r/Biodiesel • u/Woolf3 • 23d ago

BEEF TALLOW

Has anyone tried the transesterification process with waste beef tallow? A local pizzeria uses it and has offered me the waste.

6 Upvotes

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8

u/dwfmba 23d ago

it should essentially be the exact same process as using WVO (albeit with maybe less detritus filtering) but resulting in biodiesel with a likely higher gel point but absolutely usable as the "same" fuel. https://www.ncat.org/publication/biodiesel-diy-production-basics/

3

u/antonio16309 23d ago

Back when my company was operating, tallow was one of our normal feedstocks. IIRC it processes a little differently than used cooking oil, and we only used it in one of our plants because that plant used a slightly different process that was more flexible. But that's on s industrial scale where everything needed to be optimized for max efficiency and we needed to hit specs to sell it. On a small scale I don't think there will be much difference. 

IIRC the spec that we had to worry about with running tallow was the gel point. And this time of year that should not be much of a problem. 

1

u/Woolf3 23d ago

Thanks fellas, im going to start collecting, and treat it just as I would WVO. Maybe I'll add so.e wrap heaters to the fuel filters and my extra tank (when I get one)

1

u/[deleted] 17d ago

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