Gathering your SVO - How to approach restaurant owners, when to decline oil, how to get it home.
Gathering Rule #1: Drive around back and inspect the oil before asking the owner if you can take it. The last thing that you want to do is make contact with a manager and then get permission to take the oil only to find out that the oil is less than desirable.
Gathering Rule #2: When checking for oil quality, note the consistency, color, and clarity of the oil.
Consistency - Open the bin, peer in, kick the side of the bin to generate a bit of a wave. If it doesn't move at all (provided it's not a concrete grease trap), walk away. Even in 30˚F weather, there should be some fluidity to it (for more information on gathering in the cold, see the next section Wintertime Gathering, definitely worth your time).
Color - If, looking down into the bin, you note the color of the oil is creamy, thick and milky looking, decline the oil. While such oil is certainly usable, it usually eats up more time and filter bags than it's worth. The milkiness is more free fatty acids (aka FFA’s) and likely water than you want to mess with. The actual color does not matter. It can look like new Wesson oil straight off the shelf, light ice tea, or maple syrup. The color will vary mattering on the type of oil (canola, peanut, coconut, etc.), what was cooked in it, at what temperature they cooked at, and how long it was used,
Clarity – This is the most important test of all. This test is for warm weather collecting. Find a clear container and take a sample of the oil. Hold the sample up to the sun or a bright light and check the clarity. You should be able to see through the oil to the other side. If you can see through it then by all means it is great oil and I would collect it for use in my vehicle. If it is just a little hazy then I would take the sample home with me and let it set for a while to see if the oil settles out. If in a couple days the sample that you took settles out and looks clear when held up to a light then it is good oil. I would go back and collect the oil. Then take the oil home and let it settle out for a few days (or a couple weeks if possible). The longer you let the oil settle then the more sediment will settle out and the longer your pre-filter bags will last! If it is cold outside and the oil in the bin at the restaurant is thick and creamy I wouldn’t walk away just yet. Take the oil sample just as you did before (in a clear container) but now you need to warm the oil up. Warming the oil up above the cloud point will melt any FFA’s that have changed state. You can warm the oil by simply holding the container in front of the heater vent of your car or you can take the oil home and let it warm up and settle out there. The oil will slowly clear up and hopefully become translucent. Then you can make a decision on whether to collect and process it or not.
As you gain experience and knowledge with the visual and characteristic differences between good oil and bad oil you will be able to dip a stick into the bin and inspect the oil droplets as they fall off the stick. This is usually good enough for a seasoned Greasel burner to determine if it is worth their time in processing.
Gathering Rule #3: When proceeding to ask someone if you can take the oil, knock on the back door. All restaurants have a back door for receiving. Just knock on the door and ask the first person that answers the door if you can have their waste vegetable oil. Most of the time you will either get a ‘yes’ or a ‘let me find out’ and then they will find someone who does know. There is no real reason to bother the manager if you don’t have to. This usually saves everyone time and hassle.
Gathering Rule #5: Don't bother with the practiced WVO speech about how you're working on this alternative fuel project and how you can run a diesel engine on waste vegetable oil and how you need their oil, etc. Most of the time, they are busy with work and other customers and are not interested. If they're interested, they'll ask what you are using the oil for, at which point, you can go a little more in depth with your explanation if you want to. Otherwise, keep it short and sweet: "Do you mind if I take your waste vegetable oil?" usually does the trick.
Gathering Rule #6: Never take the oil without the restaurant's consent! This is the golden rule of oil gathering, and should never be broken. Doing so can spoil it for all WVO burners. Even if restaurant owners have to pay to dispose of their oil (like most of them do), they're still likely to view such unsolicited favors as thievery. There have been reports of people who did not ask permission and had the police called on them. While this definitely is not good, it was avoidable.
Gathering Rule #7: Once you start pumping, never pump past the settling line! The settling line is the point of the grease bin where all the solids have piled up, and the oil will be thick and creamy. You do not want to collect the creamy stuff. The creamy stuff will clog you pre-filter bags very quickly. Don't take oil from any lower than at least 2" above the settling line is a good rule of thumb to follow. We are all guilty of getting greedy for that wondrous, free, eco-friendly oil, but it's not worth your time and pre-filters to take the settled junk.
Gathering Rule #8: Never leave a mess at a restaurant grease bin. Try to keep your gathering as clean as possible. We don't want gatherers to be declined by restaurant owners because of the mess someone else made. They're giving us fuel, so let's return the favor by showing them the respect of a clean pull.
Processing your SVO for vehicular usage - A few very useful tips on how to prepare your liquid gold for automotive use.
Most people think that converting a vehicle to run WVO is the hard part, and getting the oil for fuel is the easy part. In reality, it's the opposite. While oil preparation is not overly difficult, there's a definite learning curve to it that's a very slow process, since you have to run it for a while in your vehicle and see how long it takes you to clog a filter before you know how clean it is. It is waste vegetable oil and it does take some work to get clean, and the cleaner the better. So, here's our gleaned experience to yield the cleanest oil that time will allow.
Oil preparation actually starts with the gathering process. If you can, gather on a nice, sunny day, taking advantage of the sun's effect on the oil's viscosity. Not only does this aid in the settling process before you even gather the oil, it also prolongs the life of your gathering pump. Choose good, clean oil, pump from the top, and make sure your pump has a good strainer on the intake. If you're not using a gathering pump, use a pitcher (or something of the like), try to take from the highest point possible, and pour it through some panty-hose into your container. While you're pumping, watch the oil and search for the settling line. This is the point of the grease bin where all the solids have piled up, and the oil will turn thick and creamy. Don't take it from at least 2" above the settling line, as the stuff down there will just chew up pre-filter bags later on.
A word about settling out your oil: There are tons of ways to mass-filter oil out there, and the best rely on multiple stages. Settling is the process of allowing gravity to pull the heavy particles (solids) suspended in the oil to the bottom of its container. Properly applied heat can greatly aid in the settling process by reducing the viscosity of the oil. We accomplish this by painting the container black and setting it out in the sun. DO NOT use any type of open flame heat source under the container to aid in the oil processing. The intense localized heat will cause a convection current within the container which will stir up all of the contaminates that have settled to the bottom. This will negate all the work that gravity has already done for us. Not to mention the fact that propane is a fossil fuel, and using it to prepare our eco-friendly fuel kinda defeats our overall purpose. We cannot say this enough! Settling is your friend! Take the time and let the solids settle out of your oil. Even waiting a mere week can make a huge impact on how clean your oil gets. However, most of us don't want to wait this long. Personally, I recommend at least two weeks, but you have to be the judge. It'll ensure you get the most out of your filter bags and the longest life possible from your Racor filter.
A word about pumping your oil: You will pump your oil many times during its preparation, whether it is gathering, filtering, or filling your fuel tank. Always pump from the top of your container. DO NOT put your suction filter at the bottom of the barrel. This will result in pumping up all the settled solids and cause you a lot of frustration, premature clogging of filter bags, and can also damage your gathering pump. Place the suction hose only a couple inches into the oil and start pumping. Continually monitor the suction hose and slowly lower it as the level of the oil drops, keeping it just under the surface. You should be able to see the submerged suction filter screen and will be able to see when you get to the settling line. Stop the pump before you get too deep. Now it is time to clean up and move on to the next gathering spot.
Pre-filter bags. After your oil has had some time to settle, use your gathering pump to run it through some pre-filter bags. You can make your own out of multi-layered bed sheets, or buy some Greasel 0.5 micron pre-filter bags. Our pre-filter bags can clean a hundred or more gallons before they clog but it is all relative to the quality of oil that you filter through the bags. If you try to filter really nasty creamy oil then the bag will clog rather quickly. If you use really good oil that has been settling for a couple of weeks then you will be able to get hundreds of gallons through the bag before it clogs. If it's winter time, it's a good idea to warm the oil a bit before you run it through the bag. A low heat is best, and we here at Greasel do not recommend propane burners! Convection is bad and will stir up all the settle deposits and redistribute them throughout the oil. You can get a submersible tank heater from your local farm supply store (for under $30) and place it in your oil a couple of hours before you run it through the bag. Make sure you purchase a tank heater that is not thermostatically controlled. A lot of the thermostatically controlled tank heaters will not turn on until it is 40˚F or colder. You want the heater to come on when you plug it in. Do not get the oil too hot! We here at Greasel recommend pre-filtering oil that is between 80˚F and 120˚F. If the oil exceeds this temperature range then it is possible that it will cause the fibers of the pre-filter bags to stretch and will not work as designed. If you filter the oil at too hot of a temperature it is possible to let enough contaminants through the bag to seriously degrade the lifespan of your Racor filter on the vehicle.
*Do not clean and re-use your filter bags! And we're not saying this to get you to buy more! We've tried our best to find a good way to clean and re-use the bags. We've turned them inside out and gently wrung them out. We've run hot water through them (backwards and forwards). We've washed them in a washing machine on the warm/cold cycle. Unfortunately, all attempts ended in stretched fibers and useless pre-filter bags.
After your pre-filter, store your clean oil in a barrel or jug, preferably in the sun. Even the best of filters will still allow particles in the processed oil, and it never hurts to allow it to continue to settle in the ambient heat until you need it. When you're ready to pump it into your tank, be sure to pump off the top, as mentioned before, to get the cleanest of the crop. And you should still leave the last 4" or so, even of the clean stuff. Pour it into your next batch of unfiltered stuff and let it settle out again.
Don't ever think you can get away with not pre-filtering your oil. Every once in a while, you'll score some oil that's so prime looking that you know you can just run it right into your tank. Fight the temptation. No matter how good that oil looks, skipping the pre-filter stage will land you with clogged Racor filters. We speak from experience (but it was sooo clean! :). We don't wanna rain on your pristine discovery of sweet oil; just think of how long your filter bags will last with this great stuff flowing through it!
Source: Used with permission from Greasel.com
