-
So I finally had a chance to taste the syrups on waffles and I think I need to heat them up to help the sugar sands precipitate out. The maple syrup had a mineral flavor, sort of like those vitamins your mother used to give you as a kid. The birch syrup had a fruity flavor, however the initial overwhelming flavor was metallic. The interior of the machine was plastic and enamel so I know it wasn't from that. Although the birch syrup seems more acid than maple and can probably pick up metal ions more easily.
-
So now the questions are how much heat and how to apply it. If you heat it with hot metal you'll caramelize the sugars on the metal. If you heat it with an intermediate liquid through a heat exchanger (double boiler), you can stay below the critical temps, but will that cause the bad tastes to precipitate out? Interesting experiment.
-
I'll probably do some kind of makeshift double boiler setup.
-
How many CFM was your vacuum? How many inches of Hg were you able to maintain during this process?