Dissolving powdered developers

[wintoid]

I've got some XTOL which I'm hoping to try. It comes in 2 packets to make up 5 litres of concentrated solution. 5 litres means 5 bottles for me, and that takes up space and so on. Is there any reason why I shouldn't dissolve it in 1 litre instead, and then dilute it 5x more whenever I want to use it?

 

[kaiyen]

if you can get it dissolved into just 1L, then more power to you. but itm ight be hard to saturate the solution like that.

allan

 

[wintoid]

Oh I see. OK so what about 2L or perhaps 2.5L 😀

5 1litre bottles is just a bit much for me.

 

[Goodyear]

Xtol does dissolve really easy. I've read of it going into 2.5L, but I haven't tried it for myself.

 

[Ronald M]

It goes into 2.5 just fine. Just don`t screw up when making the dilutions for use. 1:3 will really be 1:1.

 

[Lear]

Logic indicates its not recomended to split the package. In that powder you have several chemical substanses, how can you tell you are splitting all of them correctly?

I guess experience dictates it can be done, but I wonder about the consistensy of the resulting Xtol. What I usually do is buy a 5L bottle of mineral water, the cheapest in the supermarket, and mix the xtol/D76 right there (warming it up a little), one 5L bottle takes less space than 5x1L bottles.

On the idea of diluting all into a 1L bottle, you will have a saturated mix, with sediment on the botom, that will stay at the botom when you pur it into another bottle to mix.

 

[sf]

only trouble is making sure that the water can handle that level of saturation. It would be very hard to tell if you're not getting the powder to dissolve 100%, and if you aren't, you'll have a hard time figured how to add more water to make it happen properly.

 

[ClaremontPhoto]

5L is not that great a quantity. Could you get a tupperware type bowl or a washing up bowl just to use for disolving? And then transfer to Pepsi bottles?

 

[Nick R.]

I buy a clean plastic mop bucket from the discount store to mix Xtol in. It works quite well and there's plenty of room in it to keep from making a mess.

 

[RayPA]

...

...one 5L bottle takes less space than 5x1L bottles.

...

The only problem with this is the shelf life of the chemicals. 5L is a lot of chemistry to use in two months (D76 shelf life). Five 1-litre bottles don't really take up that much space, and the chemistry will last longer (6 months—again, D76) if you fill them up to the top and store them properly. I'm not sure about Xtol's shelf life, but I believe it is near D76.

I do what NickR suggests when I mix up big(ger) batches of chemistry. I have a dedicated plastic mop/kitchen bucket that I mix in, and then pour that out through a funnel into the storage containers.

Good luck!

 

[Goodyear]

I get purified water from my local pharmacy. It comes in 5l bottles. So I empty some of it into a jug, and dump the pwder straight into the bottle. Then I put the cap on and shake it all about for a nice easy dissolve 🙂 Even easier if I've remembered to leave the bottle beside the radiator for half a day.

WHen it's dissolved and the bottle topped off from the jug, I decant into 5 1l brown bottles (Winchester-stylee) supplied by Retro Photographic - a very good purchase.