Emulsion, or not converted?

[greasemonkey]

GM, you'd under dosed the ASM and methanol even for a 100ltr batch

You should be looking at 1500ml ASM with 13.5ltr meth, never start with less than 15% of the batch volume of methoxide.

Your sample looks like a lack of chemicals.

I'd worked out for a 100L batch, using a base of 3.5, then making up 80% of that. Should I have just gone with the total figure, and not reduced it?
Should have done my homework a bit better. I do something a couple of times, think I know what I'm doing, then it comes and bites me.

Many thanks guys. I'll have it back in the reactor soon. Gonna filter down all my liquid first though. I need it for a trip, and will be caught out if it goes pear shaped again.

[greasemonkey]

Update on this.
I have added 140ml of meth/ASM mix to 1 litre of this gloop, in 20ml doses. Good black glyc dropout, but not getting any clearer.
Something went wrong with the radiator heating the reactor, and I couldn't get it over 50C. Basically, it ran low on water, I think.
So I didn't proceed any further.

[Julian]

I wouldn't worry if the bio's not clear at the moment, provided you've got glycerin dropping out you have a reaction.

Try a 3/27 to find out how much of a reaction.  Give the bio a good human centrifuge before testing.

[greasemonkey]

Yeah, I'll test it then and see what it says. It's still thick gloop, but towards the end I think I could see a thin film of bio settling out on the top.
If I can get the heating setup functioning, properly again, I think I'll try a palm batch, being as things are getting warmer.
I'm just wondering how much of an investment to make into the gloop now. I haven't got a huge amount of methanol to risk another 15 litres of so into another failed attempt. Hopefully, come the BBB, I'll pick up some more, which isn't so far away.
I'll persevere with the sample any how, and see what happens.
Cheers.

[Julian]

Oh, you didn't say the bio was still gloopy!

The normal progression from oil is to turn thick and soapy, then go clear and very runny (can be very clear) but not drop glycerin, then go cloudy whilst staying runny and starting to drop glycerin.

You are doing these tests at circa 65°C, aren't you?

Despite it dropping or appearing to drop glycerin, try adding more methoxide and see it you can get it to the  runny stage.

Of you are short of ingredients, half fill a jam jar with your gloop and grossly overdose it with methoxide ... it should prove the batch is recoverable.  Then you can slowly dose the main batch bit by bit until it converts.

[greasemonkey]

This is odd stuff, it never seems to go clear, I've had it over 65, and it's still gloopy.
The batch in the reactor dropped another load of very thin glyc, and the stuff on top was thicker than the glyc, despite not having put in any chems.
I'll severely overdose, as you suggest.