Hickory syrup

[bitternut]

I cut quite a bit of black birch for firewood every spring and it runs sap like a burst garden hose. I like to cut it when the sap is running because the wood burns hotter. One of these days I will have to try making some syrup from a couple of the larger trees.

[SwampDonkey]

Same with yellow birch when we cut with brush saws, smells like a mint candy factory.

Birch isn't running here yet, I have a tap in a 20" birch in the back yard.

[bandmiller2]

I thought the birch beer was made from the crushed twigs and small branches,of Betula Nigra black river birch does the yellow birch have the same flavor??Myself I like the bunker oil grade of maple syrup the cheaper dark stuff seems to have more flavor,the clear stuff is for tourests.Frank C.

[SwampDonkey]

Yes it does on both counts. Yellow birch tastes like wintergreen, just as black birch (cherry birch) does. That's how you tell really young ironwood O Virginiana from yellow birch. When tree is older, bark is good enough. We don't have black birch in my region.

[WDH]

I love the smell of black birch, Betula lenta.

[LeeB]

I wonder if you can make hickory beer. I made some root beer a couple days ago and sampled it tonight. Coming along nicely.

[SwampDonkey]

Try it. 

[SwampDonkey]

Just turned on the tap at the yellow birch. 





Began running since the recent rain.

[WDH]

Save some for when I come up to visit you  .  Syrup that is......

[LeeB]

Does it taste like hickory? 

[Dave Shepard]

I've made black birch tea from the bark. Not bad, but I was disappointed it didn't taste like it smelled.

[SwampDonkey]

Does it taste like hickory?

Tastes like sap at this point.

[SwampDonkey]

I've made black birch tea from the bark. Not bad, but I was disappointed it didn't taste like it smelled.

Yeah the wintergreen is an essential oil that disappears with heat. Gotta distill it so it gets captured.

[SwampDonkey]

Well, here's a 2 litre batch on to boil, should get maybe 50 ml of syrup. 

Let'cha know. 

[SwampDonkey]

How we doing? This is after 1.5 hrs boiling. Gotta boil some more.

[SwampDonkey]

Reduced to 150 ml of sap. Ginger ale color at this point.

[SwampDonkey]

I am here to say that yellow birch tastes very similar to molasses, but with a distinctive taste to it.  My only trouble is I need more production. One tap just don't cut it.

My uncle tells me that during the first world war the Scottish settlers in what we call the "Scottish Colony", or the "Colony" for short, tapped birch for sugar because it was rationed during the war effort. There is a lot of birch in the "Colony". It was mostly white birch they tapped. It takes quite a bit of boiling down. I only got about 1/2 an once of syrup from 2 litres of sap, and that was not boiled down to a syrup thickness. 

Molasses birch toffee on snow, now wouldn't that be some good stuff?

[chainspinrunner]

I have a friend who made syrup from Basswood. Boiled it in a hollowed log. He did the experment for a college course. He told me it was the Native way?? The syrup looked more like bog water, but did have a distinct syrup taste!