1w ago

Going to try birch sap sparkly wine

Lemmitor @A_norny_mousse@feddit.org in this community tipped that if the process serves and luck is on one's side, fermented birch sap can be better than champagne. Right now is the time when sap can be collected, so I'm giving it a shot!

The tree isn't terribly bothered, the tap hole is only a few millimeters deep. I only do one tap per tree.

Plan is to empty these tap bottles off several trees once a day into an intermediate container, use a Campden tablet per container and keep the intermediates in the fridge until I have enough, five liters maybe? Then one liter yeast starter, possibly with some cane sugar to lend a little extra aroma and colour (the sap is clear). Ferment fingers crossed. Serve force carbonated. Wish mi luck :D

5 comments

That was a quick one! The result is a dry, refreshing and probably low ABV product. The colour comes from added dark cane sugar. It only took a couple of days to get 6 L of sap out of three trees. And yes, there is a light, hard to describe, maybe citrus-like taste from the sap.

If you inoculate it with vigorous yeast and add a bit sugar, you can just pour new bottles into active fermenter with minimal spoilage risk, certainly safer than storing non inoculated medium.
- Great idea, thanks!

Birch sap does contain sugar but not a lot. You have to boil 100L of sap down to get 1L of birch syrup (while for maple syrup you only need to boil 60L down to get 1L).
Fermenting the sap directly you're not going to get much of anything, probably less than 0.5% abv if you don't add any other sugars. I know you said you are going to add sugar, but I do wonder if you'll be tasting much flavor from the sap at all if you don't concentrate the sap.

Hmm well they make birch root beer so that could work. Let us know how it goes! :)