WVO quality differences discussion

[mdub707]

Ok, so as some have seen I've got my WVO filtration setup good to go. I am filtering some oil for my buddy to test the system out and so he can use good clean oil.

As I spoke with my buddy, I told him to bring his oil out for me to filter, and also look around for some nasty oil, to see how effective the filtering will go. Now in our area we have access to some good oil, and I've also seen some oil that would make a good driveway sealant. So as I thought about this, what is the criteria for oil, and what's the cut off for the worst oil you would personally use. I figured we could start a discussion about this to get some perspectives on this from different users.

I'm going to kick this off with some pictures of the oil my buddy brought me and ask the question "would you even bother with this oil?" As of now I'm leaning towards no, but I'd like to hear your thoughts.

First pic is a pic of the oil in the cubie still. It reminds me of peanut butter, the color. The oil itself is thick and pours slowly. The oil has sat for over one week now and hasn't settled at all. This makes me nervous. I honestly dont even want to pour this into my system and contaminate it all. Now this oil, I'm told... comes from a pizza shop, and from what I've seen so far the pizza places are usually the best around here. This is confusing me. I have roughly 30 gallons of this stuff too.

Here is what it looks like in the jug:



Here is the oil when I tried pouring it through the window screen, which quite obviously will let more through than a 200 micron filter that I will be using from now on. Now you can see there is hardly any oil in the pan in the bottom, so that is how clogged the house screen got after just that little bit of oil going through. Scary! I'd need a lot of screen to get just one jug through.



Now for comparison sake, this is some of the oil that I have collected. The two jugs on the left are ones that I got from a local fair. The far left is what I normally get, dark oil, but the junk settles to the bottom and after filtering it looks good. The jug in the middle is excellent oil and came from a pizza stand. Holding it up to light shows nearly nothing in the oil as far as contamination goes. In a pinch I wouldn't even think twice of dumping this directly into the vegistroke. Obviously if I could filter first I would. Now the jug on the right is the oil in question... You can clearly see it is not the same. It even appears to have stained the jug it's in...



So what is everyones thoughts on this?

[Lonno]

Ditch the peanut butter. That is hideous. I guess I'm pretty lucky, my oil is almost totally water free and very clear. Usually a dark amber color, kinda like the stuff in the middle. Settles very quickly. Like 3/4 days.

[mdub707]

Originally Posted by dlonno

Ditch the peanut butter. That is hideous. I guess I'm pretty lucky, my oil is almost totally water free and very clear. Usually a dark amber color, kinda like the stuff in the middle. Settles very quickly. Like 3/4 days.

Like I said, we've had stuff I'd feel confident redoing my driveway in.

Most of the crappy oil we get is just dark and dirty, this is the first time I've seen anything that looks like this stuff....

any thoughts as to why it looks like this?

Thanks!

[Lonno]

Most restaurants are going longer with their oil since business has been slowing down. My oil is getting a little darker as they use it longer but that stuff looks heavily hydrogenated.

[Lonno]

That might even be shortening.

[AFBLUE]

you need to see what happens to the "peanut butter" when you heat it most of the stuff willl drop out, but I also am lead to believe that its either lard, or fully hydrogenated oil. if you heat it up, then let it settle and cool back to room temp, if you get a separation line its emulsified oil, IE alot of water that has to be dropped out.

whether you think the oil in the center is awesome (which by the way it totally is), you need to be heat settling it to dry the water out or you are going to due damage to your motor.

The jug on the left is most likely "creamy Shortening" which has a percentage of partially hydrogenated oil in it. It will filter but needs to be done heated, and checked for water. If it shows that layer on the bottom again, after filtering, it needs to be used in a heated tank, so its good and warm/hot before you try pumping it with your vegi fuel pump.

[mdub707]

Originally Posted by AFBLUE

you need to see what happens to the "peanut butter" when you heat it most of the stuff willl drop out, but I also am lead to believe that its either lard, or fully hydrogenated oil. if you heat it up, then let it settle and cool back to room temp, if you get a separation line its emulsified oil, IE alot of water that has to be dropped out.

whether you think the oil in the center is awesome (which by the way it totally is), you need to be heat settling it to dry the water out or you are going to due damage to your motor.

The jug on the left is most likely "creamy Shortening" which has a percentage of partially hydrogenated oil in it. It will filter but needs to be done heated, and checked for water. If it shows that layer on the bottom again, after filtering, it needs to be used in a heated tank, so its good and warm/hot before you try pumping it with your vegi fuel pump.

I'm not sure I want to even put that peanut butter looking stuff into my setup. Once I dump it in, it's going to blend with the bottom 5 or so gallons in the holding tank, and I dont know if I want to do that.

The oil in the center is really good oil, but like I said I am still going to filter it all. The peanut butter looking stuff is a buddys oil, it's the worst oil he could find. I plan on filtering all the oil I use personally. Like I said though, in a pinch, I would feel confident in the vegistroke system to run that oil. I wouldn't ever think of dumping the one on the left in, and the one on the right I would laugh at.

Any and all oil I do end up filtering is going through my filtration setup (frybrid still setup) and then going into vegistroke equipped trucks.

[Clay Henry]

Take the peanut butter stuff and dump some in a large pan. set it on the stove and heat it up. If it clears up - which i suspect it will - then you have hydrogenated oil and it will filter and burn fine in your vegistroke.
That one on the left is alot like the oil i get from one place...the stuff on the bottom is animal fat - chicken fat - and it burns nicely too. That may not be the case with what you have there but i noticed this "layer" becomming thicker when this resturant started using their oil twice as long...cooking twice as much chicken in it thus getting more animal fat in it.
It affects my milage some i think but it will burn fine. Its just a PITA to strain through the 200 micron screen. If i collect it right after they drain it, its still warm and that layer is melted and i can pour it through the strainer as fast as i want but if its cool, it will fill the strainer and i just leave nad come back when it has finally drained through leaving a layer of fat in the strainer that i will discard into my burn barrel out back.

[Snake]

I've picked up some stuff that was really high in animal fat. Pretty much clogged the 200 micron bucket strainer on top of my pre-filter barrel. I've since ordered some more strainers.

I'd follow Clay's advice on the peanut butter looking oil and see what happens. Does it smell different? I got some oil from a guy and it smelled like baby crap. At the time, I didn't know any better and tried to process it anyway. Even after 2 rounds in the water heater and draining off nearly 25 gallons of oil, the stuff that was left failed the HPT miserably. I'm not sure what it was contaminated with, but I ended up taking 50 gallons of oil to a dumpster and discarding it. That, and another 40 gallons of water/oil after I cleaned my prefilter barrel and my water heater out. Let me tell you, it sucked.

--Snake

[mdub707]

Originally Posted by Snake

I've picked up some stuff that was really high in animal fat. Pretty much clogged the 200 micron bucket strainer on top of my pre-filter barrel. I've since ordered some more strainers.

I'd follow Clay's advice on the peanut butter looking oil and see what happens. Does it smell different? I got some oil from a guy and it smelled like baby crap. At the time, I didn't know any better and tried to process it anyway. Even after 2 rounds in the water heater and draining off nearly 25 gallons of oil, the stuff that was left failed the HPT miserably. I'm not sure what it was contaminated with, but I ended up taking 50 gallons of oil to a dumpster and discarding it. That, and another 40 gallons of water/oil after I cleaned my prefilter barrel and my water heater out. Let me tell you, it sucked.

--Snake

The funny thing about it is I expected it to smell terrible, and honestly it doesn't smell as bad as the jug on the far left. That stuff smells the worst. It's not that old either. Doesn't smell like paint like others have said, just smells like dirty restaurant food.


Clay check out this page:

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