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Ed,
The substance probably is
soap. I've found that I can minimize soap formation by careful titration and by
excluding water from the reaction: fresh methanol and lye, and check WVO for
water. See JtF "Removing Water". The question is, why didn't the
soap form during the first wash? I don't
know. I've had an emulsion form on the second wash, not the first.
It turned out that the BD was the product of an
incomplete reaction.
You use the blender for
processing, not for washing, correct?
You shake the BD with
clean water in the canning jars in order to wash it.
This should be fine. After
all, it is a good idea to do a "shake test" on a sample of BD before washing the
batch ... sort of a preliminary quality test. You should get clear
separation of BD (top) and water within 30 minutes.
As for scaling up to 30 gal
batches:
My advise is to scale up
slowly. Quality test your BD at each upscale. (JtF "Quality Tests": Reprocess a
1L batch - look for glycerine falling out. Dissolve 25ml BD in 225ml methanol
... undissolved residue = contaminants)
I went from 1 & 2L
test batches to a small 15L processor and all went fine. When I bumped up to a
30gal batch I got incomplete reactions and the emulsions during wash that can go
with it. The washed and dried BD looked great, but produced more glycerine when
a sample was reprocessed.
Following advice from
Keith Addison I scaled down the volume of the batches, increased temp. a few
degrees, and increased processing time. It is often necessay to tweak the
process as you scale up. It is much easier to wash good quality BD. It takes
less time and is less expensive to process it right the first time than to have
to reprocess a batch.
Good Luck
Tom
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