Hi everyone , we are a few students in a automotive class and we're trying to make bio-diesel from waste vegtable oil(harveys used oil) our first batch we used 1 litre of oil , 200 millilitres of methanol and 3.5 grams of NaOH and the results were terrible after lettin it sit after mixing over night  it turned into jelly ... Any suggestions and also would brand new canola oil be better to use ? thanks for any help and comments.

You need to learn how to do a titrtion on the oil first ! The info for 3.5gr. of lye is old and outdated. Search this website it has excellent info.http://biodiesel.infopop.cc/6/ubb.x?a=cfrm&s=447609751 Joe.D

There are very clear and direct instructions on how to do titrations on http://www.biodieselcommunity.org/titratingoil/.  The standard amount of NaOH is 5 grams/liter -- the 3.5 gram figure you have rarely works and only with new oil.

Thanks alot guys , i'll check it out, we did a batch with brand new canola oil and it worked excellent but the goal is to use used oil so we'll read up on it .