Folgerol #1

Coffee developers are staining developers, so the negs look less contrasty than they really are, compared to negs of similar contrast made with a non-staining developer.

This looks pretty good.

Now I want to know how you measure a 40% improvement in laundry detergent performance.

Also lost a LOT of speed on this, by my estimate over two stops. Part of that is due to the Folgerol, part of it is the use of a single 60W as the light source (i.e. tungsten lighting). And I'm pretty sure I didn't give enough extra exposure to overcome the reciprocity failure either.

As I understand the way the developer (caffic acid and maybe some other phenols in the brew) is working, it isn't a true staining developer like Pyro. The stain from the coffee (tannins probably) is uniform. Pyro gives a proportional stain.

Still, a niffty trick. Need to set up some better tests, outdoors but I'll wait until it isn't -11F windchill outside!

You could try bleaching out the silver and seeing what kind of stain image you have left. That could tell you if you're getting proportional stain.

I know Patrick Gainer tried making developer with No-Doz tablets to confirm at least that it's not the caffeine.

I have my notes at home but I looked up a few things in a Merck Index and caffic acid was very similar to catchetol or hydroquinone. Can't remember now which it was. It wasn't quite a mirror image, more like a little bit of a rotation and an extra nitrogen or something simple.

That may be a better use for Folger's than actually drinking it.

"That may be a better use for Folger's than actually drinking it."

So true.

I have tried the folgernol developer before and found that it requires a very long development time (about 1/2 hour) and still produces a rather thin, flat neg. Perhaps reducing the amount of sodium carbonate, which I believe is a restrainer, could remedy all three problems.

Christopher Breitenstein.

Sodium Carbonate is not a restrainer - it is the alkali - reduce it too much and you'll get a very thin negative.