Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: Flench on March 30, 2012, 03:14:02 PM
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but all I can find is on diesel and I would like to try and make a fuel for my gas burner's . Any idea's or link's would be a big help . I can get cooking grease for the corner store all I want but that would be used for a diesel not a gas burner . Any idea's , just looking for some idea's .
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Your gonna need a Flux Capacitor, then the rest is easy.
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(http://static.ddmcdn.com/gif/moonshine-diagram.gif)
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(http://static.ddmcdn.com/gif/moonshine-diagram.gif)
:rofl
I don't think that that kind of "fuel" is legal to make without a license.
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but all I can find is on diesel and I would like to try and make a fuel for my gas burner's . Any idea's or link's would be a big help . I can get cooking grease for the corner store all I want but that would be used for a diesel not a gas burner . Any idea's , just looking for some idea's .
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 :)
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:rofl
I don't think that that kind of "fuel" is legal to make without a license.
I was thinking of making a still but can I burn PGA in a gas motor ? or can I mix it with cooking oil form the corner store and have it filtered to run a gas engine . All I have is gas engine's so BIO fuel is out of the question . I have a big plot of land I can grow corn on .
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Make sure you pay your state and federal fuels tax, and keep detailed records.
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Much easier than making gas.
really?
feed me some beans.. I'll make some gas. :D
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Make sure you pay your state and federal fuels tax, and keep detailed records.
You got that right . Been doing some reading but it all leads to BIO fuel or just flat out making moonshine .
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You got that right . Been doing some reading but it all leads to BIO fuel or just flat out making moonshine .
You've heard of Ethanol? Ethanol is grain alcohol. What do you think moonshine is? Making your own fuel is the same thing as making moonshine. You have to distill the alcohol and use that to fuel the car.
If you ever see E85 it means that specific fuel is 85% Ethanol and 15% Gasoline. They "cut" it with Gasoline to denature it (so you can't drink it) and also to make it start easier when cold.
Most unleaded fuel available today is actually E10 - Meaning that it is 10% Ethanol and 90% Gasoline.
You can't do anything with cooking oil with a gas engine. The system simply isn't forgiving enough for it. Cooking oil needs a higher temperature and higher pressures to ignite the fuel than the gasoline engine can produce. You CAN however burn alcohol in a gas engine but there are a few things to remember:
1> Alcohol can eat up rubber parts and some untreated aluminum surfaces. It's important to make sure that all fuel system components are compatible otherwise you'll find that repairs can cost more than any potential savings.
2> While there are no laws (that I know of) against making your own fuel, if the vehicle is to be driven on public highways then you DO have to pay taxes on that fuel. Diesel for offroad use (heating, farm use, etc.) is actually dyed and truckers' fuels are often checked for the presence of this dye. If dye is found in their tanks that's proof that they haven't been paying the taxes on their fuel I'd imagine it would be easier to "get by with it" on gasoline vehicles but if you do get caught there are very stiff fines.
3> Fuel has to be aerated in order to properly burn. In other words the fuel vapor is what's flammable and not so much the liquid fuel itself. In order to get the most efficiency the amount of air has to be measured and the proper amount of fuel added. Most cars are calibrated to keep this air/fuel ratio at its stoichiometric ratio which for gasoline is 14.7 to 1 (14.7 parts of air for each part of fuel). E85 has a stoichiometric ratio of 9.8 to 1 which means that more fuel has to be added to the system for efficient operation. While modern cars have the ability to adjust this ratio based on what its sensors are measuring, most non Flex Fuel vehicles (vehicles that can run on any fuel between E0 and E85) cannot compensate enough to run well on straight E85 fuel.
I used to run a 50% blend on my old '95 Escort (Which would be about E40 or so) and it ran just fine but I've fixed the cars of many people who filled up with E85 because it was cheaper at the pump only to have it break down or run very poorly on them a mile down the road.
Another alternative might be CNG (Compressed Natural Gas)... although that you won't be able to make yourself.
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You've heard of Ethanol? Ethanol is grain alcohol. What do you think moonshine is? Making your own fuel is the same thing as making moonshine. You have to distill the alcohol and use that to fuel the car.
If you ever see E85 it means that specific fuel is 85% Ethanol and 15% Gasoline. They "cut" it with Gasoline to denature it (so you can't drink it) and also to make it start easier when cold.
Most unleaded fuel available today is actually E10 - Meaning that it is 10% Ethanol and 90% Gasoline.
You can't do anything with cooking oil with a gas engine. The system simply isn't forgiving enough for it. Cooking oil needs a higher temperature and higher pressures to ignite the fuel than the gasoline engine can produce. You CAN however burn alcohol in a gas engine but there are a few things to remember:
1> Alcohol can eat up rubber parts and some untreated aluminum surfaces. It's important to make sure that all fuel system components are compatible otherwise you'll find that repairs can cost more than any potential savings.
2> While there are no laws (that I know of) against making your own fuel, if the vehicle is to be driven on public highways then you DO have to pay taxes on that fuel. Diesel for offroad use (heating, farm use, etc.) is actually dyed and truckers' fuels are often checked for the presence of this dye. If dye is found in their tanks that's proof that they haven't been paying the taxes on their fuel I'd imagine it would be easier to "get by with it" on gasoline vehicles but if you do get caught there are very stiff fines.
3> Fuel has to be aerated in order to properly burn. In other words the fuel vapor is what's flammable and not so much the liquid fuel itself. In order to get the most efficiency the amount of air has to be measured and the proper amount of fuel added. Most cars are calibrated to keep this air/fuel ratio at its stoichiometric ratio which for gasoline is 14.7 to 1 (14.7 parts of air for each part of fuel). E85 has a stoichiometric ratio of 9.8 to 1 which means that more fuel has to be added to the system for efficient operation. While modern cars have the ability to adjust this ratio based on what its sensors are measuring, most non Flex Fuel vehicles (vehicles that can run on any fuel between E0 and E85) cannot compensate enough to run well on straight E85 fuel.
I used to run a 50% blend on my old '95 Escort (Which would be about E40 or so) and it ran just fine but I've fixed the cars of many people who filled up with E85 because it was cheaper at the pump only to have it break down or run very poorly on them a mile down the road.
Another alternative might be CNG (Compressed Natural Gas)... although that you won't be able to make yourself.
Thanks for the reply . Back about 10 years ago I change a Chevy 4x4 that had a 350 in it over to LP and it did good for a while and then burned a hole in one of the piston . but LP is just as high dollar as gas . I'm going keep doing some reserch on this and try to make my own . I got the land to grow plenty corn but my tractor even uses gas so I need to igure out how to make ga .
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Kill dinosaur. Wait 65 million years. Done.
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here is a clue for ya
http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/energy/oil-refining2.htm
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here is a clue for ya
http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/energy/oil-refining2.htm
Cool . Thanks for the link .
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Couldn't you just pick up some used motor oil and then refine it into gas like refineries do, just on a smaller scale? That should be pretty easy to do and you could probably get all the used oil you could ever need.
Another idea would be to start a compost pile and harness the methane gases like the city landfill does.
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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 .
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It would be hard to distill motor oil into gasoline. It could be done, but would take big equipment and big bucks. If you had crude oil, you could use a simple still to recover the gasoline, but then you would have a lot tar junk to dispose.
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.
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I no if I DRILL 1000 feet under me here right out of Memphis I would hit water . In fact the well I got now is not but 90 feet and the deeper you go the better the water . Last year it look like it was pumping GOLD but I had it tested and it was not gold , look like gold too mee , lol .
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There is sandstone formation in this area that is shallow. the further east you go (about 80 miles) you can hit it under 200 feet. That is near the old ozark mountains, once you got that far, there is no oil. Lots of fresh cool water though. When I was a kid, someone built a house, then drilled a well for water near that cut off formation. They hit gas and it caught fire for weeks. It was a giant flame shooting out of the ground. On the other hand, if you go south west of here about 150 miles, you have to drill 17,000 -30,000 feet to hit gas.
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There are flex fuel conversion kits, but you would still have to be concerned about the rubber parts, I imagine. http://www.whitelightning.net/
You can get a permit for a fuel still.
I doubt authorities would be able to check your tank and tell what's homemade and what's purchased E85.
I have often wondered if ethanol can be produced from mesquite bean pods.
They seem to contain a lot of sugar.
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So what is in a conversion kit ? Would it be like the LP conversin kit that I put on my old chevy 350 . I think all it was is a change in the carb but I went from 8 mpg to 18 and had to fell up like once a week .
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For now, CNG seems the way to go. If you have it installed by a professional, it cost a lot. The EPA requires a lot of testing to insure it's cleaner than running gasoline. I think every time they have tested gasoline vs CNG, CNG is 100% cleaner all the time. You can have the same engine, but it's a 2012, instead of a 2011, you still have to pay the bucks to test the engine. Sounds like gasoline people chipped in a lot of money to keep it that way.
You can build your own Frankenstein CNG system for under 2 grand.
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I think the E85 kit is used in fuel injected vehicles. You can watch a video here. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B11fXI67-Q8 I don't know any more than I have read, so don't destroy your engine until you research a lot more.
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Yeah I know when I change my old chevy 350 over to LP it did not last a year and burn a hole in one of the piston's . Going to go check out your video jimson .
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oh is your handle from jimson weed , lol just wondering
Sort of, my name is James and I'm a bit loco.
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Yeah I know when I change my old chevy 350 over to LP it did not last a year and burn a hole in one of the piston's . Going to go check out your video jimson .
Was that solid or wet lpg into your engine? I had some equipment that could run on gas or lpg, it only worked well when used the same fuel.
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For fuel that is available now, diesel is hard to beet. Just don't ever put gasoline in one. You will find out how much fuel injectors cost, after core charge.
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Was that solid or wet lpg into your engine? I had some equipment that could run on gas or lpg, it only worked well when used the same fuel.
Solid .. I have never owned a diesel or ever worked on one so I stay away from them .
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Ethanol for fuel is a free permit from the ATF
They want to know where and what.
Still is relatively simple to build and making it out of straight sugar is the easiest. Takes appx 12 hour to make a nice clean 5 gals 150 proof that runs well in an engine, however.....
Do not add gas, the water in the ethanol will separate and create a wonderful creamy goo
Bump up the jets in the carb considerably
The type of still you would want is a Reflux still, and can be readily purchased with the serial number for the ATF.
and when you get done drinking some of that stuff, you will come to hate it. No hangovers though
As for the run time, if you build the right reflux setup, you can hit a gal an hour at 180+. Also, if you want to mix with gas(effectively), you have to get it over 190 proof, but you can dry it with zeolytes. Cost per gall about 4 bucks
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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.
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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 .
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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 :D
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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.
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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.
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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!
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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...
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If going for Bio Diesel this place is very reasonable.
http://www.dudadiesel.com/ (http://www.dudadiesel.com/)
I have used them for plate chillers for my beer-making.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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if i were gonna make my own fuel......diesel. easy, cheap, and somewhat safe.
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Watch for a neighborhood cracking tower near you. :)
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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.
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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.
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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
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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
You may be on to something. Rauchbier is smoked beer. Goes great with a steak.
Research them, see what kinds of sugars that they contain.
Mesquite beer. :rock
You may have just discovered a new beer. I have had beer made from tapioca, before (no, not the pudding but the starch used to make the pudding). It was mashed with barley and it tasted quite good. :aok
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Thanks for the help men . Found some good link's on how to make it with suger and corn .
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Thanks for the help men . Found some good link's on how to make it with suger and corn .
lol That is moonshine. :) Your engine will not like that for an extended time. You will also need a tune to gain all you can from it.
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From what I have read you have to add gas to the mix after it runs off to be legal with a perment . Still reading .
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Research them, see what kinds of sugars that they contain.
Not sure what kind, I assume sucrose or is it glucose? I read somewhere that the pulp is about 35% sugar.
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Found a site that has a small set up that looks like a big coffee maker . It says's it will make 3 gallon's at a time . That would be a good start for me . I plan on using it in my tractor and my small engine's until I can find out more on it ruining with a Flex fuel system .