Enhanced glyc processing

[Davedewhurst]

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

[Davedewhurst]

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?

[dgs]

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.

[countrypaul]

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.