Birch tapping??

[innoxen]

I was thinking about birch tapping, white or black birch?? I know the ratio is high like 100 to 1... Anyone have any suggestions or ideas??? There is a stand of white birch next to me and I thought what the heck just don't want to harm the trees so any thoughts would be great and thanks.... Tom

[briansickler]

Here's a thread about birch tapping. I live for maple syrup myself. But I understand how someone could catch the birch syrup bug.

http://www.mapletrader.com/community...ighlight=birch


Brian

[morningstarfarm]

mmmm tap them and try it...if all else fails..use them for firewood to make maple syrup next season...

[KenWP]

Ratio is more like 180 to 1 if your lucky.They have less then .5 percent sugar.The syrup is like molassas and we use it instead of. They don't run until later and they don't stop at night like a maple either so you get 24 hours of sap unless it freezes up and then they have to start up again. It also boils over real fast when it gets close to syrup.

[Randy Brutkoski]

Where the hell have you been Ken. We have been worried sick about you. Does it have anything to do with the one that must be obeyed.

[3rdgen.maple]

After the lousy season last year I wasnt ready to quit so I tapped 100 or 150 birch trees. All I can say is this, It is by far alot more work than maple, I had to gather 2 times a day and each time I collected every bucket was overflowed, It never stopped running, I went through alot and I mean alot of wood, boiled and boiled for a few days till I was able to drawoff anything resembling syrup, I was going nuts after drawing off every hour on maple, It cannot be finished on the evaporator when it gets anywhere close to syrup, it burns very very easy at that point, you need a controlled heat source to finish it, I didnt like the finished product at all, it is very bitter with zero sweetness to it. The good part is it cleaned my pans better than anything I ever seen. I just might tap 2 or 3 trees at the end of maple season just to clean my pans out this year. Bottom line it was not a good fit for me.

[BC Birch Tapper]

Well it sounds like you've run across some of the major differences between birch and maple. I don't like to think of them as competitors but rather another product we can make from our forests.
Again as you indicated, it's a different kind of tree, a different kind of sugar and a different end use.
I put maple syrup on my pancakes this past weekend, but will use birch when I grill some salmon later on in the week.
It does behave differently and it's almost impossible to make pure syrup on an evaporator and it is easy to burn. You're not a true syrup maker until you've burned some.
We'll post a link in the classified section for a "birch syrup production manual" shortly.
Interest we find is growing in Birch syrup production and there are lots of folks using the end product, more in cooking applications.
Just picked up our glass shipment from eastern Canada & we're hoping to offer some birch tapping workshops this spring.
Lots of snow here to melt before we get the tapping bug .

[benchmark]

After making birch syrup last year, not sure if i will do that again, but i guess I'm glad i tried it. Defiantly was a lot of work, as stated before. Lots of sap in a short time, i cant remember how much sap i collected, but i ended up with close to 3 gallons of syrup. One thing i distinctly remember was when boiling, the sap actually made my front pan start popping. The first time i heard this was i was splitting some wood and it started going crazy. I thought my front pan had run dry, ran over to look, but the level was fine. Guess it was just a weird phenomenon that happens while boiling birch sap? I don't think there would be any way to finish it on an evaporator, it foams up so much when it nears the syrup stage. I was tapping white birch, half the trees i tapped i figured i might as well tap before the die, as most birch don't make it past 10-12 diameter size around my parts.

[BC Birch Tapper]

Yes the phenomenon you are referring to is what we call "bumping". Since birch has more micronutrients than maple they parcipitate out as you boil/evaporate. It casuses hot spots where it concentrates and can result in an off flavour if it continues too long during the heating/evaporating process.
Anyway the way to deal with that is to filter the concentrate if this occurrs. It becomes imperative to have everything squeaky clean on a daily basis. With birch the more heat that is applied the darker it becomes & the more carmelized the flavour. Any time you can remove water without heating will result in a lighter coloured & flavoured syrup.
We recommend only tapping one hole /tree but if you plan on removing the trees in the near future you can go crazy.

[maplematt]

I had read about this last year while looking up what kinds of trees to tap. It sounds like it could be fun to try, you know only a quart or so of syrup for something new to do. Thanks for all the info about it. I'll let you know if it happens.