Outdoor wood boiler as heat source for Herms

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brant740

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After All Grain stovetop brewing, I am ready to build my first System. I have 3 Kegs ready to go and I have an outdoor wood boiler.

On my secondary loop for my OWB I was thinking about setting it up as a pressurized loop with saftey valve set to 30psi (water boils at 250 at 30psi) and the Aquastat to 240 degrees. With the Boiler putting out 250 degrees I could then use a heat exchanger (I have a plate and tube in shell hx ready to go) to heat HLT.
 
Why pressurize the loop at all? Why do you need water that is so hot? Water from most outdoor wood boilers is 180F or so. That should be plenty for mashing.
 
Why pressurize the loop at all? Why do you need water that is so hot? Water from most outdoor wood boilers is 180F or so. That should be plenty for mashing.

If it is 250 it can boil water/wort coming in to the hx. I would like the boiler to provide all heat needed for the system. No propane, no electricity.
 
This will be my first system so please let me know if I am missing some thing. Here is what I plan to do.

System will be capable of 2 batches at once.

1 keg mlt and maybe existing cooler mlt

The plate chiller or cfc would act as HLT with 250° boiler water prior to and during boil.

2 kegs as boiling keggles.

When ready to cool wort I will switch boiler water to 55° tap water and recirc to pitching temp.

then transfer to keg for pressurized fermentation. I like the idea of carbing while fermenting to speed up grain to glass process.

Concerns I have are:
1) adding a prefilter to catch hops break and other gunk.
2) will 250° plate scorch wort
3). Will 212-250° plate hx be able to boil wort in a timely fashion. I assume yes as people boiling wort with steam must be around 212.
 
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