Birch tears or how to collect birch sap
Slender white birches have been inspiring poets and writers to create masterpieces for centuries. Birch trees are not only pleasing to the eye, but also serve as a source of trace elements, proteins, acids and vitamins. Each person at least once tasted birch sap, but you need to collect it carefully so as not to cause irreparable harm. Unfortunately, not everyone knows how to properly collect birch sap.
First you need to know when you can collect birch sap. The season for the extraction of birch sap opens from the end of March, and ends with April. As warming proceeds, one should gradually move from the edge to the depths of the forest, where the forest wakes up from hibernation much later. With a thin awl, an injection is made on the birch trunk, if juice oozes from the wound, then you can proceed to its systematic collection.
Preparing for the collection of juice. You need to take a few plastic bottles with you, because they have a narrow throat, and insects, dust and small leaves will not get into them. Be sure to take a hand drill or a drill on batteries to make a neat hole in the barrel. You can’t make a cut with an ax, it ruins the birch, very often a tree dies from such a procedure. Be sure to make small corks, which in future will close the holes you made. To collect the juice, you can take a soft rope, a piece of cloth or just a clean bunch of grass.
Extraction of birch sap. How to collect birch sap is a science. The tree must be chosen old enough so that it can heal the wound. Once all preparations are made, proceed directly to the collection of juice. We select a tree, preferably slightly inclined, so that it is easier to collect juice. We make a small hole in the barrel with a drill and firmly fasten the bottle with a cloth (rope or grass) to the barrel. Three times a day we go to check the bottles and collect juice. It’s best to drill 5 or 6 trees, rather than drain all the juice from one tree. In different trees, the intensity of the flow of juice is different, as soon as the volume of juice obtained decreases, the tree needs to be changed.
Help the tree As soon as you leave the tree, he needs to help heal the wound. Carefully insert the cork that was prepared in advance into the hole. The birch has already begun preparations for healing, and your help will make the healing process quick. If you understand how to collect birch sap correctly, next year you will not find the place where it was taken from.
Storage Birch juice is best drunk fresh, then it will retain all the nutrients and vitamins in full. If you have a cellar in your house, and best of all a glacier, then the juice will be stored for a rather long time without losing its qualities. Close in jars or pasteurize birch sap is not recommended. If you want to try kvass from birch sap, the recipe for making it is extremely simple: it is made just like usual, only birch sap is added instead of water, and the product is much more useful than simple kvass. Birch sap helps treat acne, tightens pores on the face, so you can freeze “birch ice” from it and consume as needed.
The benefits of birch sap. Birch sap strengthens the immune system, increases the body's resistance. Birch sap will save you from spring vitamin deficiency, help to avoid depression and fatigue. Juice destroys stones in the kidneys and liver, improves metabolic processes, cleanses the blood, reduces pressure. For pregnant women, birch sap is simply irreplaceable.
If you know how to collect birch sap correctly, take care of trees, do not take more juice from them than they can give you, nature will generously give you useful vitamins, minerals and trace elements for the health of you and your family.