I was able to make the first step 140 degrees F. and drain off the glycol, but when I tried the first gental water wash, I ended up with 3 layers in the bottle, not two.
What are the three layers, and were they expected?
Is there another step in this process, or do I start over with a lower temp?
Attached is a photo of the results.
Thanks for your help in advance,
Bioclara

First_wash_results.JPG (477 Kb, 77 downloads) Photo of results inzip form

I am by no means an expert and I currently have my own wash problems. If you mean you heated the oil to 140 F I don't think that is hot enough to get the water out of the oil and that is your third layer. We heated our oil to 275F because water boils at 212F and waited until it quit popping to turn off the burner. We were also heating 3 gallons. The Dr. Pepper method says to heat to 120C which is about 250F. Hope this helps. 4020FarmBoy

Thanks for the reply. I suspect it is water that makes up the third layer. You might be right about the tepoature to heat the oil to, but I was using new canola, which the "Kitchen Biodiesel" site suggests heating to 140F. It also warns that methanol boils at 148F, so adding the oil at too high a temp may be a problem.

Is there another site that suggests higher temp for unused oil?

There is the "Dr. Pepper Technique" which I used and it can be found at this link http://www.biodieselcommunity.org/makingasmallbatch/ This technique utilizes new or waste oil. You do not add the methoxide until after the oil has cooled from being heated to boil off any water. New oil should not have water in it but it recommends heating to 55C (135F). If you take the oil to 212F or higher and it spits and pops my guess would be that there is water in the new oil. After that I'm not sure as I said before I'm no expert. Hope this helps. 4020FarmBoy