Making birch syrup

[Snowy Pass Maple]

We are currently working on getting a board of health approved commercial kitchen setup and opening a shop for selling products we make along with other farm products. We will have a couple of licences for those operations that the birch should fall under at least one, but I'll make sure just in case. As far as the syrup itself we are not sure what we will do with it yet. We will filter and bottle it at the end of the season and decide if it is something we will sell as syrup or if we will use it as an ingredient in something else we create, Sauces, marinades, baked goods, BBQ sauce.... etc

Yea, I think as long as you do your bottling in a licensed commercial kitchen, you're OK - but this will certainly be a significant impediment to birch syrup taking off in NY as I think many smaller maple producers do not have this access. I checked with the dept. of ag/mkts and got the predictable bureaucrat response - "the home processing regs say only maple and honey are exempt, so birch is not exempt." The more useful thing the state could do is agree on a standard for birch syrup - I have read everything from 60 Brix (for which BirchTapper seems to have very sound data) up to 70 Brix.

[grimmreaper]

Never tried birch syrup,I'm a maple producer & was wandering if any body sells it close to Rome ny .I would like to purchase a pint.

[BC Birch Tapper]

We started with 15 trees and some flat restaurant pans and a piece of crap wood stove where the doors barely closed in 2005. Then in 2006 we took the plunge, built a sugar shack & got an evaporator from Quebec. Now we tap about 275 trees and enjoy the season. We recommend the 5/16 as opposed to the larger version & min 8" diameter although we met a fellow in Canada's North where the trees never even reach that diameter, and only 1 tap /tree & sterilizing the drill bit as well. Birch is much shorter lived with thinner bark & more sensitive to disturbance. One finds that after logging if the birch are left & there was much machine traffic they may die afterwards.
It's interesting to hear that lots of people are giving birch tapping a try. We've sold over 300 copies on the Birch Syrup production manual & get calls & questions from people in Canada, US & the UK all the time. It's never going to replace maple, but it is a nice product you can make from the forest especially if you already have the equiptment.
Folks are looking at different options to deal with the weather, it's nice to see people thinking in such innovative ways
Some folks put a cork in afterwards to seal the hole, but then you are putting a foreign body into the tree, which may cause other issues. If youv've got a lot of birch trees it's nice to give Some trees a break now & then as well.

[BC Birch Tapper]

It's interesting how legislation arises from wants, needs & desires. Our federal legislation recognizes tapping of sugar maples only but not birches or any other trees. In BC they also tap big leaf maple which tastes quite like a bolder sugar maple syrup. Quite nice.
Birch is different than maple and from the work we have got done through a lab (BC Institute of Technology) & it appears that 60 deg Brix will make a shelf stable product. It has a lower PH than maple & higher suspended solids ( micronutrients)

[Snowy Pass Maple]

It's interesting how legislation arises from wants, needs & desires. Our federal legislation recognizes tapping of sugar maples only but not birches or any other trees. In BC they also tap big leaf maple which tastes quite like a bolder sugar maple syrup. Quite nice.
Birch is different than maple and from the work we have got done through a lab (BC Institute of Technology) & it appears that 60 deg Brix will make a shelf stable product. It has a lower PH than maple & higher suspended solids ( micronutrients)

You're not kidding about the suspended solids! It's amazing how much precipitates out as you reduce this stuff. I also find that the permeate off birch slows down a lot faster on the RO than maple at similar sugar levels. Still, the RO is finally making it practical for me to manage larger volumes this year - around here the black birch are only 0.5% sugar, so it would be insanity to boil it to make syrup!

[Snowy Pass Maple]

After a rough first week where we suffered excessive souring and fermentation in 70+ degree weather, it's been 9 days of absolutely wonderful birch weather here - lows around freezing; highs around 50 - and this pattern looks to continue for the next few days. We have found a few trees that just aren't yielding much - while others that were slow starters are going really strong now. Our overall average is about 1.6 gallons per 5/16" tap. Some champion trees are doing 3-4 gallons/tap every 24 hours!

Biggest lesson for me thus far is that fanatical cleaning of buckets and chilling of the sap makes a worthwhile difference in sap clarity. I have not let any go more than 5 days without being hit with the powerwasher and am pulling them if I see any evidence of film formation on the bucket bottom. Hard work, but worth it for the quality I think. I'm not sure it is even possible to make quality birch syrup in 70 degree weather based on our experience at the beginning of the run - would require collection every couple of hours and some sort of rapid chilling method. Maple sap and weather conditions seem far more forgiving in terms of dealing with biological concerns.

I may move a few of the slowest buckets that ran better earlier to new trees today to see if I can get the average up to 2 gallons per tap for the next week. I don't see any evidence of buds breaking yet and am hoping this will keep going long enough to make the new taps worth it.

What is the best signal for end of season? A particular stage in the buds? Cloudy sap? Taste? I'm isolating each day's production into separate batches in case it goes south with no obvious visual cue.

[BC Birch Tapper]

As fas as sap yield goes, assuming that you tap during the flow: that there are olympic athlete trees, average trees, & poor performers that never get off of the couch. If a tree is a poor performer it is always a poor performer like your cousin on your mother's side. Maybe if you come back to it in 10 years or something there may be a change, but I'm not sold on that one.
As far as the end of the season goes, it's look for you buckets to turning cloudy & yeasty. One day it's clear, then 1-10 % then 20-25 & then the rest. As we flter our sap when collecting typically when the sap is clear it flows through like water, but when you reach the end the sap takes a long time to go through the filter. That indicates a change in sap & the sugar content drops off as well.

[Snowy Pass Maple]

The trees are still hanging on... each day I think it's going to be the last, but the temperatures have drifted a bit cooler and we had a good freeze last night.

I did get one batch that had a slight smell to it after concentrating to 5% on the RO - I think it was a signal that the RO needed a NaOH wash and it may have been loading up with biofilm that was causing problems. The batch processed after a complete clean last night came off very nice, so I think the sap is still good.

With maple, I only needed to do the NaOH wash as the flowrate declined - with birch, this just continues the theme of constantly replacing filters, cleaning buckets, tanks, and membrane washes as frequently as possible - and way way more than is necessary with maple.

Still running 25 birch taps and making a quart of syrup per day so not ready to shut it all down yet!

[BC Birch Tapper]

We're still in a holding pattern as I tapped 5 test trees yesterday and only 3 were running, & only 1 going well. I'm thinking of tapping Sunday or Monday. It allows a bit of spring clean up before the fun starts.

[BC Birch Tapper]

One more point regarding your end product. YThe first part of the season wil be good for syrup, while the end product from the last part of the season may have better applications in blended products or some other value added product. Let your fingers do the walking with mr google & I'm sure you will get lots of ideas.
At the first part of the season there is some sucrose in the sap but as the season progresses you have more micronutrients & precipitate as you have noted anf the sucrose drops out.