# I like coffee... do you?



## Maxx640 (Jun 12, 2007)

Hi,
   I like to have a cup of coffee with my croissants in the morning, best time of the day. But now I have found another use for caféine! 

I just discovered this technique a few days ago... yes, you have understood: you can develop your film in your coffee, it's called folgernol or cafeinol!

Mix coffee, sodium and vitamin C to get a magic solution for an enviromental friendly, cheap developper. I am going down to the drugstore to get the ingredients and try this out! 

Meanwhile can anybody tell me more about this technique, how it works, the kind of times you need...? I heard it has to be quite hot (24°C) to work.

Cheers,

Maxim


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## DRodgers (Jun 12, 2007)

I'm interested in this as well ..


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## mysteryscribe (Jun 12, 2007)

Me too.. you might ask these questions over at http://f295.org those guys are into all kinds of alternate things.

The recipe i just read said 30 minutes.  I think I'm going to try it with left over coffee rather than instant.  I hate instant coffee....  Probably need to boil it down to reduce it by half first.


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## PNA (Jun 12, 2007)

What can you do with tea????


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## mysteryscribe (Jun 12, 2007)

Same thing I think.  I have an experiment cooking (pardon the pun) at the moment.  I took the mornings left over coffee and boiled it down to about half the normal coffee to water ratio.  (we always throw out several cups.)  I put in as much baking soda as would desolve.  then I strained it to get the soda particles out of the mix.   Now I have a few shots of black and white asa film soaking in it.  Ill let you know what happens.


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## mysteryscribe (Jun 12, 2007)

bummer nothing much happened.  The leader just barely stained the rest was blank.  I expect to get the coffee strong enough you would have to do it as the recipe calls for which would cost about ten times as much as commercial photo developer.  It will work though of that I am positive others have done it and the stain on the film show that it works.  I'm just not that impressed that I would do it again.


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## Maxx640 (Jun 12, 2007)

Ok I had a shot at it this afternoon. I used a cheap film called Foma.

I diluted 2,5 coffee spoons of sodium cristals in 200 ml water.
Added 4 coffee spoons of instant coffee.
Once dissolved I added one tablet of 1000 mg of vitamin C and added water to get to 290 ml (= my tank size).

Apparantly you must use this in the next half hour. I used it 12 min @ 24 °C and didn't use stop bath but water. I got quite good results actually! 

(Found this recipe on a French forum)

For times try these links:

http://silent1.home.netcom.com/Photography/Dilutions and Times.html
http://http://www.digitaltruth.com/techdata/caffenol.php


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## Tangerini (Jun 12, 2007)

This is the best news I've heard since they reported chocolate is good for you!


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## Jeff Canes (Jun 12, 2007)

i've done this, read about it shuetterbug about 3 years ago, been think about trying it again


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## mysteryscribe (Jun 12, 2007)

I'm glad it worked for you.  I used the recipe for the one with just coffee and sodium.


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## nealjpage (Jun 13, 2007)

Sodium crystals?  Like salt?


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## Maxx640 (Jun 14, 2007)

> Sodium crystals?  Like salt?


No, sorry I must have badly translated. The sodium I mean is Na, and the product is what you can find in drug-stores as Sodium carbonate Na2CO3. 
It comes as white cristals and is used for cleaning. DO NOT MISTAKE IT FOR NaOH which is very dangerous.


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## mysteryscribe (Jun 14, 2007)

They call it wasing soda in my recipe


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## JC1220 (Jun 14, 2007)

WalMart has it in their laundry section or go to a pool chemical supply store. Also, the formula with ascorbic acid is a much better reducing agent than just the coffee and carbonate and a bit more predictable. Many of these versions will produce stain on your negatives, if you are not use to printing stained negatives you will have a small learning curve.

If you want to make a low cost, low toxicity developer, many of the Vitamin C and phenidone ones are quite good with much better results than coffee.

BTW, you can make a developer out of cat wee as well, doesn't mean you should.


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## mysteryscribe (Jun 14, 2007)

Don't have a cat but my wife sure goes a lot.  Nahhhh not likely she would cooperate anyway.


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## Seefutlung (Jun 14, 2007)

JC1220 said:


> ...
> BTW, you can make a developer out of cat wee as well, doesn't mean you should.



LOL ... I don't know if that is a good thing or a bad thing.

Gary


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## fstop23 (Jun 18, 2007)

> you might ask these questions over at http://f295.org those guys are into all kinds of alternate things.


ha, i'm in the picture on f295's front page.  

I thought mixing sodium and water was a bad thing...


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## ferny (Jun 19, 2007)

Finding out coffee works I can almost understand. But cat wee? Who runs around behind their cat with a roll of film begging it to wee on it so they can get their prints? Who was the strange person to try it first???


Any coffee examples?


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## Maxx640 (Jun 19, 2007)

For coffee examples try flickr and type folgernol or caffeinol or caffenol and you will come up with a lot of results.


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## JC1220 (Jun 19, 2007)

Cat, human, horse all can act as a reducing agent. Urine contains pyrocatechin.

Oh, and I don't recommend running around behind your cat in the dark trying to develop your film.:lmao:


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## karissa (Jun 19, 2007)

fstop23 said:


> I thought mixing sodium and water was a bad thing...


Are you thinking potassium and water maybe?


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## fstop23 (Jun 22, 2007)

nah, i definitely remember something from chemistry class that pure sodium and water will cause an explosion.  but sodium chloride is okay.  i'm gonna google it.


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## fstop23 (Jun 22, 2007)

check out this link...
this is a reaction to elemental sodium in water:
http://www2.uni-siegen.de/~pci/versuche/english/v44-1-1.html


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