Hi, everyone - I have an odd requirement. I'm starting a dairy, and need to run a pasteurizer every day or two. I have 60 acres of forest - more wood than I can ever use.
I also, of course, have other needs:
- domestic hot water
- in-floor heat for the cheese-make room (room is basically 9x21, though it's narrower at one end)
- possible implementation of under-floor heat in the old house (currently heated via efficient fireplace insert i put in a year ago, or in-wall electric heaters, which I hope to never turn on again). Some portions of the house are not well-served by the fireplace insert. House is ~1000 sq ft in size, not currently insulated at all (lots of work to do here). This house will ultimately be office / food prep space; "the" house will be straw bale / timber frame / cob,and will be too far away to be served by anything I put in place here.
I've been thinking I would put in a wood boiler (I like the Froling but haven't priced anything yet) and a big thermal store, and either dip into that with exchange coils or with circulating the water directly, as makes sense, for the different applications. I need to build a shed for all this, and wood storage, and some other equipment (compressors / pumps for the milking equipment, etc.)
The pasteurizer is a stainless steel vessel that has a jacket. Water of different temperatures is circulated to heat, then chill, the milk inside the vessel. The pasteurizer need to bring the milk up to 145 degrees for 30 minutes, then I'll circulate chilled water to quickly get it back to a cooler temperature for the next step.
My pasteurizer person is asking for incoming hot water temperature to be ~180.
I'm working with a contractor for the pasteurizer construction (taking a used restaurant steam kettle and making it into a pasteurizer); he looked at my energy system design. I had put in there that I ballparked 50k for PV array, etc. He read that as 50k for the boiler implementation. He thought that should cover it.
But if I need to spend 50k to figure out how to burn wood to heat water for the pasteurizer (the other uses are ancillary to the base requirement), then I have the wrong design.
Thoughts? I know I haven't provided enough info, but the operation doesn't exist yet and it's a bit difficult to guess...
I also, of course, have other needs:
- domestic hot water
- in-floor heat for the cheese-make room (room is basically 9x21, though it's narrower at one end)
- possible implementation of under-floor heat in the old house (currently heated via efficient fireplace insert i put in a year ago, or in-wall electric heaters, which I hope to never turn on again). Some portions of the house are not well-served by the fireplace insert. House is ~1000 sq ft in size, not currently insulated at all (lots of work to do here). This house will ultimately be office / food prep space; "the" house will be straw bale / timber frame / cob,and will be too far away to be served by anything I put in place here.
I've been thinking I would put in a wood boiler (I like the Froling but haven't priced anything yet) and a big thermal store, and either dip into that with exchange coils or with circulating the water directly, as makes sense, for the different applications. I need to build a shed for all this, and wood storage, and some other equipment (compressors / pumps for the milking equipment, etc.)
The pasteurizer is a stainless steel vessel that has a jacket. Water of different temperatures is circulated to heat, then chill, the milk inside the vessel. The pasteurizer need to bring the milk up to 145 degrees for 30 minutes, then I'll circulate chilled water to quickly get it back to a cooler temperature for the next step.
My pasteurizer person is asking for incoming hot water temperature to be ~180.
I'm working with a contractor for the pasteurizer construction (taking a used restaurant steam kettle and making it into a pasteurizer); he looked at my energy system design. I had put in there that I ballparked 50k for PV array, etc. He read that as 50k for the boiler implementation. He thought that should cover it.
But if I need to spend 50k to figure out how to burn wood to heat water for the pasteurizer (the other uses are ancillary to the base requirement), then I have the wrong design.
Thoughts? I know I haven't provided enough info, but the operation doesn't exist yet and it's a bit difficult to guess...