Birch Syrup Experiment

Last week when we got home from 

our road trip, Mark started to tap some 

birch trees not too far from home. 

Tapping the spile into the hole he just drilled.

The birch sap was running, drip, drip, drip...

buckets almost overflowing with sap

this is the third time we have made 

birch syrup, but the first time we boiled

 it away from home in the birch woods

it was wonderful being outside for so 

many hours a day. we have read online 

that you shouldn't use galvanized or

 aluminum for sap gathering. we have these 

buckets leftover from when we lived near 

Bruce Mines and made maple syrup. I will have to do more 

research to see if this is true.

we started to boil the sap in my dads

 big cast iron pot over an open fire. 

after 2 days of this I had a major reaction

 to the smoke and sap fumes, my face swelled 

up like a balloon. scared us both.

Mark rigged up his old tin camping 

stove to boil sap on. it worked but

 was not as quick as the open fire.

slow laborious procedure boiling birch sap,

 140 litres of sap to 1 litre of syrup,

 lots of boiling down.

near the end, boiling hard

we brought it home to finish it off 

on the stove in the house. I didn't want

 to scorch it over the fire. we made over 2 litres, 

maybe 3, I haven't measured it yet. It reminds

 us of molasses, and does not taste anything

 like maple syrup, it isn't even similar,

 as it is a different tree.

it was a fun experiment!