As a wrinkly, I guess time is not very important but my efforts up to the present are terribly time consuming for what seems to be little result.
I seem to spend hours each day sitting in front of my computer searching for answers to my problems and although the forum is fantastic it can sometimes be fairly daunting to an old bugger who is not very computer savvy.
Help please.
How soon after treatment can I drain off the by-product? I am using NaOH but I find that if I leave it overnight it solidifies to some extent and does not run too freely. If I try and recover the glicerines while the tank is still warm, I drain off quite a bit of oil. I do not have a conical bottom on my reactor, I am using a Gas cylinder.
My other problem (well, one of them) is that I have a batch that has been bubbling away for three days as part of the "drying process" but I am not sure I know when to stop.No good saying put it in the sun to dry it off because the sun is not very co-operative at this time of the year.
I am not about to give up, but I am feeling frustrated and would appreciate some guidance.
Stay tuned for further dramas!
Thanks,
Drover

I've not been in the game all that long (12 months) but will try to answer your questions.

With respects to draining off the glycerol, some here are leaving it only a couple of hours (2-3), others over night. If you capture 300-400ml of reacted product at the end of the process in a jar you can let it sit and watch the separation of the glycerol and bio. The sooner you remove the glycerol and start washing the bio the more glycerol you will get drop out of the bio. The general consensus, as I have read, is to leave it over night. NaOH will produce a thicker, even solid glycerol and as you seem to be using a sealed reactor you would perhaps be better off going to KOH as the glycerol produced by it remains a liquid when cool.

I dry bubble wash my bio also. I have found that it can take 3 - 5 days to wash, this is with an aquarium heater in the bio keeping it warm (36 deg C). Washing cold bio takes forever in my books. There are two ways I test my bio to determine if it is washed. The first is to put about 100ml of bio in a jar with about 100ml of water. Give this a good shake and let sit (called the shake 'm up test). The water and bio should separate and the water should be clear, not milky or hazy. I find in winter I have tom use warm water with the warm bio. The other test I do is to put about 300ml of bio into a clear glass jar, put some newspaper behind it and if you can read the small print of the newspaper through the bio it passes the second test. Finally I then filter the bio into a drum and let it sit for 2-3 weeks before I use it. This allows any further glycerol to fall out of the bio if present, rarely is any.

In my opinion, if you change from NaOH to KOH you will eliminate your first problem and from the sounds of it if you add an aquarium heater to your wash tank you will get your bio washed much quicker.

There are extensive write ups on all of this on the forum.

Now I'm sure if I have miss informed you on any of this the other, more knowledgeable guys, will jump in and help out.

Good Luck.

__________________
Maverick
Canberra