Birch Syrup
Making Birch Syrup
Birch syrup is a good substitute if maple trees aren't available but the sap runs about a month later...probably because the birch grow in more northerly climates...and the tapping window is shorter. The birch trees sometimes make up for their tardiness by producing more sap than the maple, but it's only half as sweet and takes twice as much to boil down to syrup and sugar.
Small trees don't produce enough sap, large trees run too fast if there's only one person collecting the syrup. A medium sized tree seems to flow at a decent rate for one person to manage. The same tree wasn't used two years in a row in case it needed time to recover.
An upwards slanting cut just under the bark was made with a hatchet and the resulting curl of bark was propped open with a small twig. The sap dripped from the curl into containers that were either propped against the tree with a willow stick or tied around the tree with cord.
Fresh birch sap has just a hint of sweetness and a slight wintergreen taste. When no fresh water is obtainable, syrup rom the birch tree makes a useful drink. It tastes almost like cold water. Fresh spring birch twigs, when steeped in hot water makes a nice wintergreen flavoured tea. The same tea can be made by scraping the underbark of the tree, carefully drying the gratings in the shade and using them at a later date to make a flavourful tea.
Boiling the sap required a hot fire so there was much back and forthing to the bush to bring more wood. At the same time the cook was gathering wood, she had to pay close attention to the sap. If the syrup wasn't cooked long enough it was too watery and had a tendency to ferment. Boiled too long it would turn to sugar...not a problem if that was the intention, but a nuisance if the goal was syrup.
The syrup was ready when it was thick like molasses and at that point It could be made into sugar in the same way as maple sugar. Neither birch syrup or birch sugar has the taste of wintergreen because the essence is volatile and driven off by boiling.
