Thanks for all the advice. I plan on visiting some local restaurants in the morning. I'm thinking that if I can get as little as 20 gallons a week I'll be set.

Curt

Keep us updated on you progress & good luck.

just an aside for methanol.

I get mine from one of 2 places. The local fuel supplier for propane etc has barrels, last one cost me $214 including tax, but I found another guy that builds race car chassis and he also sells bulk race gas including methanol. You need your own barrel but he is almost always cheaper, this year was $3.10/gal

I just did a fast search in yellow pages using your location listed and it came back with several suppliers of race gas.

Racing Fuel in Thousand Oaks, California with Reviews & Ratings - YP.com

Progress
 

So I brought home my processor yesterday...

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.for...3ab0923ac6.jpg

Got the whole mess, processor, methanol drum, bunch of KOH, filtering stuff, transfer pump setup

https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.for...aeab4128c0.jpg


https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.for...b4298f1598.jpg

I gave $700 for everything. Now doing a bunch of cleaning up of stuff, as the system hasn't been run in about 18 months.
After I got home, we went out for dinner, and before we left I asked the owner about his used oil. Went home with about 25 gallons of oil, and his promise to save more for me. So far so good!

Curt

How are you planning to wash?

The processor has a spray ring thing in the top that hooks to a garden type hose. Idea is to finish the batch, pull off the glycerin, and then spray. Drain off the water, and then off to a bubbler drying tank.
Sound reasonable?

Curt

Fabman and others here convinced me to dry wash. Their argument was that you want to remove water from the biodiesel, so why would you go and add water back into it. Made sense to me...
I did try water wash once, formed an emulsion. Had to de-water and reprocess the whole batch. What a PITA...

Sounds like it should be fine. I water wash and have a separate wash tank. Then I return it to my cleaned processor for heated spray drying. Water washing is more time consuming, but I am confident that my finished fuel is of great quality. One of these days I'll re-configure my set up to do dry washing, but for now, I have a great system and have become quite adept at handling the periodic trouble batch, i.e. excess soap/emulsion. And believe me, you'll run into it on occasion. All it takes is patience and time. Just make sure you do the the tests for conversion, soaps, and moisture, and you'll be good to go.

The competition
 

So I'm out hitting the local restaurants up for their used oil, when I run across THIS:


https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.for...6511afc67b.jpg

They are paying the restaurant owner $.70 a gallon for their oil, according to one manager I spoke with.

I forge on, and got another owner to let me give him a jug and funnel... Says maybe 5 gallons a week. Couple more of those.....

Curt

I would be surprised they would actually pay that much today, especially since the biodiesel tax credit has been phased out. With the recent drop in fuel prices, it's going to be even more difficult for commercial biodiesel producers to make money. And speaking of lower fuel prices, it's also usually the time when many home brewers slow down or drop out of making biodiesel. This is when I ramp up production and can usually find cheap and/or free materials, equipment, and chemicals. I recently bought a couple drums of methanol from a guy quitting biodiesel production for pennies on the dollar. I'm stocking up because fuel prices will go back up again eventually.

Another source for WVO, if you haven't already checked it out, is your local craigslist. Enter 'fryer oil', 'cooking oil', 'vegetable oil', or 'wvo' in the search box. Lately, I've been finding more oil around here almost every week. Good luck!

Progress and question
 

My processor has been completely cleaned and refurbished. I've done pretty well with CL ads and have probably accumulated 150 gallons of oil. I cut the top off a 55 gallon plastic barrel and strained my oil thru 400 then 100 micron barrel strainers. This is my settling tank. This oil looks good and titrates at 3.5.

Recent score:

https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.for...f08f85a071.jpg

For fun I took about a half liter of the oil and tried a micro batch in a mason jar. Using NaOH, I made this:


https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.for...679a1b5e85.jpg

Any idea what the cloudy stuff on the bottom is? I haven't washed this ... Is that the problem? I want to get this right before I make 40 gallons of crap.


Thanks!
Curt

Hard to tell. Likely to be soaps, but it looks like it's moving around in your jar so it's a bit hard to tell. Depending upon temperature, it could also be high melt point esters. I say give it a few washes, dry it, and see what you've got. You've definitely got the right idea doing small batches first. I did about a half dozen or so mini batches before I did my first big batch. It helps a lot to watch how the various stages react and look. Keep posting progress and good luck!

By the way, did you do a 3/27 test for conversion?

Yes, I did the test... Came out perfect.

Curt

Sprayed my micro batch with some warm water...


https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.for...1ad210f468.jpg

Took care of the weird cloudiness. We'll see what it looks like in the morning.

Curt