Wine pouches - how to choose?

[jay moussy]

One often reads about wine (or other) pouches, here.

What kind are best suited for the darkroom liquids - material, shape, openings, dispensing, durability?

 

[ChristopherCoy]

I'm confused. Wine pouches?

 

[jay moussy]

Yes, some posters mention their quite regularly. Amazon has pictures for example,
not sure if the right type, hence my question.

 

[Nicholas Lindan]

Look at "Cubitainers"

 

[ChristopherCoy]

ooohhhh for mixing chemicals in. Interesting, especially since I am currently looking into keeping chemicals longer.

 

[MattKing]

I'm currently experimenting with these, for developer storage. So far they have been problem free.
https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B073W9S8DL/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_image_o09_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Unfortunately there is no indication anywhere about what plastic is used in them.

 

[Auer]

What about this?

https://www.usplastic.com/catalog/item.aspx?itemid=122653

(I really try not to buy everything on Amazon...)

 

[MattKing]

What about this?

https://www.usplastic.com/catalog/item.aspx?itemid=122653

(I really try not to buy everything on Amazon...)

Besides the fact that those are 1 gallon pouches, the problem with them for me is that they are expensive to buy and then ship to Canada. Amazon.ca gives me access to many things at reasonable cost that would otherwise only be available at unreasonable cost.
You folks in the US often don't realize how remarkably cheap your in lower-48 distribution systems are.

 

[Mainecoonmaniac]

I've used successfully bladders from Trader Joes Block wine. They're double lined polyethylene and holds about 3 liters. The spigot is kind of tricky to remove. It's not screwed into the bladder, but pressed in. But soaking the collar that holds the spigot in hot water and it could easily be pried off. I go through wine faster than my stored chemicals that I throw them out after I'm done. They're great for developers. After mixing a batch of XTOL, I split the batch into 2. One is the working solution I store in a glass container, the other is the replenisher that I store in the bladder.

 

[laser]

There have been several discussions on Photrio about materials for storing chemicals and film. Photographic manufacturers use sophisticated laminates to package their film and chemical products because layers of polyethylene does not provide adequate protection. For home darkroom use (no shipping) the best material for solutions is full glass bottles. They are readily available, easily cleaned, impervious to air, etc. Other materials like cubitainers, bag-in-a-box, wine pouches etc. might work. But are difficult to thoroughly clean and it is uncertain which ones will work and which will not. Glass is so much simpler.

Kodak used Cubitainers for concentrates. However, the cubes used for oxidation sensitive concentrates were not ordinary cubes. They were coated with another material that served as an oxygen barrier.

I suggest using full glass bottles is such an easy solution and technically nothing works better.


www.makingKODAKfilm.com

 

[ChristopherCoy]

I suggest using full glass bottles is such an easy solution and technically nothing works better.

Full glass bottles only work when they are full.

 

[Auer]

Besides the fact that those are 1 gallon pouches, the problem with them for me is that they are expensive to buy and then ship to Canada. Amazon.ca gives me access to many things at reasonable cost that would otherwise only be available at unreasonable cost.
You folks in the US often don't realize how remarkably cheap your in lower-48 distribution systems are.

I thought the gallon size would be handy for, you know, like a gallon of D76 or so?
One shot and squeeze air out after use?

 

[Auer]

There have been several discussions on Photrio about materials for storing chemicals and film. Photographic manufacturers use sophisticated laminates to package their film and chemical products because layers of polyethylene does not provide adequate protection. For home darkroom use (no shipping) the best material for solutions is full glass bottles. They are readily available, easily cleaned, impervious to air, etc. Other materials like cubitainers, bag-in-a-box, wine pouches etc. might work. But are difficult to thoroughly clean and it is uncertain which ones will work and which will not. Glass is so much simpler.

Kodak used Cubitainers for concentrates. However, the cubes used for oxidation sensitive concentrates were not ordinary cubes. They were coated with another material that served as an oxygen barrier.

I suggest using full glass bottles is such an easy solution and technically nothing works better.


www.makingKODAKfilm.com

I use plastic, because I drop things. https://www.usplastic.com/catalog/item.aspx?itemid=35098

 

[MattKing]

I thought the gallon size would be handy for, you know, like a gallon of D76 or so?
One shot and squeeze air out after use?

For some, that would work well.
For me, a one gallon container that you need to pour from would be awkward to store and handle.
The old cubitainers, which you could put on a high shelf and then dispense from using a faucet spout were great for anyone with an appropriate shelf, but I don't have one of those.
laser's suggestion (glass) is the best, but for those of us with temporary darkrooms and the need to constantly move things around, glass is a challenge.

 

[fgorga]

My educated (I am retired chemistry professor) guess is that any of these pouches that are sold specifically for wine will work just fine for protecting photographic chemicals from oxidation.

The whole point of a wine pouch is to exclude oxygen that will eventually turn the wine (ethanol) into vinegar (acetic acid). Thus, I would think that whatever material(s) they are made from they will do a decent job at excluding oxygen. This might be true for items sold as generic collapsible bottles, but I would be less certain in this case.

As for chemical resistance, most plastics are pretty resistant to dilute aqueous solutions of most chemicals. Thus, I suspect that wine pouches will hold up just fine to the large majority of photographic solutions. The only thing I would worry about, in terms of long term storage in wine pouches, are organic solvents and concentrated solution of strong acids or bases.

 

[ChristopherCoy]

For some, that would work well.
For me, a one gallon container that you need to pour from would be awkward to store and handle.

5L bags that come with boxes! With handles!

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07BR674P3/ref=nav_timeline_asin?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1

 

[MattKing]

5L bags that come with boxes! With handles!

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07BR674P3/ref=nav_timeline_asin?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1

Won't ship to or unavailable in Canada
The other reason to look at the wine pouches is because the reviews are hilarious. It seems that much of the market is for people to sneak booze on to cruise ships.
For some reason, the fact that a pouch filled with bourbon is easy to hide in a bra doesn't help convince me to buy it!

 

[pentaxuser]

If you buy wine boxes with the bags from the likes of a supermarket with a view to using them for the likes of developer dispensing, just make sure that the dispenser can be prised from the bag.

In the U.K. in recent years the wine bags have all come in 2.25 litres only as opposed to 3L and most bags now have dispensers that cannot be prised out without ruining them so are useless. No doubt this was done to reduce any chance of leaks where the dispenser fits into the bags and quite likely to reduce cost as well.

None of this may apply to U.S. winebags but I mention this simply in case the same is happening in the U.S. but yes I have always found wine bags to be a useful means of storage and dispensing provided that the dispenser can be removed and replaced once cleaned

pentaxuser

 

[Mainecoonmaniac]

Red wine keeps better in bladders than bottles. They’re great for people that don’t drink wine often. The ones that I get with my boxed wines I could remove the tap and rinse it out with hot water. So far I have not discovered that any residual wine affects photo chemistry.

 

[ChristopherCoy]

I once went tubing on the Comal river in Texas and played "pass the pouch." Wine bags are GREAT for tubing.

 

[mshchem]

Most all of these pouches have PET, as some component. Mylar is a somewhat special grade of polyester (PET). IN the USA at least, the recycling nomenclature is PETE, this is because a plastic container company called PET, pre-existed the recycling codes. All impact resistant rigid, beverage bottles, any drink or food grade plastic transitioned to Eastman polyester materials in the late 20th early 21st century.

Too bad Eastman Kodak didn't keep the commodity plastics plant old George started. EKCo would've still went bankrupt.

 

[drmoss_ca]

Cautionary tale: I once kept Diafine solutions in the cupboard under the sink in the washroom I use as a darkroom. The solutions were in clear polyethylene jugs that I had bought distilled water in for my LP cleaner. At some point the Diafine managed to eat through the plastic and then through the copper pipe leading to a tap. That was nasty! Since then I have used Datatainers and had no more leaks.

 

[Trask]

Full glass bottles only work when they are full.

That’s almost a song lyric...

 

[gordrob]

The old cubitainers, which you could put on a high shelf and then dispense from using a faucet spout were great for anyone with an appropriate shelf, but I don't have one of those.

The old Kodak Cubitainers with the screw cap dispenser unit are great to use if you have the shelf space to set them up. The one thing I like about them is they collapse as you use up the contents. I used to put them into a warming bath to bring the chemistry up to temperature for C41 and E6. I have used these cubitainers since the late eighties and they are still in good condition.

 

[Down Under]

Red wine keeps better in bladders than bottles. They’re great for people that don’t drink wine often. The ones that I get with my boxed wines I could remove the tap and rinse it out with hot water. So far I have not discovered that any residual wine affects photo chemistry.

I have much experience in this area from the early 1980s when casks were introduced in Australia (before that we had 'flagons' which were glass bottles) until the early 2000s when I stopped mixing my darkroom chemistry in gallons from pre-packed and took up mixing small batches with raw chemicals and a digital scale. Much easier for me as I no longer process as much film as I did, and with a little care, equally good consistency from mix to mix.

Other than occasionally 'colorising' your developers a light red, I never had any problems with wine residue in a bag affecting my film processing.

One also has the pleasure of drinking the contents (not the developer!) before using the bag. So a double win-win.