OK, received the bottle of Black, White, and Green film developer and have developed a roll of Tri-X with it. Here are my thoughts;
1. THIS STUFF IS VISCOUS. When it arrived, it looked much like a bottle of mostly crystallized honey, with a very little still oozy. In fact, I had to resist an urge to put some in my tea, but I digress. I assumed the crystallization was due to cold temps during transit, and I reckoned a day at room temperature (-ish, I left it in my basement which can dip into the lower 60s F) would return it to liquid form. Nothing doing! A day later, and it was still mostly crystallized. So, I ended up putting the bottle in a water bath -- 110F for twenty minutes, and this returned it to its liquid (thought still very viscous) state. On that note:
2. In order to get it properly diluted for development, I used 25C water which seemed to be about right to get it quickly incorporated; anything lower and I was stirring madly, and, looking for a way to get the remnants of the 10ml pour out of my graduated cylinder. Once incorporated, I poured cooler water in to reach 20C (well, to be very, very clear, I actually develop at 22C, so all numbers below were converted to 22, but I'll state them at 20 as that seems to be the standard).
3. Side-by-side comparison with HC-110 was interesting. Even though the website and reviews talk about the restrainers used in this developer, my negs developed with BWG were noticeably denser than the same shots developed with HC-110. Particulars:
A. Shot the same scene on two rolls of Tri-X 120. Same camera, same lens, same lighting.
B. Developed one roll with HC-110, Dilution H at 8 mins 20C [6:30 for 22C] (8 mins is a compromise between Tri-X spec sheet recommended time of 3.75 minutes with Dilution B, and Massive Dev recommendation of 4.5 minutes Dilution B)
C. Developed second roll with BWG at the recommended 13 mins, 20C [10:30 for 22C].
D. Same agitation both rolls: 1 minute (first minute), then ten seconds each following minute.
I swapped a few emails with the company to ask them about the crystallization. They stated that the freezing point of the concoction is 7C, and that it is a "poor conductor" which likely explains why it took so long to re-incorporate the crystals. Big kudos for Flic for being so responsive to my emails.
So...not sure yet how I ended up with denser negatives despite my expectation of thinner ones; I'll have to shoot another roll. I use a sous-vide to maintain a stable water temperature, so I am fairly confident I did not over-cook temperature wise. Perhaps too much agitation? There are no agitation instructions on the bottle, just time/temp, so I cannot comment on that.
