I am relatively new to biodiesl production, so some things that are obvious to others sometimes evades me.

If I am pre-treating my WVO with my previous batch of glycerine, won't that recycle some methanol without distilling it? So far I have been able to reduce my methanol input for the final reaction to 18% and plan to experiment with lower rates. Plus I get the added value of reduced titrations.

There may be some small amount of methanol going into the wvo. We think the biodiesel in the raw glycerin is released during the treatment. If that's so, then it could take some methanol along with it. WVO and methanol repel each other like oil and water. Biodiesel and methanol will dissolve in each other.

Thanks Rick. That makes sense to me. Is it possible that smaller impurities in the WVO may be attracting and retaining some methanol?

I recently did an experiment in which I added I mixed 10ml MeOH, 20ml pure glycerol, and 70 ml methyl oleate and allowed to settle. 7.5 ml of the alcohol wound up in the glycerol phase. I then added .25 gram KOH, decanted the oleate and added 60 ml of canola and heated to 55C. It reacted very nicely. So, it is possible to recapture much of the excess alcohol from the glycerol phase.

Thanks Duhawki:
It makes sense to me. I have reduced my methanol to 18% and have not failed the 27/3 test so far. I keep trying to build the courage to go down to 16% as one guy who posts on another forum always uses 16%. I am also running some air pressure on the mixing/settling tank to keep as much methanol in solution as possible.