I built a GL plumbers delight type condensor and plumbed it into my appleseed. Made an 80 liter batch of BD and after it processed I turned the pump off, turned the heater back on and opened the valve to my condensor.

What I got was a liter of brown liquid that had what looked like a layer of glycerol on the bottom. The top layer was much darker than the BD I usually make. Even after settling for a couple of days it is still pretty dark.

What on earth do I have? Can glycerol vaporize and then condense? Is it methanol and glycerol?

dt

Hi ctbioman

Where on the processor have you got the condenser?

Is it at the very top?

Sounds like you are getting the biodiesel and glycerol through into your condenser.

Could the pump be splashing biodiesel into the condenser's inlet?

The condenser is plumbed to the top of the processor. Pump is off when I open the condenser valve, heater is on. This is done immediately after processing so the glycerol has not settled out of the BD.

I might be able to attribute the brown color to the new copper pipes but I can't figure out why the layer of glycerol (if in fact that is what it is)

Diagnosis without first hand observation is always a bit dicey.

Having said that...

I'm going to bet that you heat your processor/still with a water heater element that is operated at full voltage, eg a 120 Volt element run on 120V.

The reason I suspect this, is that at full voltage, you will get local burning of the oil and the byproduct, which causes some smoke, which would happily condense in your condensor and cause exactly what you describe. If this is the case, you need to switch to a 220V element, run on 120V, which dramatically reduces the watt density and eliminates the burning/smoking issue. It will also reduce the effective wattage by 75%, so you need a big one, or even two, to make up the difference in heating capability.

Just a guess.

troy