Birch Wine
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the sap
Bore holes in the birch tree to collect sap.
Boil the sap until no more scum rises.
Make the wine
Add 2 pounds of sugar for every gallon of sap.
Boil for half an hour, skimming off any scum.
When almost cold, add a little yeast.
Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.
Explore the science
What each ingredient does
- Birch tree sap
- Forms the liquid base that the sugar and yeast work in.
- Sugar
- Provides the sweetness and the fuel that yeast turns into alcohol.
- Yeast
- Ferments the sugar into alcohol and carbon dioxide.
The step that matters
Adding the yeast when almost cold. Yeast is killed by high heat, so adding it to liquid that is still hot can stop fermentation before it starts. Waiting until the liquid is nearly cold keeps the yeast alive to work on the sugar.
“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.
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