If anyone has not yet tried moonshine from birch sap, then I highly recommend it. The only difficulty is to collect enough liquid, but this can be dealt with. I did it for the first time, so I had to tinker. But after tasting the ready-made moonshine, I realized that it was worth it and all my efforts were not in vain.
When and where do I collect
In addition to the fact that collecting juice is a rather painstaking work, it also needs to be guarded. The sap flow time is limited, and it is advisable not to miss it. The secretion of juice begins when the daytime temperature reaches above 5 degrees, and the kidneys are already swollen.
I do not recommend using trees that grow near the highway for collection, and it is better not to touch birches in the city.
Choose forests and groves located away from roads, in an ecologically clean area. It is desirable that there are no factories or factories nearby.
It is necessary to track sap flow exactly in the territory where it is planned to collect juice. I noticed that the snow in the city was melting and the thawed patches were forming faster, so I came to the grove – and there were birch trees waist-deep in snow. I had to wait.
For collection, I armed myself with clean plastic bottles, cocktail tubes and a couple of caps for each container. I made a hole in half of the lids, inserted a tube there. This is to fill the container. And with a solid lid he closed the already finished bottle for transportation.
Sap should be collected from mature trees and preferably from the south side.
Using a screwdriver, you need to drill a hole in the bark no more than 2 cm deep. Insert the end of the tube into it and fasten the bottle to the tree with a rope. Do this process with all available containers and wait. The collection process is not fast, so you have to spend several hours on it.
Do not be afraid of the adopted law on the collection of birch sap.
I learned everything in detail, it turned out that you can collect it for personal purposes, you just need to follow the rules: do not use young forests and do not drill trees more than 2 cm.
When all the bottles are full, they must be closed with solid lids, and the hole in the tree should be covered with either plasticine, or wax, or a cork from twigs so that the plant does not die.
My cooking method
I have collected about 18 liters of birch sap. For this amount, I took 4 kg of sugar and 66 g of alcohol yeast. I poured 15 liters of juice into the fermentation tank, added sugar and waited for complete dissolution.
The remaining 3 liters heated to 55 degrees. This must be done in order to then dilute it with birch-sugar syrup, because you need to introduce yeast into a warm liquid.
The permissible temperature is not more than 30 degrees, otherwise the yeast will die. Therefore, I recommend getting a thermometer.
He poured the heated juice into the fermentation tank. If the mixture turned out to be above the permissible temperature, you need to wait for cooling.
Then he took about 500 ml of birch-sugar liquid and poured it into a separate bowl. I added yeast there, stirred it and left it for 15 minutes to activate. The sourdough was poured into the fermentation mixture, mixed and closed with a water seal.
When the mash was ready, I distilled it twice and diluted the birch distillate to 40-42 degrees. He let moonshine brew for a week, and then took a sample.
My Drink Experience
The result amazed me. The moonshine turned out to be transparent, soft, with a slight tart taste. It does not have a strong smell, but it pleases with a rich aftertaste. I think this is the result of the fact that I did not clean it with charcoal and thereby retained the taste and aromatic properties of birch sap.