Rules for extraction, preparation and collection of birch sap. How to collect birch sap correctly.

How to collect birch sap correctly

Before you start collecting birch sap, you need to carefully remove a small section of birch bark from the place where you intend to take the sap. Then, clean the section of the trunk in this place. Next, use a brace to make a 3-4 cm indentation. The leaking juice can be collected using a bandage or gauze strip, or you can attach a groove made of tin or a tube.

Photo. Collecting birch sap is a device.

After collecting the sap, you cannot leave a hole in the tree; it must be tightly covered with moss, and the area of ​​the trunk from which the bark has been removed must be covered with wax or laundry soap. If you cover the cut in this way, the tree will not suffer from the penetration of fungal infections or pathogenic bacteria.

Collecting birch sap - equipment

Today we are accustomed to seeing birch sap in a jar; in the old days, the sap was collected in birch bark containers so that this drink could be preserved better and longer. These days, no one wants to bother with preparing such containers.Therefore, glass jars, plastic bottles and even plastic bags are used to collect juice.

Photo. Extraction of birch sap

Photo. It's time to collect birch sap

Rules for collecting birch sap

In order not to harm the tree, you need to know that old and very young birch trees are not suitable for collecting sap. Therefore, it is better to choose trees with a diameter of 20-40 cm. The number of permissible holes in a birch tree depends on its diameter. If the birch tree has a diameter of about 25 cm, only one hole can be made in it. In a birch tree with a diameter of about 40 cm, you can make no more than 4 holes.

The next condition is the amount of juice collected. If you are counting on collecting sap next year, then you must remember that you can only take 1 liter of drink from one tree for 2-3 days and no more.

You can use a hammer to make a hole through which the sap will flow, or you can use a chisel or knife without driving it too deep into the tree trunk. After collection, the hole must be carefully closed and sealed.

The most gentle way is to collect juice from a cut branch. The branch is cut so that a container can be hung on the formed twig. For convenience, the cut branch is tied to a trunk or other branch to fix it and direct the cut into a container for collecting sap. This method makes it possible to attach several small containers to branches and fill them faster.

We must remember that the movement of juice depends on the air temperature. Therefore, on warm days, containers fill up very quickly, and the most optimal time for collection is from noon to evening.

Season of extraction or collection of birch sap - video.

When the preparation of birch sap runs out, it is better to use the collected sap immediately, but if there is more sap, it is better to store it in the cold, otherwise it will turn sour.

When the time for collecting birch sap ends and it turns out that a lot of sap has been prepared, the question arises of how best to preserve it, how to roll up birch sap for later use, so that it preserves its properties as much as possible. beneficial features.

Having studied how to collect birch sap correctly, having learned the basic rules for extracting, collecting and storing birch sap, it’s time to ask how to roll up birch sap for the winter at home.