chokeberry (Aronia) wine developer

macheck · Feb 23, 2017

Hello to everybody - it is my first post here.

Chokeberry a very astringent and tannic taste fruit.
They say it contains a lot of phenolics.
Googling "chokeberry film developer" gave me two inputs:
one and second, producing film developer almost out of everything and ascorbic acid plus baking soda added.
I did sometime ago a chokeberry wine (berries steam distilled, sugar yeasts added and fermented - very dry, tannic, no one wants to drink it - banana wine is a lot better, they say chokeberry wine is best for blending wines).
It is my recipe for chokeberry wine developer (I know it is a hard to reproduce one but it works rather like a conventional developer, so experimenting with the main ingredient is worth a while):

chokeberry wine: 500 ml,
NaOH: 10 g,
KBr: 6g (antifogging agent, might be less when developing not long ago expired films),
temp.: 17-20 degC, (26 degC gave overdeveloped negatives),
time: 15-17 min.
The developer after first development was stored in a refrigerator and after a week it kept its properties.
Negatives are of reddish hue.

I read a thread on apug concerning red wine (grape) developer where one of conclusions was better to consume wine and leave development to well known products but I presume it is not a winemakers or tasters forum.

What are your opinions, would there be a difference in developing properties between a fermented juice (wine) and straight juice (haven't tried it yet).
macheck

David Lyga · Feb 23, 2017

Perhaps this 'developer' is too esoteric for comment. Does it work? We do not know ... but anything 'different' is bound to hold some interest, macheck.

Coffee has worked, maybe this. However, we have few preliminary comments until we see results. - David Lyga

macheck · Feb 23, 2017

David thank you for a comment, sorry I didn't show the results but after visiting the results you still will not know, you weren't there.
macheck

macheck · Mar 4, 2017

In order to verify the abilities of chokeberry as a film developer I did a test with dried fruits as described here. Comparing to previously described chokeberry wine the alkalized dried fruits infusion showed some potential but comparing to the wine a rather weak one - the addition of KBr nullified it.

By the way I have tested some other plants: sumac (Rhus typhina), diluted sumac (Rhus typhina), pommegranate (Punica granatum) and oak (Quercus robur).

In my opinion, comparing the developing strength of those four: sumac branches infusion developer has the best properties, the pomegranate peels and septas infusion is next then dried chokeberry infusion and the last is oak branches infusion - keeping in mind that the branches were cut in the winter dormancy period and the chokeberries were bought dried.

The handiest are pomegranates their edible grains are healthy and not necessary for preparing developer.

macheck · Mar 6, 2017

For centuries oak galls are known for having some tannin content, my experimenting with oak branches extraction were not very impressive so got focused on galls.
They say that galls must be fermented in order to better extract them but overwintering under mother tree might be of some benefit.
The weather was so nice, during a walk in the woods as I stumbled upon some overwintered fallen oak leaves with galls on them but not under every oak only one had them so I gathered only 50 g and made a developer, the results and more detailed description are here.

Also managed to gather more sumac infusion giving amount making a whole film in a tank development possible. Some results of it are here.

Still looking forward to hearing from you,
Sincerely
Macheck

darkroommike · Mar 6, 2017

Using wine or coffee to develop film seems a terrible wast of wine and coffee! But fun to play with.

Ko.Fe. · Mar 6, 2017

I would not call instant coffee, which is in use for caffenol as something related to waste of coffee at all.
And then it was Californian wine. Cheap, in plastic bag and in the box, called France or something. This one is not for drinking for sure.
True artists would collect wild grapes and do his own wine. I did. Perfect for ... developer

macheck · Mar 7, 2017

Yes making film developer out of wine might be a waste but after all you can recover alcohol even out of wine developer to get a some kind of brandy.
I prefer tea so not even tried a tea developer.
To avoid illegal (at least in my country) actions , I tried other substances that are not so consumable-ready of even are a waste as pomegranate peels.
Ko.Fe. would you give some details about your wild grapes wine did you actually convert it into a developer or was it just a tasty wine.

kb244 · Mar 7, 2017

Well... some people use crap wine as ink (usually glass nibs)... so least cheap/crap wine is put to better use as a developer rather than having been drank. In my opinion anyways.

The results from that flickr album seem pretty nice, though I'd want to give it a try myself just to see it in person.

macheck · Mar 7, 2017

Thank you kb244 it is worth giving it a try - not much complicated except finding a sumac tree (they say Rhus Coriaria contains even more tannins: "The leaves contain up to 30 % of a tannin, which is the condensation of Gallic Acid, Digallic with Glucose."), one advice - filtering and stirring during development is obligatory and testing on a small portion of film prior to processing whole one.

Alan Johnson · Mar 7, 2017

It's an interesting discovery as Chokeberry has among the highest polyphenol contents of plants.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aronia
They probably give up a couple of electrons in NaOH alkalinity and reduce 2Ag+ to 2Ag with formation of some kind of quinone I daresay.

Ko.Fe. · Mar 7, 2017

macheck said:
Yes making film developer out of wine might be a waste but after all you can recover alcohol even out of wine developer to get a some kind of brandy.
I prefer tea so not even tried a tea developer.
To avoid illegal (at least in my country) actions , I tried other substances that are not so consumable-ready of even are a waste as pomegranate peels.
Ko.Fe. would you give some details about your wild grapes wine did you actually convert it into a developer or was it just a tasty wine.

First of all, "recover alcohol to get some kind of brandy" is called distillation and it is illegal at home residence in Canada. You must have government license and premises to run distillery as the business. For home consumption (in Canada) it is legal to do you own beer, cider and wine. Making wine from grapes or berries is well known procedure for centuries and extremely well documented and supported by wine making supplies. So, my wine making experience is absolutely same as described on the Internet. Collect grapes, press for juice, get it into the bottle with air look, wait for fermentation to be over and drink it all by tea mugs before it turns into the vinegar

About Canadian Thanksgiving. by Kostya Fedot, on Flickr

This one was taken with 4x5 Press Camera hand held. The stage is pressed juice from backyard vines like these:

Me. Almost. by Kostya Fedot, on Flickr

Zorki 6 with I-50.

Fermented and tea mugs drinking stage (vines for wine making in the background):

Canon FTb, Vivitar 28 2.8 and Kodak 200 Gold developed at home.

As of developing film by wine, I'm not a giftless hipster. I don't need to compensate my crapshots with wine developer to be able to brag about it from my Macbook while posting it from Starbucks in NYC or LA.
But I understand as well, what it might be not the hipster act, but curiosity.
I prefer to take pictures which are good enough without exotic developers, but I do print in lith developer and drink beer or cider.

macheck · Mar 7, 2017

Thank you Ko.Fe. for your input certainly what this thread was missing were your nice wine making and wine presenting photos (I hope those minors on your photos were only presenting the juice).
Name the winemakers forum you are a member of and I will be much pleased to join it and we will exchnge our experience in producing alcohol beverages.
Macheck wrote in the first post:
"I read a thread on apug concerning red wine (grape) developer where one of conclusions was better to consume wine and leave development to well known products but I presume it is not a winemakers or tasters forum."
so lets focus on the subject
Ko.Fe. wrote:
"True artists would collect wild grapes and do his own wine. I did. Perfect for ... developer"
I didn't know it was an irony (those "wild grapes" intrigued me) - I am a new here sorry.

I remember times when obtaining a roll of film was much easier (it was almost in every cigarette shop) than buying a pack of a developer, today is a lot different you can go to garden woods or grocery and have one but this knowledge was in old times but was not used.
What amazes me is that this knowledge was in old times but was not used latter.

Ko.Fe. · Mar 7, 2017

In Southwestern Ontario where I'm, we have wild grapes (in the parks and forests) and semi-wild ones (at the backyards for decoration). I used grapes from backyards. I'm not the member of any wine making forum, all I did is google it for how to and where to get supplies locally.
In my town we have couple of "make your own wine" stores, one of them is run by the ex-chief of assembly line for Zenit cameras at Krasnogorsk factory...

macheck · Mar 7, 2017

Yes I was thinking of an american wild grape, Vitis labrusca (fox grape) they say its fruits contain a lot of phenolic content.
Here in Europe (I wolud say Northern part of it) sometimes we have hybrids of european grape and american one, it is more weather resistant.

macheck · Mar 9, 2017

A ferric chloride colorimetry diy testing of various substances was carried in order to have a method of assessment of development potential of other plant materials - candidates for alternative film developers: pic1 and pic2.
One can imagine a method for verifying film developing abilities of plant extracted substances (chemical colorimetry one) with an assumption all those substances have the same silver halide reduction potential:
naming a reference substance, conducting a ferric chloride colorimetry of for example 3 of its dilutions and establishing development times of developer composed with those dilutions, then drawing a chart (dilution vs. development time) next to perform colorimetry for substance under testing to get the development time (from the previously prepared chart) afterwards developing a test piece of film in order to verify the preliminary assumption of substances affinity (in the previously defined sense).

macheck · Mar 10, 2017

I have added the result of weeping willow infusion developer so far the most potent (in the terms of development time) of my developing plant substances. The ferric chloride reaction didn’t give strong effect – I suspect no much polyphenols but a lot of salicylic acid. The negative is not significantly stained. I have to make a whole film development test.

In the course of testing I have tried potatoes raw juice, starch sedimented, as always 50 ml plus 1g of NaOH and 4.5h of development and almost no effect but all alternative developers contain ascorbic acid so added two crushed 200mg pills and after four minutes negative testing piece was dark – the synergy between potato and VitC?

I did a pureVitC developer (50ml water, 1g NaOH and crushed 2x200mg pills) lot of sediments and developed a test frame. The potatoes aren’t needed.

The caffenol with no coffee.

macheck · Mar 18, 2017

Some samples of weeping willow whole film developing effect.

macheck · Mar 22, 2017

And now a caffenol with no vitC.

pentaxuser · Mar 22, 2017

Ko.Fe. I love the B&W pic with the bear in it. The kids may be drinking non alcoholic pressed fruit juice but the bear has clearly broken the law on home distilling.

Brilliant

pentaxuser

Pop Alexandra · Aug 9, 2022

macheck said:
A ferric chloride colorimetry diy testing of various substances was carried in order to have a method of assessment of development potential of other plant materials - candidates for alternative film developers: pic1 and pic2.
One can imagine a method for verifying film developing abilities of plant extracted substances (chemical colorimetry one) with an assumption all those substances have the same silver halide reduction potential:
naming a reference substance, conducting a ferric chloride colorimetry of for example 3 of its dilutions and establishing development times of developer composed with those dilutions, then drawing a chart (dilution vs. development time) next to perform colorimetry for substance under testing to get the development time (from the previously prepared chart) afterwards developing a test piece of film in order to verify the preliminary assumption of substances affinity (in the previously defined sense).

Personally, I use DIY tests for any chemical analysis I do at home and they're fairly accurate.

pentaxuser · Aug 9, 2022

The OP joined on Feb 23 2017 and has not been seen since Mar 26 2017 so was here 1 month only. Nearly all of his posts were concerned with his wine developers.

There were no signs of discord that might explain such a short period with us

I suppose that if his interest was in wine development rather than photography per se then he simply concluded that our interest in his products was not sufficient to make his membership worthwhile

I am always intrigued by what the reasons might be for this kind of unexplained departure

pentaxuser

macheck · Sep 18, 2022

pentaxuser said:
The OP joined on Feb 23 2017 and has not been seen since Mar 26 2017 so was here 1 month only. Nearly all of his posts were concerned with his wine developers.

There were no signs of discord that might explain such a short period with us

I suppose that if his interest was in wine development rather than photography per se then he simply concluded that our interest in his products was not sufficient to make his membership worthwhile

I am always intrigued by what the reasons might be for this kind of unexplained departure

pentaxuser

Hello pentaxuser no discord just no one was really interested. The drinking and preparing of wine gave more outcome. Generally, nowadays those who perform analogue photograpy are more concerneg about the "standard methods" rather than experimenting with their precious materials for no rational sake.

chokeberry (Aronia) wine developer

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