Unless you're planning to develop a lot of film at a time, I suggest mixing your chemicals as one-shots. That way you don't have to worry about their going "off," and you don't need to clutter up your kitchen cabinets with big crusty brown bottles. That's how I've been doing it since I got back into b&w.
If you take this approach, and you're not in a hurry, here's all you need:
-- Room you can make dark.
-- Some kind of thermometer.
-- Tank and reels of your preferred flavor.
-- Five 32-oz plastic paint mixing cups (cheap at the hardware store.)
-- A 300ml graduate and a 50ml graduate (or close to these values.)
-- One bottle each of Kodak or Ilford liquid developer and fixer. (I use T-Max Liquid Developer and Kodak Rapid Fixer, but the Ilford liquids work just as well. The reason for using liquids is that you can mix small quantities more uniformly and easily than if you try to measure out powders.)
-- One bottle of Kodak Photo-Flo 200 and one bottle of isopropyl alcohol (from the drugstore.)
Here's how you do it:
-- Based on the dilutions in the instructions, work out how much developer and fixer solution you need for one fill of your tank. Use the markings on the paint-mixing cups to measure out the right amounts of water, and add the right amounts of concentrate as measured in your graduates. Fill one paint-mixing cup with your developer solution and another with your fixer.
-- Measure out some more water in another paint cup and add enough Photo-Flo to make a 1:200 dilution. Now add the same amount of isopropyl alcohol as Photo-Flo. (I'll tell you why later.)
-- Fill the other two paint mixing cups with plain water.
Leave all the paint mixing cups sitting on the kitchen counter for an hour or so. This should bring them all to the same temperature (as checked by your thermometer.) While you're waiting, go into your room-that-can-be-made-dark and load the tank.
When the tank is loaded, come back to the kitchen and line up the paint cups in the correct order: developer, water, fixer, water, and Photo-Flo/alcohol. You've probably already got some kind of timer in your kitchen (I use the one on my microwave) so set it to the correct time for your developer.
Pour the developer in the tank and agitate per directions until time is up. Pour the developer down the sink and pour in the first batch of water. Agitate it for 30 seconds as you reset the timer for fixing. Pour in the fixer and agitate per directions until time is up. Pour out the fixer and pour in the second batch of water; agitate it for a minute or so, then let it sit.
While the film sits, adjust the temperature of the water coming out of your faucet until it's pretty close to room temperature. When it is, pour the water out of the tank and set it under the faucet. Let the film wash for 20 minutes, dumping out the tank every few minutes to get the fixer off the bottom.
After 20 minutes, strip the film off the reel, have a peek against the light (you won't be able to resist the temptation) and then dump it into the last paint cup, the one with the Photo-Flo/alcohol mixture. Slosh the film around carefully for 30 seconds to a minute. (Don't try to do this with the film still on the reel; the Photo-Flo residue will be very hard to wash out of the reel.)
After the slosh, pull out the film and carry it into your bathroom (because this is usually the most dust-free room in the house.) Hang it from the shower rod using two spring clothespins fitted together tail-to-tail, so one end clips on the rod and the other end holds the film. Clip another clothespin to the lower end as a weight. Now go away.
In an hour or two your film will be dry. The Photo-Flo reduces surface tension, so most of the water slides off cleanly. The few traces that are left are repelled by the isopropyl alcohol, preventing the formation of those whitish "mineral tracks" that a lot of people get on their processed film.
You'll have sparkling-clean negatives that are ready to cut and print or scan. Your tank, reel, bottles of developer and fixer concentrate, paint mixing cups and graduates all will fit into a space smaller than a shoe box, easy to stuff into a kitchen cabinet until your next developing session.
