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Sourdough Sunday: Tapping Birch Trees

Last year Thing 1 wanted to try her hand at tapping Birch trees. We found that we all quite enjoyed the flavor of the fresh Birch sap/water so we’re at it again.

I actually found some time to tap one tree today and hopefully will tap a couple more over the next few days

I picked this nice Birch near our house.

You want a good sized healthy tree. We try for a 8-10 inch in diameter tree or larger. We also only tap an individual tree once then let it rest for a number of years before ever tapping again.

I drill a slightly upward angle with a drill bit close to the size of the small end of the tap. Going into the tree about an inch and a half or so. There’s plenty of instructions online of all the technical steps if you want those.

Once the hole is drilled you just hammer the tap into the tree until it’s secure. Hang your bucket and let it drip.

Bucket in place

We check the progress frequently to see how fast the sap is flowing. Also, anxious-to-drink-the-sap kids go out and fill little glasses to sample. That’s the trouble with having a tapped tree so close to home!

After about 7 hours we had a good 3/4 of a gallon. We poured off two quarts and filled some freezable bottles for a cool summer treat. Tomorrow we’ll see how much more we get.

Drip, drip, drip.

Birch water is a great source of minerals and other good stuffs. Check it out! I’m not really a fan of the syrup yet, but I’d like to try Birch beer (non-alcoholic) and Birch ale this year, if we get enough sap. And of course filling up several freezer bottles and popsicles for summer!

Birch Sap Harvesting

Thing 1 is taking botany this year for her science. She’s been wanting to try out tapping birch trees to harvest their sap for a while now. This past weekend she got her chance.

Our days are longer and warmer but our nights are still plenty cold. Perfect time to tap a birch. I bought some tree taps at the farm store last week and two new 2 gal buckets with lids. Once we got to the cabin she went out, drill and supplies in hand.

The “Slow drip” tree in the foreground.

She settled on two old trees, one next to the sauna, the other up by the smoker. Taps in place and smaller buckets hung catching the few drips that morning. As the day went on, the sauna tree seemed to be the better producer.

She went out and checked late afternoon and wow! Full bucket in the sauna tree! Holy smokes it works!

Overnight the temps fell and we froze up solid. The “slow drip” tree froze up but the sauna tree had overflowed it’s bucket!

Slow drip, froze solid.

We broke off those sapcicles and ate them. Nature’s “Otter pops”!

All in just over 24 hours she got two gallons of birch sap. Impressive for her first try!

Now begins the process of cooking down the sap for syrup. I’ll let you know how long that takes!

Sauna tree’s cup runneth over.

Time to go so she whittled some birch twigs to fit the drill holes to plug the trees. Covered that with duct tape of course. And thanked the trees for their donation to our diet.