Make YOUR OWN Black and White Film Developer with COFFEE | Caffenol Cook

Caffenol is often viewed as a "hobby" black and white film de developer. Nothing that can reach the quality results from brand-name chemicals. I disagree. With some experimentation, I believe the results possible from caffenol can meet and at times exceed those from more "reputable" film developers. Caffenol is one of the most environmentally friendly film developers, being quite literally nothing more than coffee and soap at its most basic level. It is also nearly infinitely tweakable in terms of adjusting contrast and a minor degree, some extent of grain l control.
Allow me to show you my personal "Standard" caffenol developer formula that works great for most any low to mid-speed black and white film stock.
My Standard Caffenol Recipe
Mix the following (in this order) with 500mL water. Allow each ingredient fully dissolve prior to adding the next.
25g sodium carbonate (washing soda)
20g ascorbic acid
10g Sea salt
45g instant coffee
**Note** I mention in the short that 40g of instant coffee shoutl be used for the 500mL batch. That is incorrect. the correct amount is 45g of instant coffee. The 40g was accidentally pulled from a different formulation.
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[@wilbertvandenberg3158]

With as much as 40 gr of Vitamin C per liter (that's 4 times the amount of XTol), you can skip the coffee altogether. With such a huge amount of ascorbic acid, the only thing the coffee does is turn your negatives brown.

[@Festgriff]

Actually not quite true. Ive been experimenting with caffenol formulations now for almost a year - as an ex experimental biochemist - and Ive tried the no coffee at all route but it doesn’t work. The phenols in the coffee are actually necessary. Of course you could substitute beer or wine or grape juice or probably even apple juice (Ive tried the beer and wine routes and they work fine but required adjustments for each type of film. What I have found out - that goes against everything you can read on the internet - is that standard brew coffee or coffee fromm an espresso machine works just as well as instant coffee. What most people forget is that the original recipe was designed by a chemist a part of an experimental lab module - and for that situation instant coffee was of course the preferred route to go.

[@AdamWelch]

@wilbertvandenberg3158 What @Festgriff said.

[@AdamWelch]

@@Festgriff Thanks for this wonderfully knowledgeable insight, Lee. I've always wondered about the use of true coffee over instant but, as you say, all the readings emphatically state it will not work; or not to the degree as does instant coffee. Tack on another item to my ever-growing list of things I'm behind on trying.