would like to try and make my own fuel .

[Flench]

Thanks for the info . I'm just trying to figure out what to do to it to run in my truck . My family background has been known for it's past moonshine . My grandfather mad the best around and he was the one that showed me how o make it . Whats bad down here in MS is walking up on one cooking when I was hunting . Talking about getting the heck out of a place fast that we did . I think they were as scared of us because we were packing gun's as we were of them shooting us .

[Angus]

Go for diesel if you can acces second hand cooking oil of a reasonable quantity.
I've been running my tractor on it now for 3 years. Rapeseed oil mostly, and I mix it with some diesel.
It needs filtering, and the easy way is to first let it stand (in cannisters) for some good time, - months if needed, then gently pour through a fine filter. There will be dirt on the bottom, so you can never use all the oil, but typically some 90%.
It stinks though

[CAP1]

Diesels will burn a lot of different things. Much easier than making gas.

You can make alcohol but you better be deep in the woods

 and don't burn wood for your still. they can smell that miles away.

[CAP1]

Make sure you pay your state and federal fuels tax, and keep detailed records.

 well, see? since no one tracks ones fuel purchases, there is no way for anyone to know that one is making their own fuel, thus no worry of them trying to collect taxes off of it.

[MrRiplEy[H]]

About 50' below my house is vein of coal, then about 1,000' is natural gas and crude, but you can't mine or drill in the city.

Your neighbours won't know anything - just haul the drilling equipment to your flat piece by piece at night.

Then say it's the washing machine if neighbours complain about the noise and the vibration. If you live in a flat and someone lives below you, just explain you're making a pole for the firemen.

Your neighbours will only start to suspect anything when they see tankers filling up next to your house but by then its too late!

[VonMessa]

In my honest opinion, until gas hits 5.00+ it isn't really worth the time or cost to try and make a lot of it. However, if you own cattle you can knock the price back considerably because you feed the waste to them, then of course you end up with fertilizer.

With corn or any grain based mash, your looking at a week to 10 days of fermenting per batch just to hit a 12%ABV wort. Sugar you can hit it at about 5 days. VonMessa can give you more details on fermenting and prepping a mash than I can, I use straight sugar, tomato paste and lemon juice.

LOL, I just got finished reading this.

I do not know all of the laws about producing Ethanol, but I DO know that Uncle Sam likes to get his cut from booze or fuel.

Someone asked about beans or bean pods?   Anything that contains fermentable sugars can be fermented, anything that contains complex starches can be mashed (have its starches converted into fermentable sugars) but a little barley will always be needed in the mash as it contains the proper enzymes for conversion.  As an alternative, one can purchase Alpha and Beta-Amylase enzymes in powder form, but the barley is much cheaper.

Rule of thumb for mashing is a quart of water/lb. of grain for an hour between 150 and 160 degrees, Fahrenheit.  Stay under 168 deg. or you will kill the enzymes.  Keeping to the 150 degree range will result in a more fermentable mash, staying towards the 160 degree range will result in less fermentables (which give a more full-bodied beer).  This is a very fast and dirty, generic guideline.

Fermenting for beer or wine is a bit more complicated, and the yeasts usually used are different than for 'shine or fuel as the yeast contributes to the flavor profile a lot of the time, and brewing yeast is much slower at fermenting. 

Turbo (brand name) yeast, which is usually used to make 'shine or fuel, can make quick work of a corn/barley mash.  It is VERY aggressive and can knock-out a 15-gallon batch in about 3 days.

As others have mentioned, fractional distillation is going to be the best bet as using a pot still with multiple runs is going to negate the making cheap fuel if your labor is too intensive.  It is also not easy to get a pure distillate at 190 poof, even WITH a reflux still and it will take some practice with the machine along with some trial/error on it's design.

In the end, with a good mash one can get about 1-2 gallons of 190 proof ethanol from every 5 gallons of fermented wash.  If the labor and dealing with the Gov. is worth it, then I say go for it...

Pissing Uncle Sam off is not recommended, however.  Do not forget, booze is one of the first things that this country levied a tax upon...

[VonMessa]

If going for Bio Diesel this place is very reasonable.

http://www.dudadiesel.com/

I have used them for plate chillers for my beer-making.

[Shuffler]

While you can get more power on a tuned engine running E85 you will also get less MPG. Ethanol is not as efficient as gasoline.

[VonMessa]

While you can get more power on a tuned engine running E85 you will also get less MPG. Ethanol is not as efficient as gasoline.

This is true.

That is why, unless making it in volume, it is not as efficient to make your own.

[Babalonian]

Even the refinement process for straight gasoline is very complicated, not to mention dangerous and hazardous.

Flench, many have tried, most have given up.  I encourage you to keep trying, but you are aware of the intricacies with just making it out of crude oil, nevermind trying it with corn?

Diesel is just a different beast.

[CAP1]

if i were gonna make my own fuel......diesel. easy, cheap, and somewhat safe.

[Shuffler]

Watch for a neighborhood cracking tower near you.

[Babalonian]

Look's like you could use , used oil . I use my used oil in a fireplace with a drip system I came up with a few year's ago where I was burning 3 cords of wood a year down to one with the used oil system . Work's great been thinking about selling the planes but don't know how to go about selling them .
The landfill is a good idea but that would have to be done on a HARGE scale .
The History channel had a show on hte fuel today . Very cool .

In the case of my state and county, the fines from trash burning and improper disposal of a clasified toxic and/or hazardous waste, just for starts, would probabley be pretty steep/unatractive.

[4440]

if i were gonna make my own fuel......diesel. easy, cheap, and somewhat safe.

Ethanol production from the safety aspect isn't all that bad. Ventilation, good soldering, and an uninterrupted supply of cooling water largely keep you in one piece.

Now, if you watched that show moonshiners, keep all Tickles far away.

For us Farmer folks, me being one of them, if your setup right, you can recoup some of the cost of production simply from the waste. In fact, Distillers and Brewers grains are chemically rearranged to make a much better quality feedstock. Corn out here in Wa a month ago was $308.00/ton. which equals 37 bushel. Thats already ground fine enough to mash, saving a step. Each bushel should produce appx 3.5-4.0 gallons of 190.

So, just in grain you already have $2.00/ gallon into it. A good still that can produce 1/1.5 gal hr will run you about 1500-2000 in parts and automation to a degree. So to recoup the still cost at 4.00 gas, you need to make at least 1000 gallons or in terms of bushels 150 bushels of corn. That is about the equivelent of 5 pickup loads of corn.

No you add in your time. it takes me about 3 hours to prep a 30 mash gallon run from complete scratch then 12 hours to distill it to 150 proof (2x through). If I count my time in labor at even say minimum wage, I have another $125 into that 5 gallons. So my gallon of gas, is technically costing my close to $29.00 a gallon.

If you don't count your time, which I really don't anymore because I have largely automated the process, and if I feed the grain to my cattle saving that cost, I knock that price way down, somewhere in the range of 5.00 a gallon.

When I go to my next version this fall, and if I start growing my own barley, I figure I can get my cost down to $4.00 a gal, but, even then it will be for my 2 tractors that still run gas, and my lawnmowers.

In the end I have fun doing it. I only do it in the winter because I have time, I dont drink it because well....  my wife doesn't like me afterwards, I use recovered rainwater for cooling because rains endlessly here from nov-apr, and I love trying to increase the efficientcy.

Get your permit, and don't let your buddies talk you into buying it.

[jimson]

In the southwest we have the mesquite tree which just grows every were and dumps seed pods twice a year. I've cut up these dried pods and tasted the the innards and they are definitely sweet and free for the gathering.

I've often wondered if they would be a good candidate for ethanol feed stock.

If I had the time and knowledge I would experiment with it.

That would be a great use for a tree many consider just a nuisance.

Edit: an interesting article on the subject http://www.ejbiotechnology.info/content/vol13/issue5/full/21/index.html