Last Years Successful Tap

It’s easy to miss the short window of time open for Birch tapping. The sap rises in the spring and if you miss it, that’s it for another year! The first tell tail sign is the new growth high in the canopy of the tree itself. When I was informed in late February the trees had started to bud early I knew I had to get on the case and get tapping. This year I was delighted to find not one but a whole row of Birches not far from my house. I thought my luck was in and this ear I would get a lot more than usual and could experiment with the stuff!
My girlfriend had been keen to get some sap and brew some birch sap wine so along with my brother Andy we went out with drill and bottles in hand to harvest some of the delicate fresh tree juice to play around with.
I use a hand drill rather than an electric one, it seems a much purer exercise and a bit kinder to the tree. The trick is to cut only a little passed the bark rather than deep within the tree. If you find yourself cutting deep into the tree without the sap oozing out then you’re either too early, too late. If this is the case and you should plug up the hole and try again later or the following year.

The three of us took it in turns to tap the trees and using string and parcel tape we attached bottles to the trees so the sap would drip into to collect in them. There are methods where you suspend a can on a nail dug into the tree or even make a container out of the tree bark itself. I have a box full of plastic bottles I keep meaning to take to the recycling bank, so it seemed pointless to spend all afternoon fashioning a vessel from tree bark.

Whilst tapping the final tree we noticed someone had been there before as they’d left a cork bunged into the trunk of the tree. If they were tapping it for sap there really is no need for the hole to be this big. The cork looked like one that would fit a demijohn and the hole only needs to be the diameter of a drinking straw!!!! Having said that cork is one of the best ways to seal up the tree as it expands to fit the size of the hole and can be removed for next years tap.
Without cork to hand I use a twig and sometimes tap it in with a hammer to make sure it is a proper seal.

It is important to reseal the hole as the sap would simply leach from it and never reach the canopy to feed the tree for the year to come, thus the tree would literally ‘bleed’ to death.

We left it over night and came back the following afternoon. I looked down the line of trees and all our containers looked empty. Sap seemed to ooze down the tree but not into our containers. I looked more closely and it looked like they’d all been tampered with. Spotting a large hole nearby it seems a fox; badger or even rabbit could have seen the containers and out of curiosity knocked them all.

Well this is what I thought until I closely examined container 5. Instead of the characteristic clear watery colour birch sap the milk bottle was full of a yellowy brown liquid*See Note.  Now this is where the small mammal theory breaks down! For a fox to disturb all five containers, and then jump on it’s hind legs and piss into a recently emptied one would be a feat even for an anthropomorphic animal with the dexterity of a Wind in the Willows or Pooh bear character! Even Roald Dahl’s Fantastic Mr Fox wouldn’t be skilled enough to aim into a milk carton half way up a tree.

One assumption from this situation is that foragers might at times be very territorial, pissing in my bottles could be a sign for me not to go near their patch. Either that or some kids thought it might be funny to knock a load of bottles around then piss into one. Either way, I’m finding slightly less urban birches to tap!

Note - As a forager or indeed in any aspect of life you are constantly revising what you’ve learned.  I have since found out if the sap comes yellow or yellow/brown then there is a bacteria present in the sap and you should not drink it.  Also the downy birch looks very similar to the silver birch but the sap has a bitter taste and therefore it is not advisable to tap a downy birch.