Hi ,
Maybe somebody can help me with this query.
I am about to make my first batch of boidiesel from 50 litres of WVO. I have made a few small 1 litre batches from this oil already and everything worked fine. The WVO looked very clean as I took it from the top of the barrel. When I was decanting the whole 50 litres last night I noticed that about 80% of the WVO was really nice looking and looked practically unused, just like the WVO I used for the litre batches. About the last 20% was made up of what I presume to be the animal fats that were in the oil due to whatever was cooked in it.

My question is: do I use this fatty oil as well and just mix it with the very good vegetable oil or do I scrap it as I'm sure it is fully of free fatty acids and hence hard to convert to biodiesel with the simple base stage which I want to use?

Regards,
Dermot

Dermot, you can have no idea about the FFA content of the oil unless you do a titration.

I often made biodiesel from 100% tallow which had a very low FFA content.

My experience in situations like this were that if no water went into the reactor just heat the oil to make sure there is no solid oil remaining, do a titration (Very rare actually in my case) and react.
I never had a failure with it.

Rev Tilly KE

Will do. Thanks for prompt reply.

Regards
Dermot

I make biodiesel using oil and animal fat but have had a couple of bad batches when I didn't make sure to drive off all the moisture which seems to cling to the fat.