Can you use it to brew up a batch of birch beer? I realize you’ll need other flavoring agents etc., but it might be an interesting, though probably short-lived pasttime.
We make a bit of it every spring and folks are always pleasantly surpised at the mild flavor. I’ve got to think that you got a bad batch because ours never has a strong flavor and comes out looking more like white Karo syrup than maple syrup. Perhaps yours got burnt?
Years ago, my neighbor and I had visions of making and selling large batches of the stuff. Since our method is decidedly non-technical (canners full of sap on the woodstove), we tried to keep our commercial venture equally simple. The only thing we could think of for a big evaporator was an old fuel oil container from an old oil furnace. I took a torch and carefully cut the tank in half and we hauled the halves into town and car washed them, then took them to the local implement dealer and had them steamcleaned.
We both expanded our tapping efforts (brace and bit, chunks of garden hose for taps and plastic milk jugs for containers…I told you it’s low tech).
We filled our former oil drums and built a carefully tended fire under them, drinking homemade wine and toasting to our future success. Took forever and several hangovers before we judged the syrup just the right consistency and Ed ran to the house to borrow a tasting spoon. He graciously gave me the first sample, which I greedily swished around in my mouth before downing it. Unfortunately, I swallowed before getting a real good taste becuase it tasted like I’d just swallowed a bar of liquid steel. Knowing I’d poisoned my self, I stumbled home to die.
Ed must have thought I was trying to pull a fast one and intended on keeping all the syrup for myself because he had to try it as well.
After the fires burned out and we found that we’d somehow survived, we sadly turned all our hard work out on the ground. Still have those poison drum halves out growing in the weeds on the back 40.
quiltguy, I enjoy a good birch beer myself, but always was under the impression that its the birch oils & bark used to give unique flavor, not the sugars.
bare, sorry the industrial enterprise didn’t work out. My birch syrup was rather dark, and could easily be mistaken for maple syrup.