hanging on do you mean they look sick or is the bark sort of shaggy on them. The shaggy part is normal. I have a yellow birch that must be 4 feet across at the bottom. has to be the mommy to all the others in the woods. I put a tap in it and filled a 5 gallon pail a day off of it. All of them run well. I have paper and sweet birch but can't seem to get sap out of the sweet birch.

Birch sap has been used for centuries in Europe, As Ken indicated there are believed health benifets. They even sold it as a hair tonic at one time. It is believed to asssit with urinary tract infections as well.
Maple sap has about 2 % micronutirents and birch sap has around 8 %. They sell a sap drink in Europe even today, which is what I call "Nature's Gatorade".... water, a bit of sugar & some micronutrients.
White Birch is classed as a "weed" out our way, but I've got a description over 1/2 page of what birch has been used for through history.

I have to tell you...last year a customer brought about a pint sample of birch syrup to my sugarhouse for me to try. He wanted to trade it for a pint of maple. I took a sip of it and almost threw him out. I decided not to and accepted it graciously but charged him for my syrup. Does this stuff always taste this bad or did he just have some rotten stuff. What is it used for? I couldn't imagine anyone actually enjoying what I had on pancakes or anything else.

As some peoples tastes differ(Some guys can drink bourbon and normal people drink rum) it's hard to say. Mine has a toffee taste and has a different sweetness then maple. We used it for pancakes and what ever. If it didn't taste good I wouldn't eat it. Would like to taste aomebody else's and see some time. Will hopefully make another batch this year again.
Oh and the trees flow when the maples stop for some reason which is why I did it anyway and stopped collecting when the maples started again.

I made a little last year I personally don't like it. but I have a friend that is from minesota and he lived in north west cananda somewhere and he loves birch syrup and very dark very strong almost bitter maple syrup. so I said if I have some wood at the end of the season I would make some for him. and we wants the very end of the season maple syrup too. said he would buy what ever I have. even if tis buddy. said SURE no problem!!!

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Originally Posted by KenWP

Actually birch beer was a old Russian thing for centuries. They killed off whole forests of it over tapping for birch beer before anybody though of syrup. It's supposed to have some kind of health benifits also. Makes a different kind of syrup. The trees over there look like our paper birch.
By hanging on do you mean they look sick or is the bark sort of shaggy on them. The shaggy part is normal. I have a yellow birch that must be 4 feet across at the bottom. has to be the mommy to all the others in the woods. I put a tap in it and filled a 5 gallon pail a day off of it. All of them run well. I have paper and sweet birch but can't seem to get sap out of the sweet birch.

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By unhealthy I mean - no yellow birch gets to more than about 1.25 feet in diameter, and by that time there's at least one dead main spar. They typically have bark wounds, rot spots, and so on. They're all clinging to life. I'm shocked they even grow, considering the red maples and red oaks grow like gangbusters.

The ground around here is heavy clay and always wet - the birch don't like it. Cherries too. Cherries around here always look like they have 1,000 wood pecker holes, all of them weeping goo.

But there are various ridges and whatnot around (not so much on my property) that stay dry and you can find some huge cherries and, I presume, birch, on them, and those are the ones doing all the seeding for the sick offspring.

i'am intrested in trying to make some birch syrup. i'am not too famliar with birches, i think we have yellow and black birch? the black ones seem to get a lot larger or older than any other around here. my question is are all birch speices game for tapping or is there a prefered speices? thanks ed

Far as I know black birch is sweet birch and yellows yellow. So you can tap those two and any paper birch. Just be prepared to boil a lot. I want to try birch wine by taking it down to almost sweet so that you don't have to use sugar with it. Another fellow on here does it that way.

yeah I have probably as many black birch as I have red maples. I have a few yellow and some smaller white paper but alot of the paper birch took a good hit last year in the ice storm bent over so far they broke off!!!

I will just do enough to make a few gallons no more than that use too much wood to get it down to syrup. need like 80 to 120 gallons of sap to make 1 gallon of syrup depending on sugar content!!! need like 400 +gallons just to sweeten the pans!!!:o but it does clean your pans great. removes the niter!!! more acidic and breaks down the niter, so I have read.

To compare the two is like comparing apples and oranges....yes they both grown on a tree but that's about it.
A similar analogy can be made with birch & maple.
One uses the same hardware, and collection methods but that's about it. You're looking at a different type of tree, different type of sugar, different type of end product & different end use.
We tap only white birch as that is all we have in our area.
I realize it is a stretch to look at different trees for syrup making, but we I have seen is that folks can make a niche product that uses local species to make something a little different which usually fetches a higher price.
some food for thought......:cool: ;)

Well, Canada & Vancouver is hosting the Olympics and birch syrup is there from two producers in our Province. It's getting good reviews & publicity at the BC Street in Richmond :D :) .

The snow is going fast here as the temps are starting to hit double digits (10-12 deg C) during the day. The weather conditions look to to be about a month ahead of normal....whatever that is.

I've got a couple of test trees that I check at lower elevations, but nothing is flowing yet. We typically don't start til April, but this year who knows.

We just got our syrup bottles from Quebec yesterday. Will do a little clean up on the sugar shack over the weekend & get things ready to go.

We plan to tap about 250 birch trees this year.
:)

If your weather is like ours this year, will be much earlier, here was ahead 3 weeks. I have heard about the birch syrup, but don't know much about it.
I think the ratio is over double for maple ,100-1 ? Does it finish out at 66br?
Do you get "sugar sand" with same filters, and does the tree recover ok from the tap hole?
I know , a lot of questions. Thank you and good luck with your season.

The sap tests about .5 so its more like 160 to 180 to one. I made a small batch last year and you can boil a lot before it starts to taste or color. Maybe this year I will try again.It tastes different then maple with more of a carmel taste. Hard to discribe.

cross between caramel and molasses but less sweet than molases I think yes hard to describe

We have developed a Birch Syrup Poduction Manual which describes in all aspects of syrup production. You are correct, it is very different than maple. Check out our website for more information.
We have been making birch syrup for several years now and it looks like we'll be tapping later on this week. I checked some trees at a lower elevation today and they're starting to run already. We've never tapped in March before but there's always a 1st for everything.

We finish our syrup to 66 deg brix. The thing is there are no standards like for maple. There has been some work completed by the BC Institute of Technology which looks at this very concept. It is believed that due to the differences in birch sap that one doesn't have to take it to 66 deg. The variables involved include water activity and PH.
Some folks finish their syrup by adding fructose which is one of the natural occurring sugars in the sap already. We do primarily pure but we also do some blends as well.

As far as filtering & bottling goes it is similar to maple. :D ;)

I tapped a few last night as my test tree had sap yesterday. Hopefully get enough for one batch with out to much work. Maple is on holiday right now.

For those of you that use Facebook you can check out the "Canadian Birch Syrup Producers". It links up many of the canadian birch syrup producers and provides an opportunity to link up.
;) ;)

I tapped 2 test trees today at our elevation but they were dry. I checked the nearby creek and it is starting to rise and my daughter saw 2 butterfiles. I think I'll be tapping by the weekend.

This is the earliest for us yet. Typically we're tapping into early or mid April.

This year we've had an extremely mild winter with snowpack levels much lower than normal. Two years ago we tapped in mid April & there was over 2 ' of snow and temps -15 deg C.

The lack of snow will make it easier to get around this year & that's a big plus
:D :cool:

I collected maybe a gallon of sap off off two trees yesterday. They just are takeing their time to run. Will keep working on it this week.

We just shipped 1.5 litres of Birch Syrup to a restarurant in Chicago. They wanted it right away to add into their menu. Not bad at $88.00/litre
Somebody else stopped by this week as well for another litre.
Still got a reasonable supply that we've kept back for the impending people stopping by which is a must.
:cool: :D

Birch trees are just about ready to go. Looks like maple will run out soon so I can make a bit of that for a while untill I get tired of boiling.

Well we're just on the edge of tapping here. We've got 5 test trees and only 3 of them are running, and only a small amount. Looks like we'll be waiting another day or 2 to start. We just had some farm help arrive this evening so we'l lhave to get them busy on some other farm tasks before the sleep deprivation exercise begins.

Well I tried 4 test trees today & only 2 were running. Temps are just too cool & it may be a few more days before we go crazy. Oh well we get to enjoy the easter break though. :-| :confused:

We tapped about 175 birch trees today and most were flowing well. We will tap the remainder tomorrow and collect & start boiling in a day or so.
We had snow on the weekend but things are warming up. Warm temps today 10 deg C and dry weather.
We're also getting set for a sugaring off festival here next weekend. Yes we even do such things here on the west coast!
Anyway feeling a little tuckered after stomping off thru the bushes for the day.

Well we woke up to snow this morning so I went off to work to get a few more hours in at my day job. Can't use up all of my holidays tapping.
We finished tapping this afternoon and now have about 250 birch taps in as of today. Haven't collected yet, that's tomorrow and firing up shortly thereafter. :D
We’re planning a pancake breakfast/sugaring off festival on the weekend with local dignitaries in attendance to boot. There's just something about the smell, and the getting outdoors that works for me anyway. It's all about getting back to where things come from. Our society has become so reliant on food products with an ingredients list that is full of 4 syllable words that is long as your arm. It’s nice to make something real!
:cool:

Well we had our open house today with approx 250 people in attendance. We served approx 100 folks for pancake breakfast. Sugarbush tours by tractor & haywagon, lots of dignataries & a sunny day to boot. Sold lots in our store & made lots of folks aware of our farm & marketing opportunities.
We had a cool night last night -10 deg C so low flow today which is a bonus with all the other stuff to get ready for.
Finished evaoprating around supper time so I'm hoping for a good night's sleep which is a bonus.
The temps are supposed to get higher early next week so I'm expecting higher flows.

So far we've pulled in about 1600 litres of sap and most is rendered down. I don't mind the low flow days it give you the opportunity to catch up a bit.
:)

Don't you guys use gallons out there either. Man makes a guy feel old. I have been boiling all week with birch also. I would have to say 250 gallons so far maybe a bit more.I only work in metric when I have to.
This birch can try a guys patience real well. I boiled over a pan for the first time tonight. Was busy trying to float a hydrometer and then get it out of the cup since it never floated and the pan boiled over a bit. Ended up putting a bunch of near syrup in a pot and boiling on a hot plate to slow it down a bit. I am done tomorrow one way or another. Just tired of boiling down water.

Ken I call it my sleep deprivation exercise. we've pulled in about 2500 litres so far and it looks like the temps are warming up so we should get even better flow.
I can barely keep up as it is. I think I'll have to get some more help.

We've got school tours coming in & my wife is doing 2 brich tapping workshops in other communities as well as some on farm conslutation with at least 2 different groups over the next couple of weeks.
Lots of interest in birch tapping out our way. Likley because we don't have any maple in our parts. There's some in the lower mainland & on Vancouver Island. The syrup from those babies taste's quite similar to sugar maple, but their season is spread out over the winter months due to the mild climate.
I think the ratio is around 50:1 or so.

Very interesting read
along with the 5 acres of sugar maples we have a alot of Birch also
decided to tap a few to see how it went
wow do those babies run
collected about 200 litres last weekend
tried boiling it down, but not sure what to do here
I use a thermometer so what temp am I aiming for?
I am going to try a batch of wine this weekend just for the gigles
any help would be appreciated or hints

To make wine boil the sap until the sap hydrometer floats at 10 with hot sap and it will be enough sugar to make wine. If you need I can give the whole recipe to start it and such. I made beer also and she who needs to be obeyed is drinking it right now. Thats a easy one. You boil sap until the sap hydrometer floats at 6 and then boil it with birch twigs for 20 minutes and then cool and start it for a week and then bottle.

Thanks ken, no sugar to be added at all?
the recipe I found called for 2.5 lbs per gallon LOL
how aBOUT THE bIRCH SYRUP, TO WHAT TEMPERATURE SHOULD i BE LOOKING?

I found that if you boil to 218 it makes syrup but man its going to be dark and taste like sponge toffee. It dosn't cook like maple at all. If you read back you will find where they think you can cook to a lower brix then maple also. When you get up around 215 it trys to boil over big time so be careful. When you get near you will see what we mean by dark as it burns instead of just turn brown like maple syrup does. I am going to use mine for BBQ sauce.
And that was the idea with boiling the sap to get it sweet instead of useing white sugar. It also give it a good color instead of the pale color if you add sugar to birch sap along with the added flavour.

I did a batch to 218 on Sunday
it is very dark & has a strange flavour
It is not sticky or thick like maple though
Is that normal?, kind of watery

70 when i made birch syrup I used the same hydrometer for maple. If you are using a thermometer you should bring it to the same temp as you would for finishing syrup. Like you said though it does not get stickey until it is done and it seems to be a little thinner than malple. After doing maple my whole life I think it is a required taste though cause it taste nothing like maple at all.

Oh I agree 100% about the taste
For me it's having friends up, collecting boiling & having a good time
Thats why I am giving it a try along wityh the wine
Who the hell wants to sit in the house !!

You're right, they are very different, they have different types of sugars which behave differently. As such the end result is not maple syrup, it's birch syrup. It has a different end use, try it on ice cream or on meate & fish as a glaze or in BBQ sauce.
It's normal to be thinner & quite dark.
Some folks do add sugar in hte form of fructose or organic cane sugars to reach the full requirement. THey end up being quite sweet but more of a pancake syrup.
We make primilarily pure but have tried a few blends as well. Even blended it with maple and was quite good.
Birch is fructose & glucose, which is not as thick as the sucrose in maple.
When birch gets close to finishing temp you will see little bubbles from on the top which do not dissipate later on. We take ours to 66 deg brix but it is believed that it doesn't have to go quite that far to be shelf stable. Likely somewhere between 55 and 60. We're getting some more testing done by a lab hopefully this year.

well the weather sure is nice 20 deg & sunny. We're pulling in 600 litres a day & have gone thru 400 litres so far. Hopfully I'll have enough freezer space to hold all my concentrate, but I'm expecting the season to go for another week or so anyway:D

I am getting a bit of sap still the trees are slowing down now and so am I. I was up to 1 last night reduceing sap to make beer and I will boil one more time and then give up. Have to do some real work soon.

Our trees are slowing down as well, another 20 deg T shirt day. Will pull 1/2 of my buckets tomorrow as they are done.
It's been a short season this year only 10-11 days but the trees are starting to bud out & the grass is getting greener. Haven't seen many canada geese which is typical for this time of year, but everything is slightly changed with the early spring & low snow levels. Could be an interesting fire season.
I'm feeling the effects as well, with the 18 hr days, but the end is in sight. Time to enjoy the last bit of the season.