Wood Avens (Geum urbanum) are a massively abundant herb in the UK, as the common name suggests it prefers woods but it’s found growing virtually anywhere damp and shady. Although unrelated Wood Avens and Cloves both contain a chemical called eugenol that give both plants their distinctive flavour. One of the common names for Wood Avens is Clover root.

This is a fantastic recipe, that’s really simple to make and we use it to sweeten cocktails, ice creams and deserts.

Click here to identify wood avens

Ingredients:

Wood Avens root

Sugar

Water

I’ve not including quantities as I tend to make loads for samples on courses. The amounts can be altered if you stick to the 2:1 ratio for the sugar syrup and just add enough of this so that the roots are submerged completely.

Method:

1. This is the toughest part of the recipe, getting the roots cleaned. Soak the roots in plenty of cold water and wash them well. It takes a few water changes but you want to take the time to get them as clean as possible.(If they’re really mucky I blast them with the jet washer in the garden, before giving them a thorough clean in the kitchen sink).
2. Chop the larger roots into pieces. The smaller the pieces the quicker the process.
3. Make a basic sugar syrup, I use 2 parts sugar to 1 part water. Heat gently until the sugar has dissolve.
4. Add the roots and simmer for 30 minutes.
5. Allow to cool and then decant the whole mixture into sterilised bottles or jars, and allow to infuse for 2-3 weeks.
6. Strain to remove the roots and bottle.

The finished syrup will stored in the fridge will last a few months.

Once you’ve strained off the roots don’t throw them away, they can be dried and powder and added to puddings for example apple pie or you can infuse them in Vodka to make a spicy, sweet liquor.

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Let’s look at How to Make Birch Sap Syrup with our Video Guide

Birch Sap Syrup

Making Birch sap syrup is one of the first things I do with wild food every year – it tells me we’re about to shoot straight into the more serious collection of wild foods and is, at the moment, my only source of wild sugar to be used throughout the coming year.

The sap rises throughout March and can vary from year to year, but each area usually has a 2-3 week window to do this process, the easiest way to check if the sap is flowing is to stick a knife in the tree trunk at an upward angle – if sap leaks down the knife then you’re good to go.

Click here for our Silver Birch Identification Guide

Recipe to make 500ml Birch Sap Syrup

Our preferred equipment for extracting birch sap from the tree:

• Plastic tubing – 1cm in diameter and 40cm in length
• A drill, any will work manual or electric
• 1cm wide drill bit
• Container for collecting the sap – I use a 5ltr water bottle
• Piece of muslin cloth – big enough to cover the hole of your container
• A range of elastic bands or string

Method:

1. After checking the tree is flowing, about 1m up from the base of the tree, use your drill and drill bit to drill a 1cm width hole 8cm into the tree
2. Push your piping into this hole, making sure it’s at least 2cm in and secure
3. Secure your container at the base of the tree – either tie it to the tree, make sure it’s on flat ground or secure it by leaning rocks against the sides.
4. Secure the cloth around the top of the container, either using elastic bands or string.
5. Pop a hole in the middle of your cloth and feed the tubing through it so the liquid will drip into your container
6. Secure the cloth around your tubing with either string or an elastic band (to ensure no insects can get into your container)
7. Leave it overnight to fill up
8. Return to find your 5ltr container full of beautiful sap, remove everything and pop the lid on your container so you can easily carry it away.
9. Take a branch, the same thickness as the original hole (1cm in diameter) and sharpen the end, remove your tubing from the tree and hammer this branch bung into the hole to bung up the tree.
10. Take your sap home and boil it down until it thickens and turns into syrup – up to 95% of the liquid must be boiled away so this can take a full day of boiling down. When it begins to thicken it needs constant stirring to ensure the sugars don’t burn. Alternatively, it can be put in a plastic bowl and in the microwave, opening the microwave door every minute to release the steam (I find it’s less likely to burn this way)
11. When it’s reached a consistency you are happy with, bottle it into sterilised bottles or jars and enjoy.

Okay – now I have the syrup what else can I do with it?

There are some nice recipes here for using silver birch sap. Think:

• Birch Sap Syrup
• Sticky Birch Sap Pudding
• Birch Sap brittle
• Hot Birch Sap Drink
• Birch Sap Wine
• Birch Sap Toffee
• Think of whatever you may use maple syrup for….

Happy Tapping & Happy Foraging

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Through this guide we’re going to be looking at How to Tap Silver Birch – Extracting Birch sap is one of the first things I do with wild food every year, it tells me we’re about to shoot straight into the more serious collection of wild foods and is, at the moment, my only source of wild sugar to be used throughout the coming year.

The sap rises throughout March and can vary from year to year, but each area usually has a 2-3 week window to do this process, the easiest way to check if the sap is flowing is to stick a knife in the tree trunk at an upward angle. If sap leaks down the knife then you’re good to go.

Birch Sap Rises throughout March

Equipment needed to tap a birch tree:

• Plastic tubing – 1cm in diameter and 40cm in length
• A drill, any will work, manual or electric
• 1cm drill bit
• Container for collecting the sap – I use a 5ltr water bottle
• Piece of muslin cloth – big enough to cover the hole of your container
• A range of elastic bands or string

Method for tapping a silver birch tree:

1. After checking the tree is flowing, about 1m up from the base of the tree, use your drill and drill bit to drill a 1cm width hole 8cm into the tree – do this a slight upward angle so the sap flows down the hole.
2. 
3. Push your piping into this hole, making sure it’s at least 2cm in and secure (sometimes the sap will start flowing out of the pipe straight away)
4. Secure your container at the base of the tree – either tie it to the tree, make sure it’s on flat ground or secure it by leaning rocks against the sides.
5. Secure the cloth around the top of the container, either using elastic bands or string (this stops any bugs from climbing into the container)
6. Pop a hole in the middle of your cloth and feed the tubing through it so the liquid will drip into your container
7. Secure the cloth around your tubing with either string or an elastic band (to ensure no insects can get into your container)

Leave it overnight to fill up

Return to find your 5ltr container full of beautiful sap, remove everything and pop the lid on your container so you can easily carry it away (I often tap a tree at about 6 pm and collect it before 9 am (meaning that it’s lived at the overnight temperature which is fridge temperature at this time of year)

Recipes for using birch sap can be found here..

Should I bung the hole after tapping silver birch?

This is a great question and I’ve done both things, bunged the hole and not bunged the hole.

When I used to bung the hole I would snap a branch from the tree, sharpen the end and hammer it into the hole so that nothing foreign is going into the tree. (I would never advise filing it with clay or wood from a different tree) The idea of this approach is that you seal the hole and stop any infection from getting into the tree, on the flip side you could also lock infection inside of the tree.

When I’ve not bunged it I’ve merely left the hole open and allowed the tree to heal itself. The idea of this method is that the sap will push out any infection before the tree heals itself (a bit like how our bodies do naturally when we get a cut)

Is it safe to tap a silver birch every year?

I only ever tap a silver birch tree every three years. I use a pen to colour code the trees so I know which is done on a three-year cycle.

• Blue – year one
• Green – year two
• Black – year three

I simply rotate this every three years.

This comes back to the individual again if you tap a tree every year just keep an eye on the tree itself, does it look as healthy as it did last year, does it look as healthy as the trees around it. Ask yourself questions like this.

What can I use silver birch sap for?

There are some nice recipes here for using silver birch sap. Think:

• Birch Sap Syrup
• Sticky Birch Sap Pudding
• Birch Sap brittle
• Hot Birch Sap Drink
• Birch Sap Wine
• Birch Sap Toffee
• Think of whatever you may use maple syrup for….

How do I identify a Silver Birch?

We have a really nice guide here for identifying silver birch.

However, it’s most of the trees you see out in the woods with the white/silver bark that peels away from the tree.

What else can Silver Birch be used for?

There’s a whole bunch of other things to do with silver birch from making medicine to creating roofing slats. I’ll list some below for you.

Edible Uses of Silver Birch:

Sap: Edible, drunk as water, boiled to syrup, wine, cordial, toffee, ice cream, bbq glaze, sauce, sweetener

Leaves: edible when young, in salads.

Young Catkins: Edible,

Bark: edible, ground in to flour.

Herbal Uses of Silver Birch:

The bark of silver birch can be used as a diuretic and mild laxative. All parts of the silver birch can be used as a detoxifier and tonic for helping remove waste products from the urinary tract.

Miscellaneous Uses of Silver Birch:

This tree can often be found growing in abundance in a single location, somewhere that is a new space allowed to turn wild is a common spot to find it, there’s a range of mushrooms that grow in association with this tree giving it other edible purposes and to help with identification of mushrooms

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