Birch Sap

We would like to have maple syrup trees and make our own maple syrup. However they are going to take many MANY years to grow (after we get round to planting them). Even before we came out here, we started looking around to see if you can use the sap of any other trees. It seems that you can tap birch trees and get a slightly sugary sap. It is much less sweet than the maple and hence is actually rather impractical for boiling down into syrup. 50 liters of maple sap makes 1 liter of syrup. 200 liters of birch sap makes 1 liter of syrup.
Syrup might not be terribly practical, but we are interested by the idea of making birch sap wine (and perhaps birch sap beer) so we set about tapping some trees. The sap rises later in birches than maples apparently and the time it rises for is quite short. We have been inspecting the trees for a couple of weeks (ie sticking a knife in them) and found it is rising so we rigged up a sap capturing system.

We drilled a hole about 2cm deep at a slight angle (using a 5mm bit) and then stuck a straw in to the hole. We found the sap doesn't flow out unless we cut a v shape out the top of the straw to let air in. We also found putting a twig inside the straw helps. The straw is just balanced on the edge of the hole, and the stick is stuck right in.
We have collected about 5 liters so far and are aiming for at least 10, but just as much as we can get really. Our plans so far are 5 liters for wine and 5 liters for beer.