Anyone else tap birch trees?

[akhomesteader]

Anyone tap birch trees? Every spring we collect enough to drink it is a good change of pace. It is also high in minerals and other goodies.

 

[freemotion]

No, but please tell me about that obviously homemade tap!!!!! What did you make it from, any special kind of wood? Taps For Dummies, please. All the gory details.

Do the birches need to be a foot in diameter like the maples?

What is the top nail for?

 

[Wifezilla]

You are supposed to be able to make a type of beer out of birch sap.

 

[akhomesteader]

No, but please tell me about that obviously homemade tap!!!!! What did you make it from, any special kind of wood? Taps For Dummies, please. All the gory details.

Do the birches need to be a foot in diameter like the maples?

What is the top nail for?

Actually I whittle them from a piece kindling. For the hole in the tap I find the longest drill bit I have and drill the full length of the bit. That is also where I cut the tap for length. The hole in the tree is about a 1/2" across and maybe an 1 1/2" in. When I put the tap in the tree I'll whittle the end so it fits snug and tapered so it will wedge tight when it is driven in. The top nail was a miscue. You can tap any birch but the young ones and the old wolfy one usually don't put out much sap.

 

[freemotion]

I am SO gonna make those for my maples next winter!!!!!! Anyone have any specifics or pictures on how to hang plastic gallon jugs? I am thinking well-rinsed vinegar jugs would work, we don't buy milk or anything in gallon plastic jugs. The open pails fill with flies here. I've peaked in other people's buckets.

 

[Wifezilla]

"This section is from the book "A Treatise On Beverages or The Complete Practical Bottler", by Charles Herman Sulz. Also available from Amazon: A Treatise On Beverages.
Birch Beer

The birch tree contains a colorless acid and sweet sap, which may be obtained by boring holes about one or two inches deep into the trunk during spring, and putting tubes into the holes, with cups at the end. It is said that fifty white birch-trees, of about eighteen inches diameter, yield in four days about 350 pounds of sap. This sap contains sugar, extractive matter, acetate of calcium, etc. A very excellent sparkling beer or wine can be made from this sap by adding to it from eight to ten per cent. of its weight of sugar, and 0.2 to 0.3 per cent. of tartaric acid. According to an authority, the best product is made by adding to 100 pounds of the sap about six ounces of tartaric acid and eight to ten (or if a stronger product is wanted, sixteen to twenty-four) pounds of sugar, and three ounces of a strong almond milk. The mixture is fermented in the usual manner, put in bottles with a little more sugar, and securely sealed.

Another method of preparing birch beer is: take birch bark, one-half pound; hops, one-half pound; allspice, one-quarter pound. Boil these ingredients in a few gallons of water for a few minutes, add the liquid to ten gallons of water, mix, and when below 100 F. add about one pint of yeast and let ferment until suitable."
http://chestofbooks.com/food/beverages/A-Treatise-On-Beverages/Birch-Beer.html

 

[Henrietta23]

Nope, but I had birch syrup while visiting Alaska and thought it was very tasty.
Wish I had enough birches to tap.

 

[valmom]

Wow, I thought it was the black birches that you made birch beer from, not the white ones. The black birches smell like root beer when you scratch the bark, but all mine are shrubby little things. I do have some white birch. Maybe I'll try that next year, too, as well as adding to my Maples.