I was gathering supplies for my first batch of homebrew, however I ran into a snag almost immediately. In my small hometown, I couldn't find a source of pure lye. All of the drain cleaners available in this town seem to be in liquid form (Sodium Hydroxide plus several other ingredients). Is this a problem elsewhere? I haven't attempted to expand my search to nearby larger cities for the good stuff, but is it still possible to make biodiesel with this liquid form drain cleaner? Thanks for the inputs!

hello
start up is a pain now as you have found out due to no knowen sorces of NaOh Lye exist because it was taken off the market by johnson and Johnson, so your going to have to be scrapy about it and chase down some KOH potassium hydroxid flak, to make your first batch of BD you will need to read upon the use of KOH first, its not that diffacult to use but buying it may be tricky. look for a chemical supplyer in your local area, or Large Cities, shop on line first and then makes some calls and find out if you can even buy it as a private citsen, you may need to be a business owner in some cases, or have a friend who owns a business allow you to use there business name to order the Koh . Good luck Ratski 96 2500 Ram Dodge Cummins Turbo Bio-diesel

Raeobic drain cleaner at Lowes is still 100% NaOH.Soap makers use it too so if you have one of those around they'll be able to get you some lye as well. And then there is The Sticky dedicated to it.

Thank you all for the help! We have a Lowes about 20 miles from here, just wanted to avoid the hassle of ordering it online for my first batch...

Potassium hydroxide is much easier to use for beginners (it dissolves easier and you can't really get 'glop' unless your oil is really bad). You can order small amounts of KOH (potassium Hydroxide) from www.braintan.com (check the 'alkali' link) . It's cheap in a 20 pound bag there but even the smaller ones are affordable enough to get you started.

Mark