Sam Clayton wrote:

When they make Maple syrup they boil off the water in order to concentrate the
sugars in the sap. The question is: Could you save money by setting up a vacuum
to lower the boiling point? Would seem that with a lot less heat you could just
vacuum the steam away. Would it work and would it be worth doing?



This is done with tomato paste and similar products that have a tendency
to burn or discolor/disflavor as temperatures rise above boiling when
the sugars and pulp concentrate. It doesn't really save on energy, just
improves product quality.

As someone said, evaporated milk is done in a similar manner also. I'm
not sure that there would be any benefit to doing maple syrup this way
on a small or even commercial scale.

There is also a process of spray drying in a vacuum to extract the
powder form of the product which is then often re-hydrated with
controlled amounts of water to improve consistency. I believe that
there are products similar to maple syrup which are done this way as it
tends to be fast and cheap to use as a continuous process rather than
"batch" processing.

Koz