How to collect birch sap: useful tips

With the advent of spring, the collection of birch sap begins - an incredibly healthy drink that can improve health and strengthen immunity. In villages, this period was considered the most important, because the juice under the bark of the tree does not flow for long, only about a month. During this time, people try to get drunk with juice and recharge with the vigor of this drink. But in order to get all the useful properties, the juice needs to be properly collected. In this process, it is important not only to obtain a healing liquid, but also to protect the tree as much as possible.

The benefits of birch sap

In appearance, birch sap is ordinary water - without a special smell and color. If you leave the juice warm for a while, it will begin to ferment and deteriorate. This means that certain trace elements in the composition of the drink are. The taste of birch sap may differ from the area where it was collected, as well as from the size and health of the tree itself. Sometimes juice comes across sweet, sometimes tasteless like water. However, the composition of this drink is not so simple. It contains vitamins, minerals, organic acids, enzymes, saccharides. Birch sap has a tremendous effect on the body.

1. Due to its rich composition, the juice has tonic and tonic properties. Patients drink juice during the recovery period, even after the most serious diseases.
2. Birch sap strengthens the immune system, improves the body's ability to fight viruses and infections, and has an anti-inflammatory effect.
3. Birch sap improves the digestive tract, normalizes the acidity of the stomach.
4. The drink is able to accelerate metabolic processes, improves metabolism, which contributes to weight loss. In addition, the juice has a very low calorie content.
5. Regular consumption of juice improves the functioning of the kidneys and the genitourinary system.
6. Birch sap is used externally to heal and treat various wounds, boils, inflammations, pustules and eczema.
7. Birch sap is actively used in cosmetology. Washing with this life-giving moisture helps to get rid of age spots, freckles, unwanted tanning. In addition, birch sap eliminates excessive oily skin and hair. Rinsing with birch sap makes the curls silky, strong and shiny.

This is just a small dose of the beneficial properties of birch sap. If nature gives us the opportunity to strengthen the body, we must take this opportunity. But so as not to harm this nature and not respond to good with evil.

When to collect birch sap

There are no exact dates for collecting a healing drink. Indeed, in different regions of the country, spring comes at different times. Approximately this period can begin from mid-March and lasts a maximum until the end of April. When the sun begins to bake, juices wake up under the bark of the tree, even if there is still snow around. You can determine the readiness of birch to give life-giving moisture by its kidneys. If they began to swell - it's time to collect the juice.

You need to start collecting juice from the outer trees. Subsequently, when the sun will bake more and more, you can move deeper into the forest or birch, because the trees wake up there later. It is not worth collecting juice from birches located along highways and other places with polluted air.

To collect birch sap, you need to choose medium-sized trees with a good trunk. To make a hole in a young tree is not worth it. Firstly, it will not give much life-giving coolness. Secondly, a tree may die after a similar harvest.

How to collect birch sap

To collect birch sap you will need a drill, dishes and a straw.

1. First, choose a birch with which we will take the juice. Its diameter should not be less than 20 centimeters.It is better to choose a tree with a slight slope, so that the flowing juice is easier to collect.
2. You need to make a hole from the sunny side of the forest. The sun heats the bark of a tree, the juice flows in this place much more intensively.
3. Do not use an ax to extract juice. After all, if such a wound does not heal, the tree will expire with life-giving moisture, it will dry out and simply die.
4. Take a drill and make a small hole in the tree trunk. The diameter of the hole should not exceed one centimeter, preferably 4-6 mm. If there is no drill, you can simply drive a nail into the barrel, slightly loosening it and increasing the hole. The hole should not be too deep. You need to understand that birch sap flows mainly between the bark and wood. Therefore, it is not necessary to drive the nail too deep.
5. After that, a small tube is inserted into the hole. Corrugated beverage cans can be used. In some stores you can buy a special tube for collecting birch juice. If such devices are not at hand, use natural materials - ordinary grass. Rinse a few stems and leaves and insert the bunch into the hole. Greens has a unique capillary system, and very soon birch sap is dripped from the other end of the grass.
6. Place a plastic bottle or bag under the straw or grass. No need to leave a container with a wide neck - a can or a pan. The fact is that the juice drips for a long time and the dishes will have to be left near the tree for more than one hour. During this time, foliage, garbage can attack it. And if the juice is sweet, insects will certainly encroach on it.
7. It is better to collect juice 2-3 times a day. If the juice stopped flowing from the hole, you do not need to deepen it, go make another well. Just change the tree.
8. Birch can give up to five liters of juice, but never take all the life-giving moisture from one tree, otherwise it will die. It is better to collect one liter from five birches than squeeze all out of one.
9. After collecting the juice, help the tree heal the wound. In a hole you need to drive a piece of a branch, cover it with clay or plug it with moss. Next year, you won’t find where you made the hole.
10. Best of all, juice flows through a birch in the afternoon, and it is at this time that it is best to collect.

These simple tips will help you get a life-giving drink without harming the tree.

How to drink and store birch sap

The most beneficial use of birch sap is drinking it fresh. In a refrigerator or cellar, juice can be stored for a month, not more. After this time, all the healing power of the product is lost, the drink becomes useless.

Some housewives preserve birch sap, however, this is a rather dubious occupation. The fact is that when boiling and even during pasteurization all the useful properties of the juice are lost, the product becomes no more useful than ordinary sweet water. And to put fresh juice in cans is very dangerous - the can can explode from an unsterile product. Indeed, in the process of collection, small specks got into the juice.

From birch sap it turns out very tasty and rich kvass. To prepare it, you need to take 10 liters of birch sap and heat to 30-40 degrees. Add the juice of five medium lemons, 50 grams of yeast and a couple of tablespoons of natural liquid honey to the liquid.Mix everything thoroughly and pour into glass bottles. Throw 3-4 raisins into each bottle and leave the container in a warm place. When the kvass begins to ferment (after about 5 days), it will need to be removed in the cold. Such kvass can be stored for several months. However, it is unlikely that it will last so long - the drink is very tasty and deep.

Birch sap is a storehouse of natural vitamins and useful elements, thanks to which you can quickly and effectively strengthen your health. Give up medicine, at least for a while. Understand that in nature there are all the substances we need that can cure almost any disease. And most importantly, natural medicines are absolutely free. Just reach out and grab them.

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