Recent Posts

41

Chatter / Re: End of an era!

« Last post by Mr Tickle on January 23, 2025, 10:29:37 AM »

I also brewed all of my oil to make my final 1000l store last year and gave up. It;s nice not to have to get all sticky !
Got an Electric car and its great.
Whether we like it or not it does look like we will all be driving something electric at some point in the future.
The toddlers of today will probably never drive an ICE car and will move straight to electric and be shocked at how us oldies used to drive those antiquated machines.

Not sure how many Brewers are left now can;t be more than a few hundred in the uk I would have thought.

Good luck to all the remaining brewers out there, I'm sure the Labour gov. will find a way of stopping you avoiding paying tax!

42

Chemistry and process / Re: Enhanced glyc processing

« Last post by countrypaul on January 22, 2025, 10:58:42 PM »

If the oil is wet and you are treating it with caustic you are very likely to produce mono and di-glycerides as well as soap. The mono and diglycerides are very good emulsifiers which can result water/oil/soap being much less likely to seperate quickly.

Drying the oil with old glyc could well help - it might be worthwhile trying some Dr Pepper experiments to see.

43

Chatter / Re: End of an era!

« Last post by dgs on January 22, 2025, 02:09:49 PM »

Shame Nige, hope you find someone for your gear.

44

Chemistry and process / Re: Enhanced glyc processing

« Last post by dgs on January 22, 2025, 02:07:48 PM »

Hi Dave, when I first tried this method I wanted to start my 1st stage with oil that had no titration.  (simply because I could never see the point of adding methanol and excess catalyst into the mix to produce water and soap)  So I always added enough catalyst to make sure the oil showed 'alkaline' before processing.

Of course if the oil is wet the addition of extra catalyst may be required to compensate for an amount being used to produce soap, in which case your idea of drying the oil before the enhanced wash with already used glycerol may be a good idea.

Just bear in mind that if you are using heat the use of excess electric may be counter productive because of the cost.

I can't ever remember that using the method the glycerol was slower to settle, as you say it could be excess soaps.

Hope this helps, let us know, cheers.

45

Chatter / Re: End of an era!

« Last post by Vijay on January 21, 2025, 08:29:48 AM »

another great brewer comes to an end oh their bio time - sad days!

46

Chatter / End of an era!

« Last post by nigelb on January 20, 2025, 08:33:56 PM »

The time has come gents to hang up my gauntlets and shut the plant down one last time. I've been brewing since 2007 but now it must come to an end.
I only have one car..Carole's Polo.... that is bio compatible. She doesnt do the mileage to warrant me spending time in the shed  doing "oil alchemy"
I'm currently drying my penultimate batch and the reactor is charged with my final 150lts.

My plant is available to anybody who wants it...free of charge. It comes with all the usual stuff..venturis, pumps, two stage eductor, filters and some spare bits I've accumulated over the years.

It's been a real blast to be part of this comunity andI've made some really good friends.

47

Chemistry and process / Re: Enhanced glyc processing

« Last post by Davedewhurst on January 20, 2025, 07:57:21 PM »

Q4 is why does the enhanced glyc not settle completely - only around 30 to 50% of it settles out.
Is this due to soaps being present?
I think I can dry the oil by using old old glyc before the main enhanced glyc wash but is there any other ways to sort the soaps out and/or get it to settle more fully?

48

Chemistry and process / Enhanced glyc processing

« Last post by Davedewhurst on January 20, 2025, 07:03:12 PM »

Hi everyone!
Just made another 650l batch of delicious golden nectar
I'm having success with the enhanced glyc washing  - think I got a 97% yield!
a few Qs tho for those more knowledgeable if you don't mind....

1. Is there any benefit to glyc washing in stages other than that the space left in the processor might not take all the glyc at once?
I have about 100L of old, already washed glyc plus about 100L of glyc from the last batch.
If I do the pre-wash in 2 stages and then do the main glyc wash (enhanced) also in 2 stages then that's 4 stages.
I'm thinking if I can get that down to 3 or even 2 stages then I'll save loads of faff but I wanna check if there's any benefit to doing glyc washing more gradually?

2. My methanol stays in the already-washed-with glyc due to it being in cubies but the methanol evaporates off the last-batch-glyc so my question is:
Is there any benefit to methanol not being present or should I top it back up by adding say 15L of methanol to the 100l glyc? (Enhanced glyc washing advice is to add minimal methanol but this is assuming the glyc already contains like 15% methanol)

3. I'm reading that one enhances with 1g/L of KoH for every titration point over 3 and that I should expect a neutral titration after a full enhanced glyc wash.
But I keep getting around 2 or 3 after enhancing with about 1g/L at a titration of 4.75 to 5.5
Should I be adding more KoH to bring this down to 0 or 1?

Many thanks good people!
Hope all are well

Dave

49

Oil coarse filtering, settling, drying and storage / Re: veg filtering rigs

« Last post by Vijay on January 13, 2025, 12:12:53 PM »

oops lol

50

Oil coarse filtering, settling, drying and storage / Re: veg filtering rigs

« Last post by RichardP on January 09, 2025, 09:48:55 PM »

Those controllers are good, Mine have an led display to show the voltage so you can guage how much you have to play with, never had a problem with them

I don't know about nylon cock filters, sock filters would be fine for your needs though lol.