Birch beer with spruce tips

So after a dozen or so all grain batches with excellent results, I dove into the unknown again. I have been consistently brewing my own recipes with success...and then I get a phone call from my buddy Fred. Fred says "Hey Iv'e been tapping birch trees on my property and I have a spare 10 gallons of sap. Can you make beer with it?" I says sure I can.

Fred brings over 10 gallons of sap. I had toasted 2 pounds of grain the night before hand planning on brewing an IPA and I had a fresh bag of 2 row in the pantry.

Here is the recipe:

9# 2 row
2# toasted 2 row (soaked for 1 hr in water and toasted for 2 hrs at 350)
.5 oz Magnum 14%AA @60
1 oz Cascade 7.2AA @20
1tsp Irish Moss @20
1 pint birch syrup (Reduced from 10 gallons that he brought over for pancakes.) @20
1 oz spruce tips @20
1oz cascade @7
Dry hop with 1oz Cascade
Nottingham yeast

Mashed in 154deg with birch sap.
double batch sparge, 7 gallons pre boil.
60 min boil to 5.5 gal

Hit temps perfect ended up with 1.064 OG
expecting to finish around 1.018-1.020, but not sure what to expect from the birch syrup.

This stuff smelled like a walk in the woods on a spring day, hope I didnt over do it with the spruce tips. I'll let you know how this turns out. The hydro sample was fantastic. :rockin:

akchris said:

Mashed in 154deg with birch sap.

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Did you use the birch sap before it was reduced as your mash water?

Sounds like a really interesting brew. I'm really curious how this will come out.

Yup, It tastes like a light sugar water, and is about the same consistency.

akchris said:

Yup, It tastes like a light sugar water, and is about the same consistency.

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If it's anything like maple sap it should ferment out almost completely and leave only the essence of flavor.

Clonefarmer said:

If it's anything like maple sap it should ferment out almost completely and leave only the essence of flavor.

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Thats what I was hoping for, I'm also hoping that the syrup ferments out most of the way, or I may have mashed too high.

akchris said:

Thats what I was hoping for, I'm also hoping that the syrup ferments out most of the way, or I may have mashed too high.

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The mash temp will effect the converted sugars from the malts. Since the sugars from the sap are already in sugar form I don't think the mash temp will effect it. If there are any starches in the sap that were converted during the mash the mash temp may effect it. This is mostly speculation since I don't know the make up of birch sap.

Could you detect any spruce aspects using only 1oz? Im making a spruce ale, and using several CUPS of spruce tips.

to taste the spruce you have to use a TON of cuttings. i used LOTS and never got the spruce flavor i was looking for. i then made the bad decision of buying spruce essence and dumping in the entire 2 oz bottle. DO NOT DO THIS!! it's a spruce bomb now and doesn't taste very good at all. FAIL!

i'm really, really curious about the birch sap, though. i've read about it and entertained the thought of it. i just don't know how to go about it... kudos to you for using it, i'm sure it'll taste great!

incutrav said:

Could you detect any spruce aspects using only 1oz? Im making a spruce ale, and using several CUPS of spruce tips.

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The hydro sample had a good spruce flavor to it, I just didn't want to overpower the brew with the stuff.

Clonefarmer said:

The mash temp will effect the converted sugars from the malts. Since the sugars from the sap are already in sugar form I don't think the mash temp will effect it. If there are any starches in the sap that were converted during the mash the mash temp may effect it. This is mostly speculation since I don't know the make up of birch sap.

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I wasn't so much concerened with starches in the sap, I was more concerened with unfermentable sugars in the sap and syrup. Thinking I should have mashed a little lower to make up for it with the grain conversion....If that makes any sense.

akchris said:

I wasn't so much concerened with starches in the sap, I was more concerened with unfermentable sugars in the sap and syrup. Thinking I should have mashed a little lower to make up for it with the grain conversion....If that makes any sense.

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It does make sense. Let us know how it comes out. I'm curious to see how the birch sap effects the beer.

I'm also interested in this one. Where the heck do you get birch syrup?

kyleobie said:

I'm also interested in this one. Where the heck do you get birch syrup?

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Birch trees my young Jedi...Birch trees... Up here in alaska you can't look outside without seeing a few thousand, and my buddy Fred being ever the resourceful one decided to tap some (50.) You can buy a little spout that you hammer into the tree and hang a bucket from to collect the sap. It's pretty neat actually. When it's flowing really good each tree was supplying about a gallon a day.

This stuff is going strong. My laundry room smells like freshly cut spruce trees, but it still has that great fermenting beer aroma. :cross:

Did you use the 'new growth' tips from the spruce, or the older needles? Everything i have read online says to use the new growth, but I picked a few this weekend in MN, and they have little to NO aroma, so i boiled a few in a cup of water to see what kinda flavor it would impart. Not much at all, super, super bland. On the other hand, the older growth needles have a TON of aroma, and a decent bitterness to them, very similar to hops.

Unfortunately birch sap and new growth spruce tips are on a different timeline. I had to use old growth, so I cut some from the smallest trees I had and only used about an inch off the end. They were the softest greenest smelling with the smallest branch. We'll see what happens...

akchris said:

Unfortunately birch sap and new growth spruce tips are on a different timeline. I had to use old growth, so I cut some from the smallest trees I had and only used about an inch off the end. They were the softest greenest smelling with the smallest branch. We'll see what happens...

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Did you boil just the needles, or the stem/branch as well? I thinking Im just going to cut a few branches off the local spruce, cut them into smaller pieces, and chuck them in the mash, branch and all. Like I said, the new growth tips had zero flavor to them, so the old growth would seem like the hot route.

Stems and all. Tried to use tips with smaller stems.

So I ended up using too much spruce. Hoping the taste will mellow with age. the beer is good, but next time half the spruce

Hey akchris,

I myself am interested in experimenting a bit with birch syrup. How did this brew turn out for you? Did you end up experimenting anymore?

Am getting ready to get a batch of birch ipa going on Saturday. I am boiling down the last 6 gallon batch of sap to about 3/4 gallon. By the time I brew I will have about 3 1/2 gallons of the concentrated sap boiled down from 27 gallons of sap. This will be the base of the brew but will need to add some pale malt extract to beef up the sugar (hoping to get it up to 1.070). Going to steep grains separately and see how it goes.

Following is a link to a UAF publication that has great info on birch characteristics:

http://www.uaf.edu/files/snras/MP_04_02.pdf