I am distilling my first batch of glyceron, I have approx 100 gals to do but am wondering how long should I distill it before I would consider that I have gotten all I can? I also am concerned that all the methonal is gone for soap making. I am doing 4.5 gals per batch by the way and have been running it at 160F.

Hey Greaseburger,
There are two things that you use to determine when to shut it down:
First when the flow of methanol from the condenser slows to a point that you aren't getting enough to justify the energy input or...

When the temp of the fluid gets to a point that you are concerned about damaging your equipment.

If you don't get a real good recovery before you have to turn off the still then you can leave your glycerin out with the top off the bucket and stir it occasionally to let the rest evaporate.

You can also use air injection to get a complete recovery and wont have to heat to glycerin to more than 200F.

What kind of setup do you have??

-mcguyver

It's a small still similar to Legal eagles made from a 20 gal well presure tank, it also still has the schrader valve on the side so adding some air to it would be easy, how much air pressure would you add?

mcguyver when you say air injection do you mean directly into the glyceron or just pressurizing the vessel? I can easily add some air to the vessel but would have to do some thinking if you need to add air directly to the glyceron.

Hey Greaseburger,
I add the air directly through the drain on my still. I turn the regulator all the way down then slow turn it back on until I can hear the air is coming in and it sounds somewhat like a "steady" flow. There really shouldn't be any pressure build up in your tank. This will cause the temp that methanol will boil to rise. You shouldn't push it so hard that you smell methanol because it is not condensing. Another way of describing it, when I look at the output of my condenser I can see a distinct increase in the flow of methanol but it doesn't look like it being "pushed" by air pressure. It just looks like an unusually good methanol flow.

In addition to caring the methanol out, the air also agitates the glycerin making helping to liberate the last bit if methanol. It's a way for me to not expose my pump to extreme temps.

By the time my glycerin reaches a temp of 200F I turn off the heat and continue the air. Even though the heat is off it will continue flowing methanol.

I have several batches under my belt and doing it this way is significantly faster than traditional methods. You should have two collection vessels so you can switch when the temp gets to around 170F. That's when my set up starts to see a drop in the purity. Your may differ but will most likely be similar.


If you have a twenty gallon tank you should be able to distill more than 4.5 gallons I would think. If you’re having some problems with the glycerin bubbling up and out through the condenser here is a simple solution. Take a 20" or so length of 3/4" or 1" iron pipe. Put a reducer or what ever you need to screw the pipe into the top of your still. Force a loose ball of household screen (metal not fiberglass) down to the bottom of the pipe. Fill the pipe with some sort of loose packing material. Broken automotive glass works well and is cheap. Go around the junk yard and collect it from various wrecks. On the top of the pipe install a 90 degree fitting and attach a copper line from the 90 degree fitting to your condenser. Don't insulate the pipe in any way and if you can run your condenser water supply around the pipe (such as copper tubing wrapped around the top 1/3 of the pipe would work great) this will increase it effectiveness. This is a make shift fractioning column but that's not the main benefit for you. You can build this for just a few dollars and it will allow you to distill much more glycerin at a time. Probably along the lines of 15 gallons or perhaps a bit more. As the glycerin bubbles up it gets to the screen at the bottom of the 3/4 inch pipe and the glycerin gets washed back off the screen by the reflux of methanol running back down the column. This does help to purify the methanol for the first half or so of the recovery but not by a great deal. You may notice a percentage or two. Just being able to put more glycerin in at a time is a big plus. You have to make all the same efforts for 4 gallons might as well get 15 gallons.

Just a thought.


-mcguyver