Black Walnut Sap

Last night I decided to burn some brush that I have collected over the past year. I lit a fire and it took off quickly. I had a lot of small branches from my bridal veil bush, my crab apple trees, and various branches that fall down where I want to mow. In order to keep the small branches burning I weighed them down with a huge black walnut log. This photo is the black walnut log. The fire is red on the right side of the log. The black oval is the cut from the chain saw. The yellow bubbling fluid coming out of the log is walnut sap. There was a lot of sap coming out from beneath the bark of this black walnut log. I have read that you can tap black walnut trees and make syrup. Black walnut sap contains a lot of pectin so this can be a problem because the pectin will clog up the tubes and make it hard to filter. Am I sure I would like to taste black walnut syrup? Not really. I have seen what black walnuts have done to my skin when I harvested the nuts. My hands, even though I was wearing latex gloves over rubber gloves, turned a nasty shade of brown for two weeks.