Fir tips, along with Spruce, Juniper or Pine tips are a fantastic ingredient for cooking, brewing tea, making syrup and also for brewing beer. They offer pine flavours as well as fresh, citrus, sweet and almost candi-like flavours. It’s easy to use Fir or Spruce tips to obtain a fairly unique flavour, and it’s also easy to collect them at the right time of year.
We have almost no Spruce in the area, so I will be mostly referring to Fir (Douglass Fir), as we have an abundance of these nearby. However, the foraging and use of all these conifers is very similar.
In late spring, the tips of conifer trees unfurl into a light green fresh extension to the branch. The new growth is a stunning light green colour, and signifies the fact that summer is finally upon us.
At this time, if the sun sits on the tree for an extended period, and heats up the foliage, then the aromas that come off, are sweet and almost candi-like. It’s these aromas and tastes that we are aiming to capture.
When To Forage For Tips.
The trees form buds at the end of summer, and these buds sit dormant until the next spring. Each variety of tree starts to come to life and open the tips at slightly different times, so it’s good to keep an eye on the tree you want to collect from. You will only get about a week or two, before the tips are fully open, and already starting to darken.
You can see from the pictures above and below, the size and point of development that is ideal for picking.
It’s also important to point out that the tips are the trees only new growth this year, so be careful to choose large trees, and don’t completely strip a tree.
Harvesting the Fir Tips
To harvest the tips, take hold of the light green section and pull. It will pop out of the bud case easily. All we want here is the light green section. The darker foliage can also be used for brewing, but it will be a much more resinous pine flavour, rather than the delicate sweet citrus notes we are looking for.
If I’m not making a large batch of syrup straight away, then I like to package mine in lots of 100 tips. This is usually works out to be between 30-35 grams per 100. The main reason for this is that I use them a lot for beer brewing.
My experience has been that 100 fir tips is a good amount for a single addition to a 5 gallon beer batch, either in the boil, whirlpool or dry hop (dry tip).
However, if it’s not for brewing, then this amount is also quite convenient for making a small amount of syrup for flavouring drinks or cakes etc.
Packaging and storage
In order to keep the tips fresh for extended periods, the best storage is to freeze them. I like to put mine in some cling film (food wrap), and roll them into a ‘sausage’.
These sausages are then grouped together and kept in a sealed zip-lock bag in the deep freeze.
I’ve kept fir tips frozen and fresh for 4 or 5 years, and as long as they don’t thaw at some point, they come out as light green as the day they went in.
For an idea on how to use Fir, Spruce, Juniper or Pine tips in beer, please have a look over at my brewing site Brew and Build, but there are many, many other ways to enjoy this ingredient in your everyday food and drink.