Anyone making your own Biodiesel?

I wish I had the equipment and time to do that.

i have been looking into this myself, my buddies father-inlaw bought a fuelmeister system and i am thinking about doing the same.

Here is one I saw on Trucks TV. Kinda pricy but acording to my math is should pay for itself in about 35 batches or 20K miles.
http://www.freedomfuels.net/html/catalog.htm

It could be used as home heating oil as well, which would help it pay for itself much faster IMO.

I make my own bio-gas....how about some beans! LOL!

JackedDak03 said:

It could be used as home heating oil as well, which would help it pay for itself much faster IMO.

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Cool!!! never thought of that. I have never seen a house around here with an oil heater. Its either Nat. Gas or Propane here in oil country.

EEEK that was post 666!!!! had to make another post real quick!!!

Agreed. The Fuelmeister is WAY overpriced and really is a POS. Stay away from poly tanks, trust me, they melt. Having a garage floor with oil all over it sucks. Build your self an Appleseed processor. Their easy and cheap to make, and you will yield enough from each batch to fill your tank.

^^^^ what he said ^^^^

^^^^ what he said
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y'all feel free to contact me if you need info and advice. :rck:

DodgeThis_AZ said:

Build your self an Appleseed processor.

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Where can you find plans for one?

Here http://biodieselcommunity.org/appleseedprocessor/ lots of info and links at this site.

NSXTASY said:

I am part of a co-op and brewing my own. I would recommend against anything that does not use stainless steel for the reactor. Fuelmeister's are overpriced fire accidents waiting to happen.

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WOW... what's amazing is that these companies are actually selling these knowing what the potential outcomes are.
A year or so ago, on the news, there was a report of a foridian lady who made her own using old water heater tanks. Said she was having great results with it.
Imagine that, using junk to process something that it was never intended for, to killing yourself using a product as it was intended.
I'm still very much interested in making my own...not completely scared away.

bad munky said:

A year or so ago, on the news, there was a report of a foridian lady who made her own using old water heater tanks. Said she was having great results with it.
Imagine that, using junk to process something that it was never intended for, to killing yourself using a product as it was intended.
I'm still very much interested in making my own...not completely scared away.

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I know many folks and personally too am using an old water heater tank to make biodiesel. It's actually one of the safest designs out there (the "appleseed") since it's a closed vessel, with a pressure relief valve opening at 150 psi, designed to withstand 300 psi. Water heaters are actually overkills since the pressure never exceeds 5 psi, the temperature (140F) stays well below the normal operational temperature for water heaters (175F) and oil which fills those for biodiesel has a much higher boiling point (>400F) than water. Now, I agree on the "junk" part, iI would only recommend getting a nice one in perfect operating condition.

Yeah, I didn't realize that what I had stated about that woman was actually the appleseed design. I didn't click on nickbeets' link until after I had made that post.
That's the design I would like to start off with. Thank you...especially for the safety confirmation.

bad munky said:

Thank you...especially for the safety confirmation.

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you are welcome. The appleseed design is not fool-proof, I know as many as 10 near-misses that have occured, but none was catastrophic, nor resulted in any injury. So even these, require attention and someone knowing what they do and what could happen if they are not careful. But they are what I consider, one of the safest designs out there.

I see

Are most of you buying new vegetable oil (and if so where and how much) or are you scavenging used cooking oil?

Unless your buying new oil by the tanker load, its probably going to be to expensive. I use to get all of my oil from restaurants around the valley. Highend restaurants that used good oil. The person that makes my fuel new buys oil from Baker Commodities. Its used, but it comes pretty much filtered of all the big stuff. Only thing is, you don’t really know what hes getting all the time, so theres more work in getting the titration right for each new batch of oil.