How To Tap Birch Trees for Mineral Rich Sap: Use It For Wine, Beer, Probiotics and More!
Did you know that you can tap birch trees for their sap?
Birch sap is rich in minerals and antioxidants and has been used as a heath tonic by a variety of cultures for many centuries. It's one of the first fresh things we enjoy on our homestead when spring arrives in Canada. Don't be intimidated to try because tapping trees is really easy!
There are many ways to enjoy birch sap. You can keep things simple and drink it fresh from the tree as a healthy and refreshing mineral water. If you want to get more creative you can fermented it for a gut healthy pro-biotic, boil it down to make a syrup or transformed it into beer, wine or soda.
Tap in Early Spring
If you don't have access to birch trees you can find birch water and syrup for sale in health stores and on-line. If you are fortunate to live near birch trees, be sure to plan ahead! Birch trees can be tapped only one per year for about three weeks.
In folk lore the birch is known as many things: The mother tree, Beith, Tree of Endurance and Survival, Tree of Air and Water, Betula Alba, The Lady of The Woods, The paper Tree, The Shining One, The Nurse Tree, Tree of Renewal and Rebirth. It was the first tree to grow after the ice age retreated. (source)
What can Birch Sap be used for?
You can make birch beer, birch wine, soda, syrup, fermented pro-biotic drink or you can drink the sap as you would a mineralized water.
It takes an average of 110 gallons of sap to make 1 gallon of birch syrup. Making birch syrup takes patience but it's quite delicious and worth the effort!
When to tap
In cooler climates such as Canada late march and early April are generally the best times to start tapping trees.Sap flows strongest when nights are below freezing and days are above zero degrees.
What does birch sap taste like?
Birch sap looks and tastes like water with a slight twist. Its really refreshing.
The basics of tapping birch trees
Look for larger trees that are 8" or more in diameter. Avoid tapping the same trees year after year. Keep in mind that you should only tap as many trees as you can handle. Birch sap only stays fresh for a few days so you can't just set it aside for "later".
Select a location on the North (most shaded) side of the tree. This will help keep the sap from spoiling.
Drill a hole 1.5 - 2" deep at a slight upward angle using a 6-12mm drill bit. The bit will depend on your spigot so be sure to measure that carefully. You want the spigot to fit tightly in the hole. You want the hole to be closer to ground level but high enough that you can get you collection pail underneath it.
Gently tap your spigot or tubing into the hole using a rubber mallet and hang your container underneath. You can use any food grade container you have, just be sure it is covered.
Check your buckets daily and when the sap is flowing collect it every day. Productive trees should produce about one gallon per day. You can refrigerate or freeze it until you have enough collected but keep in mind it spoils easily.
Once tapping is complete remove the spigot and leave this tree alone for the next few seasons. Some people will seal or cork the hole but we've learned that this can interfere with the trees natural healing abilities so we leave it alone.
The Many Surprising and Practical Uses of Birch Trees
You might also enjoy reading about the many other wonderful uses for Birch trees. Birch trees are remarkable: they can keep you warm, nourish you and even heal you. They have a multitude of traditional uses, all of which remain practical in this modern age.
Here's a tutorialon fermenting birch sap (I haven't tried this yet). You might also like this guide from the UAF
Sources: therecord.com | alaskabirchsyrup.com | university of Alaska
Stone Angel Gardens | Owl Scotland
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I am a huge fan of wine. In fact, if I could get a job as a wine-taster, I would become a work-a-holic. How have I never heard of birch wine? Thanx man!
We make a lot of country wines and I have discovered you can make wine from almost anything. Sadly birch wine is not on the top of my list. It is boozy and it is drinkable but it's missing something. Of all the ones we've made it's in the bottom two. I'll try again of course, where there is a will there is a way but I find it lacks in body and character ...entirely. I am thinking it needs raisins and some other stuff added to the fermenting pail to elevate it.
Bottom of my list, watermelon rhines.
Wow, expanding the Tapping just like the YOUniverse, never knew Birch trees could be tapped? Gratitude for sharing this powerful piece of education; this was my first year tapping a maple tree, as part of a farm collective project! Love how you mentioned probiotics as a reason why, for developing healthy gut is the root of our health and connecting to another natural source is so wonderful. So, thank you for that and definitely got my FOLLOW!
Love to see new post from you @walkerland ✯◡✯
I have been fascinated with tapping trees other than maple for sap. I tried birch sugar, but I reacted to it. :(( I bet I'd do ok with just the sap though. No birch trees around me here. One of the problems with centuries old agricultural land, not a lot of trees...
Me too. I tired birch and I was severely allergic to it. I was so disappointed. I need to be careful with maple too.
Darn it! I never even thought about that. Better to avoid something if your system reacts badly.
Thanks @erinn! I know all about having too much going on. I've got a bad habit of starting too many projects all at once. We just hit a cold snap again so no sap is flowing yet but ...any day now!
Ah, the season of new life on the homestead. You'll have a nice productive flock in no time! It's easier to start with many at once than dealing with integrate new chickens later. They can be real jerks with newcomers. I'll certainly try to share what we do with it. We've got some decisions to make!
Hi @walkerland! It's interestind devise to get burch sap! I'm too like to get burch sap at the spring, but I,m steel use glass jars or plastic boutles. it' is not very convenient, but due to the fact that there are no such convenient devices have to use what is at hand. Also I have one question do you get maple or chestnut syrup?
Plastic bottles work great too! Whatever you have will do just fine! We are going to look for some maple trees next year, I have never tapped any but would love to. We have a lot of birch trees so its really convenient for us. I don't think there are chestnut trees around where we live.
Oh here it's too early to go for burch and maple sap. I think week or couple later I'll go to get it. Maybe better don't wait to next year and try to get maple sap in 2018 of course if you know where they are growing ;-)
It truly amazes me how much nature can help us. People have forgotten all the little things that made our ancestors who they were. USing the birch tree has so many different uses- thanks for sharing!
It's quite a blessing to be surrounded by nature and able to learn about it hands on. I am really grateful for that.
will defenately try this once i'm sure how to do this without doing damage to the tree.