XTOL shelf life

[titrisol]

I think that it's better to "break" the stock into several small bottles
I got a bunch of Nalgene bottles (250 and 500 ml) that were being thorwn away from the lab, as well as some old bottles that had photo chemicals (Ilford, Agfa, whatchamacallit) that I use to store LPD stock.
Peroxide/bleach bottles are also excellent to store developer.
As last resort use green plastic bottles (Sprite) from soft drinks.

Thanks for all the answers. I have ordered a 5 litre pack from my local supplier (99 DKR, US$17, £9.25, 22 AUD, 25.7 NZD).
Is that an ok price or am I being robbed?

I plan on mixing all the dev and keep in a 5 litre bottle and pour it over into my 1 litre bottle for use. Is that ok?

Morten

[Neil Souch]

Morten,
I mix my 5 litre packs up in one go (that's essential - don't try to split the chems). I use an ex 5 litre water container (marked up!) as it is easy to mix the chems by sloshing. Once mixed I would keep the dev in full bottles as far as possible to max the keeping properties. Not sure about the price you paid but it sounds a tad high by UK prices. I usually buy three packs at a time. IIRC the last time I purchased a 5 litre pack cost about £6.50. 5 litres at your price is still a good deal though! If you want a 'neat' dev time for your films let me know.

Cheers,
Neil.

[AndrewH]

I have kept full strength Xtol in 1 litre coca-cola bottle filled entirely to the very rim for over a year and had no problems. As I use the bottle, I simply squeeze the sides before I cap it to pull the water line up to the rim.

[SchwinnParamount]

Morten,
I've been using XTOL for a couple of years and always finish a 5 litre bottle before it goes south. This last time, it started going before I finished. I'm not sure I buy the 'binary developer' idea. My experience is that if diluted 1:1 then it's good until the end, then it starts to weaken. As it weakens, you notice your negatives get pretty thin but are still printable with a harder paper. The contrast goes away fairly rapidly. Bottom line is, you know before it completely dies that it is dying. If I had waited a week or two to develop the film with old developer, would It be completely dead? If so then my impression would have been that it goes from good to dead because I would have missed the window of opportunity to see dying developer. Does that make sense?

[waynecrider]

I've noticed that it will turn slightly yellow at the end. I've kept it up to a year in normal indoor temps.

[john_s]

Concentrated solutions tend to last better than diluted ones. The contents of the 5Litre pack can be dissolved in 2.5Litre of water. Use the max temp recommended, and wait for Part_A to dissolve first before adding Part_B.

Then just dilute appropriately.

I bottle it in 8 bottles of 125mL and some larger ones. When the small ones are used, I refill them from a larger one. I ensure that bottles are completely full, except for a day or two sometimes. I've not had a failure, but I'm still neurotic enough to do clip tests quite often with this developer.

[David Ruby]

I've been using XTOL exclusively for about a year. It is $12.50 locally. I have a half full gallon container that is 8 months old (probalby at least 3 as less than full). I tested it a few weeks back and the negatives came out great. The package says 6 months in full container, 2 in partially full (if I remember correctly). I like the test idea though, since I hate to waste it!