Didn't think of this issue when I made my simple upside down drum reactor. I let the glycerine cool completely and pulled the BD off the top. Problem is my glycerine is hard and my heating element is partially exposed.

I was going to make some soap. Obviously I have not bioled off (not planning to recover at this stage) the methonal. I'm wondering if you think it a good idea for me to add the water to cover the element to get the glycerine warmed up as it does not appear to be a good idea to energize the heating element when it is partially exposed (likely to burn out the element and possibly start a fire.)

Then again... I don't think the recipe even calls for enough water to cover the element.

Total bummer... Has anyone gotten themselves into this situation? I could always put some BD back on top of the glycerine and heat it up a little... draining off the glycerine before it hardens up.

Thoughts?

Bill

I've never seen glycerine harden fast enough for me to not be able to drain it. It's taken mine a few months to turn to a jelly. Is it outside in the cold?

I don't know if heat will melt the glycerine or burn it, but I would do exactly as you say- add water to it. Make soap some other time and you could just use this batch as watered down degreaser.

It's cold... I'm using NaOH. I let it settle over 3 days before trying to drain... my fault. My first batch. Unfortunately I have a 2nd processor and did the same thing with my 2nd batch! I just haven't drained the BD yet.

I think I'll try adding BD and heating it and letting it resettle. Or I might shovel the glycerine out of my 2nd reactor and put it in the first to cover the element.

Live and learn. The water thing sounds OK, but I wanted to make soap with it. Don't know if I'll be able to do that if I add water. Not sure what the methonal would do. Will it stay in the water and make for bad soap? Will it boil off anyway?

Bill

I'm not sure about the whole soap-water-methanol thing, but I have advice on draining...

In the future, you could drain most of the glycerin off after 8 hours. Check it periodically for more glycerin to drain. How often? Maybe once ever 12 hours. There won't be much to drain after the first 8 hours, so it should be ok.

Sorry this doesn't get you out of your current predicament, but I hope someone else has advice for your more immediate needs.

Your original idea is the best one, unless you want to dumpster dip for the glycerine :-).
Just add some BD back into it enough to cover the element and fire it up. You may want to stir it alot as well so the golycerine will all melt at the same time. s soon as it is liquid again drina it off and let the BD re settle to the top.
A caveat though, you will have to be extra careful about heating it as the methanol is going to want to evaporate in the glyerine that comes in contact with the heating element and this can cause health concerns. If you can move the drum oputside up wind from you it would be best, but if not you are going to have to "play" withtthe heat so as to not cause the evaporating of the methanol.
Don't worry about it being hard for soap making, that is actually preferable. If you add water now you will contaminate the methanol if you want to recover it from the glycerine in a still later.

Not sure how much glycerine you've got sitting in there or how hight your element is but you could also drop this in there...

http://www.usahardware.com/inet/shop/item/72220/icn/20-...d_precision/742g.htm

I use one and it's great for dropping into a tank (don't submerge the cord / top junction box). You've got to cover the element though or it'll burn out. ...probably about 10" or so.

I built my reactor, still, drying and dewatering tanks out of steel drums. From what I can gather, you installed your element into one of the bung holes and turned the barrel upside down.

What I did to install hot water heater elements was to weld a 1" black pipe coupler in the side of the drum aproximately 1" from the bottom. That way even as little as 5 gallons of liquid will cover the element. And in a case of solid byproduct or gelled up oil, all I have to do is breifly flip on the heating element to melt everything.

For my reactor I used an open headed drum. I used the 3/4" bung hole for the input and the 2" bung hole for manual filling.

I set the drum, right side up, on some blocks and beat the crap out of the bottom to produce a conical shape. Then I cut a hole at the lowest point and welded a 3 or 4" long piece of black pipe, threaded on one end. Then I screwed a valve to the nipple and I have a valved output point on a conical tank. Being that the top is removeable I can pop it off and clean it out very easily.

Question, how do you feed the oil to your reactors? Via the pump or did you cut the bottom out of the barrel?

One suggestion for the future would be to use KOH for your catalyst instead of NaOH. It stays liquid and besides it's way more forgiving with errors in measurement and small amounts of water in your WVO. It's really worth the extra cost involved.

Wayne

I had that problem when using an open top reactor. I took a bread knife and cut the glycerin into squares and lifted them out one at a time.

Namaste ...... steve

It ended up being easier to scoop it out. Actually it wasn't hard at all. I then combined the glycerine from two reactors into one and it covered my heating element. Although now I have enough soap to last me until God knows when so I'll probably end up composting everything else...

Thanks for all the help

Bill