It's Time to Try Birch Syrup

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Having processed some 10 litres of Maple syrup, it was time this week to begin our next food experiment: Birch syrup.

Our last 4 litre batch of Maple syrup

I had never heard of this until our neighbor Roger brought it to our attention. It turns out that Birch sap can be processed into syrup pretty much in the same way as Maple. Although not a common experience in our part of America, Birch has been tapped in Russia and the Northwest for a while.


The first major difference between Birch and Maple is that Birch syrup requires about 100 litres of sap for every litre of syrup; this is vastly different than the 40 to 1 ratio of Maple. As a result, Birch syrup takes a lot more energy and labour to produce.

The other interesting difference is that Maple syrup is primarily sucrose. Birch on the other hand is fructose and glucose.

While Maple trees are tapped once they have a trunk diameter of 12 inches, Birch are tapped as early as 9 inches given the shorter lifespan of the tree. In our case, we had enough old Birch on the property to redeploy our Maple syrup equipment and tap some rather spectacular trees.

Tristan had his eyes on this gorgeous Birch from day one

With its massive trunk, it has already proven to be our best producer

With our first batch of sap, we managed to process a small amount of Birch syrup in the same way we did our Maple. We could already sense the difference between the two just by the aroma of the boiling sap. The processing of Birch releases a distinctive aroma which to me was similar to malt and molasses.

The end product is a very dark syrup with a reddish tinge.

Our first batch of Birch syrup

As for the taste experience: do not try this expecting anything like Maple syrup. Birch would just not be right for your pancakes. Birch syrup is more aromatic and perhaps more complex. It has a distinctive woody flavour combining molasses and caramel with a tangy finish. In the end, this would be ideal for cooking such as glazing salmon or pork.

The bottom line is that this is a great "foodie" experience and we'll definitely keep tapping Birch over the next couple of weeks. I hope to report on some recipe trials later this year (once our home kitchen renovation is completed).

On the home renovation front, this week has been dedicated primarily to concrete.

The barn foundation on the south side was in bad shape so this had to be fixed. We poured a concrete base and will now be rebuilding the old stone walls.

Rebuilding the barn foundation

The basement (last week's "can of worms") was a pleasant surprise. It will make an incredible wine cellar. The floor was poured and we now will be using the concrete reinforcement to provide "shelving" for wine barrels.

The "wine cellar" is finally coming together

Our mini nursery continues to show progress, we have had to transplant a large portion of our plants....problem is we're now running out of space. It is now time to seriously consider getting a greenhouse if we're to do this on a larger scale next year.

I should note that the Coir pellets worked well in the development of some roots, however certain plants had some difficulty in developing a good root structure. In the future, we will be looking to use something more sustainable and effectively make our own pellets.

Transplanting from Coir pellets into growing mix

On the farming front, we've had a few days (before the rains) to begin "sealing" our drainage tile and we've started to till the rows we had marked last fall for our new berry root stock.

Finally covering up some of our drainage trench

Tilling made easy with our BCS

I leave you this week with another interesting find. Thanks to my dentist (Dr. Louis Albanese at the Fonthill Dental Clinic), who happens to be quite knowledgeable about the town history, Christine and I found the grave site of Josiah Ward, the man who built our home. As soon as we discovered the site, an old Quaker cemetery, we decided to pay our respects.

The grave of Josiah Ward at the old Quaker cemetery (corner of Welland Rd. & Effingham)