This is a serious question from someone engaged in evaporating large quantities of water to turn sap into syrup at this time of year.
Probably some background will help. When sap boils vigorously it creates quite a bit of foam, which will overflow the evaporator (incidentally filling the building with a pleasing maple caramel smell as it burns on the side of the evaporator). When the foam gets too high we touch it with a bit of lard and the foam level drops (surface tension – I know). However, it is tempting for me to give a good swipe so that the foam almost disappears (instead of just dropping). The old-timers however contend that I should just reduce the foam to the point where it isn't overflowing any more. They say that it will take longer to boil away the water if I eliminate the foam.
I fail to see how the foam will improve evaporation (although it seems to me that it might slow it down).
Edit: by request ( @georg ) , a link to the evaporator in question https://sites.google.com/site/lindsayssugarbush/_/rsrc/1240515239201/Home/2005-03-30–12-25-21.jpg
Best Answer
It could go either way. If you are heating the liquid to the boiling point, then the foam will not limit boiling (unless it raises the pressure), but will limit convection/advection of air near the surface. Note that latent heat of water vapor is not the only method of heat loss from your pot. If air advects/convects over the surface, you are also heating air molecules. Also some heat is being lost by the surface via thermal radiation (probably roughly a kilowatt per meter squared). So the bubbles provide insulation, so that the heat loses other than into latent heat of water vapor are reduced..
But, if it is not actually boiling, but the temperature is controlled to be some value below boiling, then it loses water via evaporation, and that requires fluid to flow to and away from the surface, and the foam would seriously inhibit that.