Author Topic: Beerol (Read 25330 times)

Bryan · « **Reply #50 on:** January 06, 2016, 04:20:40 AM »

In my hopeless pursuit to perfect the Beerol or Beerenol recipe I decided to try adding salt. The reason I didn't use salt before is because I know beer has some salinity to it. As I understand it the salt acts to slow the development process so I added five minutes. I think I got pretty good negatives but they are a bit grainy. I may need to be more gentle with my agitation, plus this is faster film than I was testing before.

Beer (cheap Lager, I used Rainier) - 24oz
Washing Soda - 5.5 Tsp
Vitamin C - 2.5 Tsp
Salt - 1/2 Tsp

Developed at 20 degrees C for 20 minutes. Agitate first 30 seconds then 15 seconds every minute. Normal fix.

Photographed with a Mamiya C3 using a Mamiya Sekor 65mm lens. The film is Ilford Delta 400.

Bothell Landing Bridge Reflection by Bryan Chernick, on Flickr

Indofunk · « **Reply #51 on:** January 06, 2016, 04:45:53 AM »

Looks great to me!

Terry · « **Reply #52 on:** January 08, 2016, 01:03:32 AM »

Trying very hard to see the grain....looks pretty smooth to me. Really nice tonal quality too.

Bryan · « **Reply #53 on:** February 03, 2018, 12:30:38 AM »

After some discussion on the weekend thread about my problems with Beerenol and Tri-X film I decided to run a test today not using salt. The results were very surprising, not good surprising, more like WTF surprising. There was no silver left on the negative, it was completely stripped clean. In all the tests I have done with Beerenol I have not seen anything like this. This leads me to believe that maybe I need more salt, not less, that will be the next test. This is the recipe:

Beer (cheap Lager, I used Pabst Blue Ribbon) - 12oz
Washing Soda - 2.25 Tsp
Vitamin C - 1.25 Tsp
No Salt

Developed at 20 degrees C for 20 minutes. Agitate first 30 seconds then 15 seconds every minute. Normal fix.

02Pilot · « **Reply #54 on:** February 03, 2018, 03:21:00 AM »

The only thing I can think of is that the beer acts as a solvent developer and, absent a restrainer, basically dissolves the emulsion completely. Maybe what you were describing as underdevelopment was actually part of the emulsion being removed, and you were simply seeing what was left. A test with some heavily overexposed film and maybe half the time in the developer might yield further clues.

Bryan · « **Reply #55 on:** February 03, 2018, 03:46:21 AM »

Quote from: 02Pilot on February 03, 2018, 03:21:00 AM

The only thing I can think of is that the beer acts as a solvent developer and, absent a restrainer, basically dissolves the emulsion completely. Maybe what you were describing as underdevelopment was actually part of the emulsion being removed, and you were simply seeing what was left. A test with some heavily overexposed film and maybe half the time in the developer might yield further clues.

Cutting the development time in half will be my next test. Doubling the salt looks no different than the normal amount of salt. What I thought was under developed was probably just a thin negative. Time to drink beer now, more testing tomorrow.

Bryan · « **Reply #56 on:** February 03, 2018, 07:35:09 PM »

Cutting the development time to 10 minutes and 15 minutes simply under developed it more. I wish I knew why developing it with no salt completely stripped it clean, that may give me a clue. When I first started experimenting with beer I didn’t use salt and never had that happen with other types of film. I’m thinking I will need to make changes to the sodium carbonate or Vitamin C.

02Pilot · « **Reply #57 on:** February 03, 2018, 07:57:39 PM »

Really odd. By chance do you know the pH of your developer?

cs1 · « **Reply #58 on:** February 03, 2018, 08:26:13 PM »

Sorry, completely OT: how do you dispose of Beerol (or Caffenol for that matter) after use? Are there already silver salts in the used developer or can you actually dispose of it in the drain? I'd really like to try environment friendly developer and Beerol sounds sort of interesting.

EDIT: I just realised that (a) I should search the forum for both Caffenol and Beerol and (b) look at Reinhold's blog for starters. Sorry. Please continue.

Bryan · « **Reply #59 on:** February 03, 2018, 08:48:19 PM »

Quote from: 02Pilot on February 03, 2018, 07:57:39 PM

Really odd. By chance do you know the pH of your developer?

I don’t know the pH. I just did another test with more Vitamin C, maybe a little improvement. I’ll have to take a closer look after it dries.

Bryan · « **Reply #60 on:** February 03, 2018, 08:51:20 PM »

Quote from: cs1 on February 03, 2018, 08:26:13 PM

Sorry, completely OT: how do you dispose of Beerol (or Caffenol for that matter) after use? Are there already silver salts in the used developer or can you actually dispose of it in the drain? I'd really like to try environment friendly developer and Beerol sounds sort of interesting.

EDIT: I just realised that (a) I should search the forum for both Caffenol and Beerol and (b) look at Reinhold's blog for starters. Sorry. Please continue.

I dump it down the drain, it’s quite harmless, all the ingredients end up going down the drain after normal use anyway. The fix is what you need to dispose of properly, that’s where the silver is.

Francois · « **Reply #61 on:** February 03, 2018, 11:00:03 PM »

I have a feeling the salt probably hardens the emulsion.
In reality it wouldn't surprise me the slightest bit, especially when you think the gelatin used to make film comes from beef and that salting a steak makes it harden.

chris667 · « **Reply #62 on:** February 04, 2018, 10:26:34 AM »

This is very interesting for me, partly because I love film and partly because I used to own a brewing shop.

It would be relatively easy to make a "beer" specifically for film development that didn't contain gas, and it would cost pennies.

I'd suggest one of the fast acting wine yeasts with a built in nutrient to save time, and spraymalt instead of boiling and mashing. I guess you'd start at About 100g spraymalt and 300g sugar for 5 litres of water in a sterilised bucket. Dissolve the spraymalt in 1l boiling water, and top up with cold water. Add the yeast when it's at the right temperature. To make it still, you'd use sodium metabisulphite instead of bottling; it would keep as long as you'd need it in a winemaking demijohn.

This would taste awful, if you were wondering.

cs1 · « **Reply #63 on:** February 04, 2018, 02:01:53 PM »

I think I'm going to try both at some point, maybe Caffenol first. I've got kids in the house. Though I keep all the photo chemicals safely out of their reach anyhow, the idea of developing with stuff that's less harmful to people and the environment is quite appealing. This way I only need to bring the fixer to our recycling / hazardous chemicals station.

Indofunk · « **Reply #64 on:** February 04, 2018, 04:02:33 PM »

Quote from: chris667 on February 04, 2018, 10:26:34 AM

This would taste awful, if you were wondering.

Bryan · « **Reply #65 on:** February 04, 2018, 04:05:52 PM »

Quote from: chris667 on February 04, 2018, 10:26:34 AM

This is very interesting for me, partly because I love film and partly because I used to own a brewing shop.

It would be relatively easy to make a "beer" specifically for film development that didn't contain gas, and it would cost pennies.

I'd suggest one of the fast acting wine yeasts with a built in nutrient to save time, and spraymalt instead of boiling and mashing. I guess you'd start at About 100g spraymalt and 300g sugar for 5 litres of water in a sterilised bucket. Dissolve the spraymalt in 1l boiling water, and top up with cold water. Add the yeast when it's at the right temperature. To make it still, you'd use sodium metabisulphite instead of bottling; it would keep as long as you'd need it in a winemaking demijohn.

This would taste awful, if you were wondering.

I do make my own beer, I have a Porter fermenting right now and my wife started a batch of IPA yesterday. I don’t want to go through that much work to make something to develop film, that’s why I use a cheap lager. I do get great results from every other film I have tried except Tri-X. If I can’t figure this out I’ll probably just use Rodinal or caffenol for it but I am quite curious why it’s not working. It was the high concentration of caffeic acid in oats that got me going on this so I suppose you could just boil some oats and try that.

Bryan · « **Reply #66 on:** February 04, 2018, 04:11:29 PM »

Quote from: cs1 on February 04, 2018, 02:01:53 PM

I think I'm going to try both at some point, maybe Caffenol first. I've got kids in the house. Though I keep all the photo chemicals safely out of their reach anyhow, the idea of developing with stuff that's less harmful to people and the environment is quite appealing. This way I only need to bring the fixer to our recycling / hazardous chemicals station.

I recommend giving it a try, it’s a little bit more work than just buying developer off the shelf but you may enjoy it. I also like the idea of using something that’s non-toxic, I do environmental cleanup work for a living so I don’t want to create more problems.

Francois · « **Reply #67 on:** February 04, 2018, 08:35:51 PM »

I have a few questions on my mind...
Would it still work just as well using the horrible alcohol free beer they now sell at the dollar store?
And does using a very dark beer work differently than using a blond beer?

Bryan · « **Reply #68 on:** February 04, 2018, 10:46:50 PM »

Quote from: Francois on February 04, 2018, 08:35:51 PM

I have a few questions on my mind...
Would it still work just as well using the horrible alcohol free beer they now sell at the dollar store?
And does using a very dark beer work differently than using a blond beer?

I suspect the cheap alcohol free beer would work, if it’s cheaper than Pabst it may be worth a try. Maybe a dark porter or stout will work with the Tri-x but that kind of goes against my beer ethics.

I’m still not having any luck with the Tri-X. Today I tried it adjusting the Sodium Carbonate in both directions. Got a little improvement increasing it but it’s still not ideal. I’ll scan and post some images this week.

Bryan · « **Reply #69 on:** February 06, 2018, 03:51:08 AM »

It looks like the best results are from my original recipe. This test came out too grainy, still under developed and too much contrast. If I do another test it will be with a dark beer like a Porter unless anyone has any other suggestions. I may have to stick with Rodinal 1:50 for Tri-X which does give nice results. This is the recipe I used which I don't recomend:

Beer (Pabst Blue Ribbon) - 12oz
Sodium Carbonate - 4 tsp
Ascorbic Acid Powder (Vitamin C) - 1.25 tsp
Salt (Morton's Iodized Table Salt) - 1/4 tsp

Dissolve the Sodium Carbonate in the beer before adding other ingredients. Developed at 20 degrees C for 25 minutes. Agitate first 30 seconds then 15 seconds every minute. Normal fix.

Leica IIIa with Summar 5cm f/2 lens.

This shows the grain.

Cottoage Grove lake by Bryan Chernick, on Flickr

This was the best one:

LimeBikes by Bryan Chernick, on Flickr

Francois · « **Reply #70 on:** February 06, 2018, 03:56:30 PM »

That's pretty darn good for some hipster brew

Bryan · « **Reply #71 on:** February 20, 2018, 05:20:59 PM »

I broke down and tried Tri-X in a Porter. Before you start accusing me of wasting good beer this was a home brew I made that went flat. The beer came out fine but I wanted the keg for another batch so I bottled the last bit of the keg. It turns out a lot of the carbonation was lost in the bottling process, I won't make that mistake again. I followed the same recipe and development times as above only changing the beer that I used. The brewing process I used to make the beer is all grain, no malt extracts were used if that makes any difference. The negatives are definitely much improved but still not quite ideal yet. I have one more flat beer that I'm saving for another test, I'll probably increase the development time. I'm not holding out a lot of hope for this and I don't plan to waste good beer on a regular basis.

Wood Trucks by Bryan Chernick, on Flickr

Overturned Wheelbarrow by Bryan Chernick, on Flickr

I used the Balda Baldessa 1B camera that I got from SLVR in the Share The Love swap.

Indofunk · « **Reply #72 on:** February 21, 2018, 04:16:56 AM »

Amazing results. I would love to brew my own beer and have enough "reject" beers to develop film in it

But mostly I'd love to brew my own beer to drink

chris667 · « **Reply #73 on:** February 21, 2018, 05:11:06 AM »

Do it! You can make better drinks than you can buy, and the cost is negligible.

I don't brew myself anymore, but I am happy to give you pointers. If you can develop film you won't need them, though.

Bryan · « **Reply #74 on:** February 21, 2018, 05:48:19 AM »

Thanks Salish, they scanned ok and are perfectly useable for that but I would hesitate to make a print from them. Like Chris said, brewing beer isn’t hard, I’m sure there’s a home brew supplier in your neighborhood that can hook you up. I started doing it in my apartment back in the 1980’s when I was a poor starving college student. I worked with someone that had more than a few batches brewing at once in their hotel room while we were doing a project on the road.

By the way, I just started a Flickr group for Beerol. I have a feeling it may be a very lonely group, I may have to have discussions with myself until the fad catches on.

https://www.flickr.com/groups/3705975@N20/pool/

Bryan · « **Reply #75 on:** March 20, 2018, 11:23:21 PM »

After doing these tests with Tri-X I developed a roll of TMX 100 and noticed that it was looking kind of under developed. I know I have had good results with TMX films in the past so it got me thinking about what could have gone wrong. After consulting the Caffenol Cookbook I decided to try using Potassium Bromide instead of salt. I developed a roll of Ilford Delta 100 this way but it still looked under developed. I didn't really think this through much, if I was getting good results before I should be able to get good results again, what could have changed?

I then went back to the Caffenol Cookbook again and decided that the likely culprit is the Sodium Carbonate. I didn't consider this before because I'm very careful about keeping the Sodium Carbonate in an air tight container too keep moisture away from it. This has been a very wet winter in the Pacific Northwest, that makes the air very humid so maybe it was enough to hydrate it. I warmed the oven up to 250 °F/120 °C and proceeded to bake my Sodium Carbonate for an hour in a glass pie pan. I spread it out about 1/4 inch deep so I had to do a few batches to get it all baked.

Last night I developed a roll of Ilford Delta 100 going back to salt as a restrainer and it looks perfect! Now I need to re-visit some of my tests with Tri-X. I'll have to do another test roll in a Porter using my fresh baked Sodium Carbonate. In the future I will make sure to bake my Sodium Carbonate on a regular basis and find a better air tight container to keep it in. I find it hard to believe that enough moisture got into it by opening the container for a few seconds each time I used it. I was using those disposable Ziplok containers, it could be that they don't seal up as well as I thought. Maybe I can add a desiccant pack to the container as well.

Bryan · « **Reply #76 on:** April 19, 2019, 02:54:39 AM »

Now I'm bottling Beerenol. I wanted to see if it's still good after sitting a while. This has a 500ml batch so I can develop a roll of 120 with it. If this works I may start doing several batches at a time. I wrote the date on top, I'll probably use it in the next week or two.

Indofunk · « **Reply #77 on:** April 19, 2019, 03:05:31 AM »

Careful not to drink that!!

Bryan · « **Reply #78 on:** April 19, 2019, 03:07:02 AM »

Quote from: Indofunk on April 19, 2019, 03:05:31 AM

Careful not to drink that!!

I told my wife not to drink any beer that she finds in the laundry room.

Francois · « **Reply #79 on:** April 19, 2019, 02:22:52 PM »

I can just imagine the taste of the stuff....I don't like beer to start with so it's bound to be the most disgusting thing ever and probably would induce instant puking.....

Bryan · « **Reply #80 on:** April 19, 2019, 02:43:48 PM »

Quote from: Francois on April 19, 2019, 02:22:52 PM

I can just imagine the taste of the stuff....I don't like beer to start with so it's bound to be the most disgusting thing ever and probably would induce instant puking.....

I made this batch with a cheap local beer called Rainier, I refer to it as the Rainier Runs. Though it doesn’t taste very good it’s effects are mostly on the tail end.

Francois · « **Reply #81 on:** May 29, 2019, 10:07:32 PM »

I guess I'm going to join you on the Beerol test track

At the Dollar store they just got bottles of Krombacker alcohol free pilsner for 1.25$
It's bound to be something horrible that looks and tastes like pee. So I bought a couple of bottles

We'll finally get to see if the alcohol has anything to do with the results.

Bryan · « **Reply #82 on:** May 30, 2019, 12:23:26 AM »

Excited to see your results Francois!

Indofunk · « **Reply #83 on:** May 30, 2019, 01:36:24 AM »

Finally! A good use for non-alcoholic beer!

Francois · « **Reply #84 on:** May 31, 2019, 10:07:30 PM »

Strange thing is the only place I really like beer is in beef carbonara stew. 1/2 bottle for a whole pot.

I actually don't tolerate alcohol very well, that's why I leave beer and other spirits for others. (½ a bottle of beer and I'm really drunk)

cs1 · « **Reply #85 on:** June 01, 2019, 05:40:00 PM »

Quote from: Francois on May 31, 2019, 10:07:30 PM

I actually don't tolerate alcohol very well, that's why I leave beer and other spirits for others. (½ a bottle of beer and I'm really drunk)

That's perfectly fine, it leaves more beer for developing film.

Francois · « **Reply #86 on:** June 01, 2019, 10:33:14 PM »

Exactly

Author Topic: Beerol (Read 25330 times)

Terry