Birch tapping??

[BC Birch Tapper]

we're still 2 to 3 weeks away from test trees as well. Saw a few house flies & a little moth that flittered around yesterday with the warmer weather. We've still got lots of snow & Temps are still freezing hard overnight -8 deg C & + 5 or so during the day.
I'll work on getting the sugar shack ready over the next couple of weekends

[jake1]

just curious, do you find larger singular trees out in the open with bigger tops tend to yield higher sugar content?

[BC Birch Tapper]

We've sampled trees from various locations in our part of the world & they all seem to have about the same sugar content, although it wouldn't be a scientific study by any streach of the imagination. Larger trees with larger root systems are typically better producers of sap yield. I find that trees fall into 3 categories for sap production.

1 olympic class producer
2 average producer
3 Under achiever

& which ever category they fall into seems to be the same year after year.
We've talked to people all over Canada & the US & it appears that sugar contents vary from 80 to 1 to 120 to 1. We use an average of 100 to 1 for most discussions.
This vairiability is likey due to factors linked to site productivity & bigger healthier trees are usually a good site indicator.

[thecabinguy]

This was white birch maybe others are better

Tried tapping some black birch and a few yellows. Ya, the trees were producing about 5 gals a day. I'll second that it smells bad boiling too. The end product was nasty. It wasn't sweet and was rather tart. Tasted like some kind of marinade. It probably overheated a little in the end. I'm pretty sure that it would have been nasty even without that. Way too much work for a nasty product. I won't do that again. On the bright side, i got to see how much sap I can evaporate in a day.

[Snowy Pass Maple]

Tried tapping some black birch and a few yellows. Ya, the trees were producing about 5 gals a day. I'll second that it smells bad boiling too. The end product was nasty. It wasn't sweet and was rather tart. Tasted like some kind of marinade. It probably overheated a little in the end. I'm pretty sure that it would have been nasty even without that. Way too much work for a nasty product. I won't do that again. On the bright side, i got to see how much sap I can evaporate in a day.

I found that to be true early this season when the sap sat for 24 hours in buckets - esp. if temps were above 50 degrees, or the collection buckets were not cleaned frequently. The sap smelled awful and the product had a horrid aftertaste. I've never had the experience of making buddy maple syrup but I'd have to guess this is at least as bad as that. Overall, I've found that Birch is incredibly unforgiving compared to maple in terms of sap degradation - and you're doing it when weather is a lot

I will probably never try to collect again in 70 degree weather unless I could collect in a matter of 2-4 hours and have enough frozen sap to quickly chill it down below 50 while processing on RO, and powerwash the collection buckets daily. In a heat wave when I can't do this, I'll just divert the tubes off the buckets and forgo the sap.

But with cooler temperatures, collection and processing raw sap through UV within 12 hours, and ensuring buckets are scrubbed at least weekly - more frequently when temps rise about 50, and process without boiling, but instead slowly evaporation at 160-180 F - it is a very different result and really neat tasting end product if you're willing to go through all this work!

This week will be a bit more challenging - trees starting to slow down, sap clarity starting to change on some trees, and temps going into the 60s means the end may be near.

[BC Birch Tapper]

We find when the temps get that warm we're usually near the end of the season which typically finishes us off. We've not yet experienced really warm temps early on in the season but every year's a new experience.

[Snowy Pass Maple]

We find when the temps get that warm we're usually near the end of the season which typically finishes us off. We've not yet experienced really warm temps early on in the season but every year's a new experience.

We had some really strange weather this year - the extreme spike in temps cost us a week early, but fortunately, the cold came back and I'm pleased with how much we made in the past 10 days. I really wish we had gotten a full 2-3 weeks - and can't wait for next year!

I'm down to half the taps, but all the champion trees are still going strong, so I'm still getting 80% of what I started at. Highs in the mid 50s this week. The sap is not crystal clear, but if I can still see the bottom of the buckets and no yeast or fermentation smells, I'm collecting it. Maybe another day or two. I have also noticed a few 1 year old saplings are starting to have some buds open, but the large trees don't show any opening yet. I'm segregating each batch to see if I can taste a point where it shifts.

One other thing I was curious to ask you - are you filtering through orlon or wool, as with maple? I've been finishing each batch to around 61-62 brix (at 68F) and filtering through a maple prefilter. I also filter 1-2X midway through just to get rid of excess precipitate. This gives a pretty clear syrup - but I'm still debating if I should go through an orlon or wool filter as well. Do you also find that the 190 F temp is where you will get niter as with maple? I will eventually be hot packing these batches so I'll have to bring it back up to temp.

Also, a suggestion for others who have had trouble finishing it - I have been getting a good bit of the way on a woodstove and then finishing on a ceramic electric cooktop with a temperature probe sitting on the pan bottom that alarms if I hit 190F. This has worked really well so far without needing a double boiler. I'm also using stainless stock pots with thick bottoms. I don't think this would work well on gas unless you used some sort of heat distributing plate or double boiler.

[BC Birch Tapper]

We filter the sap through a fine prefilter when we collect. I tend to filter every time I can and that is a big help. As for syrup filtering you can use orlon , but instead I tend to use 3 layers of the prefilter which produces the same result but doesn't suck up as much syrup that way.
When finishing one can use a double boiler or large pans with thick bottoms & keep on a low heat & reduce the heat as the sugar content increases to avoid burning. Somewhere in the range of 180-190 deg F should be fine. Stirring or mixing is a good idea the close you get to a finished product.

[Snowy Pass Maple]

We filter the sap through a fine prefilter when we collect. I tend to filter every time I can and that is a big help. As for syrup filtering you can use orlon , but instead I tend to use 3 layers of the prefilter which produces the same result but doesn't suck up as much syrup that way.
When finishing one can use a double boiler or large pans with thick bottoms & keep on a low heat & reduce the heat as the sugar content increases to avoid burning. Somewhere in the range of 180-190 deg F should be fine. Stirring or mixing is a good idea the close you get to a finished product.

Yea, I see people lamenting getting their $50/gal maple trapped in orlon - multiply that pain by 6X for birch!

I was also thinking it would be nice to have a stirrer mounted in the pot... you can find stuff like this for lab use that would work well for this. But with the glass cooktop, I think it already does a really good job of equalizing the heat, cycling on/off in short enough bursts that we just don't seem to have any trouble. The temperature probe with alarm is also a great way to, as you put it, avoid "becoming a sugarmaker" :-)

[BC Birch Tapper]

You can simmer for 8 to 10 hours & then blow it in the end because you were outside doing something or other. After a while you get an idea how long it will take to get a finished product & you make sure that you are close by to insure you don't make tar. I find it only takes one or two times to learn that valuable lesson.