Just wanted to share an experiment. When cleaning up my storage I discovered an old bottle of stock, full-strength Xtol. According to the label on it, it was roughly a year old. This bottle was abandoned and forgotten because it was mixed from the "defective" bag (Kodak made an announcement last year, where they listed serial numbers of problematic manufacturing batches).
At the same time, I am finishing up my current batch which has been stored in a wine bag (Astrapouch brand) for 4 months.
Since I have been moving from DIY "control strips" (based on HP5+) to proper control strips based on FP4+, I decided to do a little experiment which I hope you'll find useful:
Conclusion: well-kept Xtol lasts at least a full year with no change in activity. All batches were mixed with distilled water, the oldest one was kept in an amber glass bottle (with a walnut-sized air bubble).
At the same time, I am finishing up my current batch which has been stored in a wine bag (Astrapouch brand) for 4 months.
Since I have been moving from DIY "control strips" (based on HP5+) to proper control strips based on FP4+, I decided to do a little experiment which I hope you'll find useful:
- I mixed another fresh bag of Xtol.
- Developed HP5+ and FP4+ based control strips in stock Xtol from all 3 batches: fresh, 4-months old, and 1y old.
- I used the development times from the Ilford (not Kodak) datasheets for stock Xtol at 20C
- Compare the results
Conclusion: well-kept Xtol lasts at least a full year with no change in activity. All batches were mixed with distilled water, the oldest one was kept in an amber glass bottle (with a walnut-sized air bubble).