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XTOL shelf life report

Cholentpot said:
So where do I find these wine bladders?
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I was wondering that too. And how does the wine react when their bladders are removed??? Interest readers want to know!
 
Suppose you could go to store and buy some wine in a box, have fun, drink wine, save bladder. Or just hit up a wine making supply place, they might have them.

I have just been storing mine in brown glass bottles. I purge the bottles with Argon after each use.
 
Be careful of the wine bladders.
They used to be made of mylar and they were perfect for this application.
Around here they seem to have all transitioned to a thicker plastic and are no longer impermeable to oxygen. So they aren't as well suited to developer storage.
The outdoors people seem to like mylar bags for water storage, so there are still sources.
 
OK, I got it. Skip buying wine. Find some outdoor people and remove their bladders. Once I do that I will be good to go.
 

I don't believe this theory. Any bladder that is suitable for storing wine should be fine for developer. The bladder materials vary, and you have no way to tell what they are. Some of them are thicker plastic, and some of them are thinner, but it all depends on the permiabillity of the material.

Actually, I would NOT recommend buying bladders marketed for water, because water is not subject to oxygenation spoilage anyway, whereas a wine bladder is expected to keep wine good for some months, at least. "Water" bladders may be the same thing as wine bladders, but you have no way to know. The best source is recycling Franzia boxes if you can stand the wine; if not, I bought new wine bladders and a plastic reusable box for a reasonable price at my homebrew store. It even has a handy sloped bottom for getting the liquid out.
 
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All I can say is that the boxed wines around here now use bags that are like flexible milk jugs, not like the former thin mylar bags. And the boxed wines have really short "best before" dates on them, and recommend that the wine be consumed within a relatively short time (certainly not several months) after opening.

As best as I can tell about the material used it is a type that is identified as being oxygen permeable.

I think the reason that some of the bags used by the "outdoors" people are mylar is that those bags are both lighter than the thicker plastics, and they collapse to a much smaller volume when empty - perfect for hikers and back-packers.

I haven't used the new style wine bags for developer, but I have friends who have and they have had developer spoil quickly.
 

Several in this post want to know where to find wine bladders. I would find no such problem here. It is Argon that I need to know where to find?.....Regards!
 
You need to buy an Agon tank, flow regulator, and nozzle. For my chems, I have the smallest tank they refill. Its about a foot and a half tall. You can get them at a welding gas supply place. Argon is a little pricey but the tank lasts a long time. The reason I use Argon is because I also have a TIG welder. Argon is also heavy so it sinks to the bottom of the bottle.

oldtimermetoo said:
Several in this post want to know where to find wine bladders. I would find no such problem here. It is Argon that I need to know where to find?.....Regards!
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oldtimermetoo said:
Several in this post want to know where to find wine bladders. I would find no such problem here. It is Argon that I need to know where to find?.....Regards!
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I agree with MattKing on the mylar vs. poly-whatever wine bags. Oldtimermetoo are you talking "mylar" wine bladders? I could find none here in Michigan where I live and none to my liking (no spigots) on eBay. I did have a very nice and very friendly Aussie APUG member send me some mylar wine bags and they were like we used to use here before this poly stuff came into use. Yes, your welding supply place will have Argon. I used Acetylene gas from my cutting/welding torch set before I got the mylar bags and it seemed to work just fine for me. It's also heavier than air. We used it in Vietnam to clear out tunnel complex's sometimes. They would pump it down the entrance and the gas would settle to the lowest spots. Then it would be ignited and it certainly cleared the tunnel out. I figured that if it worked for that it would settle on top of and seal my developer too. Of course I don't smoke in my darkroom either. Hell, I don't smoke at all anymore.
 
I found a flexible storage bag at a woodworking supplier which is specifically designed to stop oxygen for storing paints and varnishes.
I decanted some of my last batch of Xtol into them a couple of months ago, but I haven't yet tried to use any of the "bagged" developer.
They are called "Stoplossbag", and they have a website where you can order. We don't drink all that much wine, so these seemed like an easier solution.
For filling air gaps in bottles, I bought a cylinder of nitrogen from craigslist a while back. Probably not as effective as argon, since it's light but it seems to help and it was cost effective.
 
I bought a dozen each or so of 125ml and 250ml glass bottles with polyseal caps from Specialty Bottle. I decant the entire five liters of XTOL to these bottles. Since I do 1+1, these are one shot sizes. The bottles are filled to capacity and used on demand. Dealing with bladder bags and inert gasses seems like a lot of trouble. I do keep a can of Bloxygen around though.
 
http://www.ebay.com/itm/5-Litre-Cid...arrel-Homebrew-Dispenser-Barrel-/271186261795

"BIB" (Bag in (a) Box) is the keyword. The bags consist of a multi layered material, which includes a layer of Ethylene vinyl alcohol (EVOH), which is a very effective oxygen barrier. They are popular among people who prepare their own wine/beer/cider etc.

Handling these is no trouble at all, and from my point of view definitely much less trouble than dealing with twenty 250ml glass bottles. According to my tests, Xtol prepared with demin water will keep up to a year in these bags, possibly longer.
 
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I guess I'll stick with my 1 liter seltzer bottles for now. I've stored D-76 in them for almost a year without issue. I just squeeze the air out before finishing the lid tightening.
 
There are the blue glass rocks for aquariums that you can keep adding to a bottle to keep the bottle full.
 

I do not know. Me thinks this is a lot of expense for an inexpensive developer especially when one can just squeeze the air out of the plastic bottle before tightening the lid.
 
Well, if you use it replenished you can keep the working solution in a, full to the top, brown glass gallon jug. Then get a bunch of smaller 80 to 100ml glass bottles and store the replenisher in those for topping-off. For me, I keep the working stuff in a gallon glass Boston brown and my replenisher is in a mylar wine bladder. When I'm done developing I add 90ml to the gallon jug and then fill to the top with my developer I had just used. It will overflow and I then recap and rinse the jug off so it's ready for the next run. It's the perfect setup for me anyway.
 
dpurdy said:
There are the blue glass rocks for aquariums that you can keep adding to a bottle to keep the bottle full.
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I use glass marbles. But that can make a near empty gallon container really heavy.
 
Sirius Glass said:
I use glass marbles. But that can make a near empty gallon container really heavy.
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John Wiegerink said:
I thought you used the replenish regime?
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I use replenished XTOL, but the bottles of stock XTOL get used as replenisher and it is there that I have to use marbles in the one liter bottles. The one gallon bottle with the marbles is the print developer.
 
Sirius Glass said:
I use replenished XTOL, but the bottles of stock XTOL get used as replenisher and it is there that I have to use marbles in the one liter bottles. The one gallon bottle with the marbles is the print developer.
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Now I understand. This is why I use the mylar wine bladder for my replenisher. That way I don't lose my marbles?
 

MattKing, do you mean something like this Platypus Water Bottle? It's made of food-grade polyethylene with a polypropylene screw cap, but I'm not sure if either of those materials are oxygen impermeable. There's also this Platypus Wine Preservation System, which is supposed to eliminate exposure to oxygen. It's also lined with a food-grade polyethylene liner.
 
MattKing said:
I was going to say something about Sirius losing his marbles long ago, but I thought better of it
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Well it is a good thing that I am not a golfer. Old golfers just loose their balls and putter away.
 
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