Gloop

[maverick_sr71 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close maverick_sr71]

I made Gloop. Yes my first failure.

Was playing with water washing and ended up with Mayo. Now I have it out of the wash tank and in 25ltr tins to dry.

All I need now is a couple of hot days to dry it out and it should be good again. Looks like water washing is not for me, wonder what I can experiment with next.

[pangit Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close pangit]

Re: Gloop

How did you wash it? I always water wash and have only had (minor) emulsions once or twice, always from over agitation on the first wash.

I use a gentle mist wash, using 4 garden misting heads connected along a hose.

Another way to avoid emulsions is to heat up the bio/water, as emulsion does not form at higher temps. I don't bother as my misting set up works well.

[maverick_sr71 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close maverick_sr71]

Re: Gloop

I simply put 27ltrs of water into the wash tank (trickled down the side as I had 90% dry air washed bio already in) and turned on my aquarium pumps. Next day I had gloop.

I'm not that worried as it was just an experiment to see if I could use water to do the final wash of my bio, I'll just go back to dry air washing to the finished product.

Water seams to add complexity to an otherwise simple process.

[pangit Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close pangit]

Re: Gloop

Yes that's why I've never liked bubble washing. Mist washing works well although it uses more water.

But I agree I would like to do away with water washing altogether. The trouble is I've never managed to get sparkling clear bio without it.

[geewizztoo Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close geewizztoo]

Re: Gloop

Hi Maverick,

Did you decant the dry air washed bio into another container or was it left in the same container?

If it was left in the same conatiner, there will have been significant fall out of glycerine following air drying. Adding water to this and aggitating with bubbles will give you the result you described.

You can use water following air drying, but give it a gentle stir (just a few revolutions only) to dissolve the glycerine into the water, then drain. It'll be a brown/grey colour. The subsequent water washes can be increasingly more aggressive.

To break your current emulsion, you can try heat or add a little weak acid like vinegar.

[maverick_sr71 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close maverick_sr71]

Re: Gloop

Thanks Geewizztoo. I had drained the glys from the wash tank before adding the water, though a small amount may have still been on the bottom.

At the moment I'm happy for father time and the sun to sort out the mess, if it does't start to dreak in a few weeks I might look at the vinegar.

[hdj80 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close hdj80]

Re: Gloop

OK so are you going to give it another go? :-)

Mav as you know I made Bio with NaOH for months water washing, I never had what you are explaining as gloop but occasionally and usually in winter when the bio/water was coldest I had to spray wash heaps and continually drain off very milky water and then with the aid of the aquarium heater the bio would eventually clear and come good.
I suspect the problem you had was that there was a lot of glycerol still in the bio and when you added water she just soaped up, which I thought the pre wash was suppose to help to get rid of? If I remember correctly the one and only time I tried 5% Prewash I had a tough job washing also, a lot of water and heat used, but cleared fine and I had good bio (as I always do) but a lot of buggering around...

NB: when water washing I found that it took approx 5-7 days of bubble washing and 100litres water to wash 100litres bio and 30degC heat.


When bubble washing with water you have to be careful not to be to rough a gentle bubble is better, also a couple spray washes first up are a must in winter and with very soapy bio... Heat is the answer to most of these sorts of issues in fact I have a pipe here with a jug element in the end of it that you could have that will heat things up in a hurry.

[maverick_sr71 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close maverick_sr71]

Re: Gloop

Nah, lost interest in the water wash, to inefficient and to hard compared to dry air wash.

I didn't pre wash this one, but the one before did a 10% pre wash and it came out real good and was washed and clear with just 48 hrs dry bubble wash.

I'm going to continue with the pre wash until I get back into Meth recovery.

[RODEONICK Too Busy To Bio. Find all posts View Profile Close RODEONICK]

Re: Gloop

I started with NaOh bio making and dry powder washing (See oily's posts) When i used up the naoh i brought the KOH. it does seem better but way more expensive per litre of bio.. I have powder washed a few of these fine as usual then i tryed the 5% prewash and powderwash same same except the powder seemed too good afterwards. I think the 5% prewash is a godsend. lately I have been just 5% prewashing and then bubble washing for about 2 days and geting an amazingly good brew.

how are we all bubbling our brews????

[hdj80 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close hdj80]

Re: Gloop

how are we all bubbling our brews????

I have been dry bubble washing now for over a year, after methanol recovery.
I am really happy with it as I get excellent bio after 2 days, go to whoa.

[maverick_sr71 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close maverick_sr71]

Re: Gloop

..........KOH. it does seem better but way more expensive per litre of bio.

What were you making a litre of bio for using NaoH and what was it costing when you switched to KOH?

With KOH and no meth recovery I get about $0.32/ltr and that includes all electricity used from start to finish of process. If I took electricity out of the mix it would be about $0.24/ltr.

[RODEONICK Too Busy To Bio. Find all posts View Profile Close RODEONICK]

Re: Gloop

to be honest i've never really done the maths. i only brought 5kg of NaOH for $17 so i dont know how much 25kg is??? anyone???
NaOH base 5g + 4g titration= 9 g per litre 25kg=$??????
KOH base 7.8g + 8g titration= 15.8g per litre 25kg=$75

this bubbling does seem too good to be true.

[hdj80 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close hdj80]

Re: Gloop

this bubbling does seem too good to be true.

You are right it does seem to good to be true and I cannot understand why anyone would bother making bio any other way....

I recover my methanol from glycerol free bio and then bubble it for 24hrs and it is ready to go....

If you do not recover the methanol you will need to bubble up to 5 days. The idea is remove the methanol and nothing stays in the bio,,, it all drops to the bottom where you remove it via a bottom drain... I always have about 15-20litres bio in my washtank as I drain from aprox 100mm from the bottom to my storage tank...

Bio Plant

The only water that is ever used in my process is testing that the wash is complete and washing my hands.... I recover approx 25-30% methanol as a bonus... but also limits the amount of methanol dispersed into the atmosphere.

As I said I have been making bio this way for over 12mths and it is loosely based on the GL process but Graham's method requires you to use your mixing pump and a venturi and then spray's the bio where I only bubble..... My method is much safer/cheaper with less chance of a mess....

[pangit Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close pangit]

Re: Gloop

HDJ I tried dry washing previously in the manner you described but I could never get sparkling clear bio at the end, so I went back to water washing.

Does yours go completely clear? Can you elaborate on how you do it, or is it simply a case of bubbling for 5 days (assuming no meth recovery). Would it help with a fan blowing over the top to speed up the evaporation?

[RODEONICK Too Busy To Bio. Find all posts View Profile Close RODEONICK]

Re: Gloop

sean i have a 44 with no lid and one fish bubbler about 3 inches off the bottom. 48 hours bubbling the 140 litres and it clear as (can read newspaper through). give it another go if it doesn't work you can still water wash it after.