I always have to do a second base reaction after doing AE, is that because I'm not using enough KOH to counter the acid left over from AE?

Could be, can you give some more specifics? How much KOH, methonal?

Yeah, we would need your recipe to diagnose anything.

heatbeater
-part ofthe problem is the methanol that is carried over from ae to the base stage is contaminated with water created in the ae treatment. to retify this, concider the methanol purity reduced by say 30%, and add that much more for the base process. we end up using slightly more methaol but most of this is recoverable.
-the second part of the problem is spliting up the process, as in 80/20, some fa's are harder to convert that others, I can't remember which ones, but I have sent an email to DR Rex Newkirk director of biofuels at the Canadian International Grain Institute, for further clarification. Any way, the way I understood it was at 80% these fa's aren't kicked hard enough to convert, and the second base stage doesn't always geter done. He said the better way was to go to base stage with the full amount of methoxid + the amount I stated above and process. settle drain then use 10ml methanol and 1gr koh/ ltr of oil and push the reaction further to the right.
-I have followed this proceedure on two batches now, and pass 3/27 @ 62%f after the fist stage, and 5/27 after the second stage. For 3/27, it was suggested that the methanol for this test be kept in the freezer, apparently, doing 3/27 at higher temps results in many samples failing astm for total glycerids. Hope this helps Tom
EDIT error in posting corrected, 1ml methanol/ltr changed to 10 ml sorry for any confusion

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