Birch Tapping one Month Away

[BC Birch Tapper]

We're cleaning up the sugar shack and starting to get ready to start tapping white birch for our 3rd season. That's right White Birch (Betula paperiferia, paper birch, canoe birch) Typically Birch starts flowing after Maple, which in our area is the Month of April.
Birch has a much lower sugar content than Maple, typically birch is 100 to 1.
We live in Cental BC where no maple grows other than ornamental planted versions. We tap about 200 trees & enjoy the experience on our 2x6 wood fired evaporator.
The end product & taste is different than sugar maple but it sells for a much higher price tag ( $60-$100/litre).
The southern part of BC & Vancouver Island has Big leaf maple which has similar properties to Sugar maple & flows typically in February-March. It too fetches a tidy sum at the farm gate, but there are very few producers so the demand is much greater than the supply. As such it doesn't last long on local store shelves.
Best of luck for the season

website: www.moosemeadowsfarm.ca

[KenWP]

I have lots of paper birch and even more yellow birch. I am wondering what kind of syrup they would make also. If I have time I would like to try to tap a few and boil once and find out.

[tuckermtn]

BC birch- spent last year in Rossland BC where we tapped silver maples and made some pretty passable maple syrup...now back in NH for the real thing...
I think there was someone on here the other day from Port Alberni

[dano2840]

i have a little 2x4 that im going to fix up this summer and i have about 30 taps worth of yellow birch i could tap up in my big sugar woods, is it the same as boiling maple syrup? like same density for finished product? when do they start running/ stop running? taping is the same as tapping a maple i assume?

[KenWP]

Birch starts 2 weeks after maples they say. It boils the same but since you have to boil 100 to 1 it gets very dark unless you do it like very light maple syrup. They also are supposed to run really strong when they do run instead of the gallon or so maples run. I have a old survival maual that has a really good explanation of how to make the stuff.

[BC Birch Tapper]

I have lots of paper birch and even more yellow birch. I am wondering what kind of syrup they would make also. If I have time I would like to try to tap a few and boil once and find out.

Hi Ken;
Birch Trees & maple trees are hardwoods & drop their leaves in the fall & produce sugar in the spring, but that's about it.

Birch typically flows later than maple-2-3 weeks depending on where you are. The season can overlap a bit. We tap white birch & I haven't heard of anyone tapping yellow birch, but it is worth a try. I'm sure it would behave similarly. I remember reading a scientific article ( FERIC) 25 years ago from a University library which went through all the different maples & their sugar contents, & it included birch on the bottom of the list. The only comment was that you could make syrup our of birch if you wanted to, but why bother.
My answer is , to try something different.

There are 10 commercial syrup makers & 2 wineries across Canada & numerous producers in Alaska as well. It will never replace maple, but for those who have both trees in close proximity, it may be a way to utilize your investment to make another high valued product.

Maple is very forgiving and is composed primarily sucrose & glucose, which means you can heat it as hot as you want without much of an implication., although I understand it does darken somewhat.

Birch is composed primarily fructose & glucose, & when evaporating you must keep it under 100 deg Celsius otherwise you will scorch it & make tar, which is great if you are making a canoe but not a food product.

Whenever you heat birch it gets darker in colour & bolder in flavour. It is sought after by chefs due to these characteristics. Some of the bigger producers use RO's to remove H20 without heating. Any time you can remove H20 without heating birch will result in a lighter syrup. We always finish our syrup on a double boiler to keep the heat constant. Some operations stabilize their product by adding fructose after about 40 deg brix. There are no standards for birch syrup, but most producers are following the maple stds of 66deg Brix

The tapping collecting & evaporating is essentially the same but the taste is dramatically different.

I'm from eastern Canada originally & I put maple syrup on pancakes, birch we use in sauces, marinades, on ice cream & in cooking applications. We've just sold some product to some restaurants this week on the east & west coast for $86/litre.
We've written a manual on its Birch Syrup Production which highlights lots more of this in detail. We also put on workshops on how to make it.

[BC Birch Tapper]

I've checked out our long term forecast and our weather is looking good for us to tap next week.
As far as Birch goes I tap when you see the first butterfiles, which usually means temps in the 15 deg C range.
We've still got lots of snow which makes life interesting.
We'll get an average of 4 Litres/sap /day/tree, but on a good day & good producer we'll get 2-3 times that amount.
I'll likely put in some test trees on the weekend to get an idea on flow.

[Mac_Muz]

I made some of this in NH once but burned it, or it tasted burned.

At 100 C which is 212 F just how do you boil it?

I am at maybe 600 feet above sea level and found boiling for me starts at about 209 F/ 98.3333333 C.

Are you saying to get just below a boil and sort of steam away the water with out getting a mad boil?

[KenWP]

I have a yellow birch here that must be older then Mac Muz and 4 feet across at the bottom. I figure its the grand parent of all the other yellow birchs around it. They are dripping some now so will tap them maybe end of next week depending on when my maples give out.

[BC Birch Tapper]

The most critical time is the last 1/2 hr or so. As the syrup gets closer that 100 deg is critical as well.
Birch will not behave the same as maple either. Maple gets thicker the closer you get to 66deg brix.