WVO site.

I found this cool site on WVO. http://www.green-trust.org/wiki/index.php?title=Fry_Guys

I have long since come to the conclusion that there isn't anywhere near enough veggie oil for everybody to use in large percentages and adding 2 to 5 % to the diesel tank does not require it to be converted to biodiesel, saving lots of energy and methanol and also eliminating the glycerine byproduct.
Problem is that veggie oil is not a recognized fuel in this country, so it must be converted to biodiesel before use as a fuel, go figure.

I like the idea of pressing my own oil from the raw material....I'd be all over it if money was available, perhaps in another lifetime....

I finally got around to calling some of my old rendering plant contacts to see if an individual can purchase small quantities of what is commonly known in the industry as Yellow Grease. I've been thinking about the possibility of buying a five or six hundred gallon military tank trailer and running down to the rendering plant and picking up a load of yellow grease this spring. When I say "old" contacts I worked in (sold to) the rendering recycling industry for over 30 years.
http://www.rosedowns.co.uk/index.htm

Yellow grease is basically what you get if you've been picking up restaurant grease only the renderers filter it, cook it to sanitize it and then centrifuge it. My contact said the only problem they might have would be the height of the trailer and the size of the bung. Industry standard is a 4" bung and the loadout is designed to accomodate a 40 foot tanker.

My contact said they could probably figure a way to load the trailer.

Yellow grease is currently going for 26-1/4 cents per pound. It takes 7.4 pounds to make a gallon. My contact also advised that they have to report all sales to the IRS for possible road tax violation purposes and cautioned that the IRS will prosecute. I told him that I thought there was some sort of a minimum exemption. Does anyone know if this is true and if so what it is?

He said it was refreshing to hear from someone that wanted to purchase yellow grease instead of stealing it. He also cautioned that they prosecute grease theft. Where you can get in trouble is when you take grease from a tank or container that is owned by a render. Be careful guys. I worked in this industry and these guys are not to be messed with. Grease theft costs the industry millions a year so these guys take it serious. If you have the permission of the resturant owner and don't raid a render's container you're pretty safe but when you get nto a situation where the business has been contracted and you dip into a renderers container you're at risk. These guys are so powerful they've been able to get special grease theft legislation passed in several states.

cranetruck wrote:

I like the idea of pressing my own oil from the raw material....I'd be all over it if money was available, perhaps in another lifetime....

Click to expand...

Speaking as someone that used to sell the equipment ranging in capacity sizes from 500 pounds of oil per day to 500 tons per day it isn't very fesible on a small scale. If you were a farmer and therefore able to grow your own canola it might be worthwhile but canola is hard to buy (or at least was) on the open market because the Cargills and ADMs of the world tie it up with contracts. What the equipment dealers don't share with you in their oil yield and cost per ton numbers is that once the Expeller (press) starts to wear oil yields go down and processing temperatures go up. With higher temps come more wear and less yield --- it's a vicious circle. A new set of wear parts for a small press can easily run over a thousand dollars. You really have to know what you're doing to rebuild the parts locally or you'll have all sorts of low yield and even failure problems.

All is all it just isn't an area that is veru much fun to dabble in.