We brew our homemade biodiesel from waste vegetable oil in heavy duty plastic 5-gallon buckets. We do this to keep batches small to allow for easy handling and transporting of the finished product.
The first step is to heat the oil to approximately 100 degrees F. We accomplish this by putting the oil in a steel pot and warming it on a camp stove. That does allow us to do this in the basement, keeping all processes concentrated in one area. Be sure not to overheat the oil. If it gets too hot, it will cause secondary ingredients to adversely react. In warmer weather, we skip the stove heating and set buckets of oil in the sun. In just a few hours, they're ready to process. While the oil is heating, we move on to the next steps.
For our normal batch we use 15 liters of vegetable oil.
Wondering where to get used vegetable oil?
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