Vacuum sealing your chemicals

[photophorous]

Just curious if anyone has ever used one of those wine bottle vacuum sealers for storing your developer and other chemicals? I always read that you should fill your bottles to the top to remove excess oxygen, but that just isn't practical when you develop a roll here and roll there. I was thinking one of these vacuum sealers might work just as well and you wouldn't have to find a bunch of different sized bottles. Could you just use old wine bottles and not worry about filling them to the top, if you were vacuum sealing them?

Has anyone tried this?

Thanks,
Paul

PS. I'm talking about something like this, but there are many variations: http://www.winestuff.com/acatalog/Pampered_Grape_Wine_Save_Gift_Pack.html

 

[Keith]

I can't see why it shouldn't work ... less oxygen should mean less deterioration. I just bought a couple of these which collapse to reduce the airspace ... supposedly it doubles the life of developer! We'll see!

 

[Jonathan R]

Keith, I'll be interested to hear whether you mange to make those bottles stay collapsed. When I briefly flirted with them, I couldn't make them air-tight, and they pushed themselves out again.

 

[fidget]

My stock ID11 is kept in those plastic bottles used for fizzy drinks, some 2ltr and smaller. I just squeeze the air out as i replace the top. If it gets very low I can then add it to the next part full bottle or a smaller bottle. Just got to be careful with labels and storage, don't want to confuse it with lemonade!

 

[ITD]

I use old brown beer bottles with the sort of 'wine saver' tops for my developer. Seems to work very well. I haven't (yet) had a part-empty bottle go bad, even after several months' storage.

I tend to mark the tops I use for photo chems with a permanent marker so that I don't use them for wine though...

 

[rxmd]

Another method to get the air out is to drop glass marbles into the chemicals. That way you don't have to squeeze the bottles all the time and it's very practical, even if you use the chemicals on an on-and-off basis.

Philipp