Kaffine - soda and coffe alone.

As I see it the first rumors about coffe/Vit C based developers was based on just soda and coffe. What I've seen in archives was a lot of under-developed, under-exposed, mishandled films. Some got away with that, presenting this as "art", that is OK, to each his own.

In my book the great watershed in the history of Coffein developers was when ascorbic acid was added to the brew, before that everything was more or less haphazard, after that a number of excellent workers did appear, who demonstrate excellent work, that seem repeateble.

But when some folks started boasting about these early experiments again, I decided to set up and run a string of tests, exploring in greater detail what can be achieved here. Since I control this blog better than various Flickr, APUG and other accounts, I will go back update my experience with just soda and coffe and present the pickueres achieved, if any.

Kaffi.

For the caffenol enthusiasts, a question was fielded, a question that deserves an answer : What are the difference between ascorbate-based developers and pure coffe-and-soda-based developers?

Coffe. The third and possibly most mystic ingredience in the grassroot movement to ensure that we have acess to a reliable developer, after that the industry and supplies have dried out. Not many knows in detail what IS inside a cup of coffe.

Scandinavians need to ask noone about coffe, especially the norwegians, known to be among the most cofee-drinking people on this planet. I drink the stuff in bucketfuls, and really enjoy a cup or five! Except for the odd glass of water, I hardly drink anything else on a daily basis.

We are hunting for just ONE ingrediet in the beans, so a quick look at the scandinavian way of brewing coffe.
Coffe-beans contains many poorly described ingredients, the stimulant I am so dependent upon is not on our agenda.

On the contrary - we are after one of the acids in the beans, and substances that stem from this. These acids and their relatives are described to be a step in the natural development of most plant cells, so contrary to popular belief, we can expect to find this substance in most living plants. It is part of the natural photosynthesis, and it is known as Caffeic acid.

Various types of coffe beans are said to contain varying levels of this substance, this acid, this is largely a claim, I have found no hard documentation on this. Alos, it is said that other plants may contain substantially more of this substance, tea is mentioned, and cucumbers especially are said to be a good source, with high levels of caffeic acid.

Since teas comes from plant leaves, and cucumbers have totally different makeup than dry beans, probably the TYPE of coffe-beans carries less importance than generally thought.

The special way coffe-beans are treated is of interest. Roasting is but another name of frying in a large pan. The beans are burnt under low & controlled heat. Roast long enough and all what is left is charcoal, related to whats inside black powder.

Most likely the level or concentration of both coffeine and caffeic acids are reduced close to zero in charcoal, together with other substances found in coffe beans like different waxes, oils and fats., they will all be burnt away.

Roasting has to do with TASTE, during roasting the chemical composition inside the beans changes, while the outer skin of the beans are reduced more to a coal-like substance.

The caffeic acids are said to be degraded by heat, into oils and fats, and the concentration are reduced more the longer and harder they are heated. The degradation products are fats and waxes among others, which will burn up the longer the process takes. This is quite complex organic chemistry, still, as far as I know, little studied, since roasting coffe is first and foremost a parctical industial process, where the point of balance remains somewhere between an atrprocess and a prure industial process.

Looking further ahead, to what takes place in a kitchen, where the end result is drinking coffe, one out of two processes seem to rule, first boiling, which in fact isnt boiling, but adding ginded beans to water that is at the boiling point, leaving the brew to cool a little while coffe is extracted before serving it. It is known to be of importance to seperate the residual beans from the drinking brew quickly or the coffe will turn acid, and nearly undrinkable.

Just follow this thread.

It is then quite relevant to draw a conclusion that the ordinary coffeepreparation functions thusly, we extract substances that we want, coffeine and other tasty stuff, from substances we don't want, fats, xxxx and coffeine acid, simply by PROCESSING TIME.
What is left the spent coffee grains, should then contain most of the cafeine acid, while we enjoy delicious coffee.

Then what lies ahead is an interesting experimentn : reclaiming the caffeic acid from the leftover grains, and try using this as a developing agent!

This could be done quite independently from type of beans and other tall talk about offee roasting at the kichen-bench, one uses known methods from ordinary chemistry and get ahold of a concentrate.

To be translated :


For mitt vedkommende skisserer jeg følgende fremgangsmåte ; fra hvert filter fra min Melitta kaffetrakter, som er betegnet som en av markedets beste, med særlig kort behandlingstid, anbefalt av Norsk kafferåd, tar jeg kaffebønnene som ligger i filteret, og dumper i en kjele med vann.

Dette innholdet koker jeg ved svak varme i 15 minutter og lar blandingen stå inntil den er kald. Deretter separeres bønner og vann og ekstrakten oppbevares.Denne ekstrakten benyttes så til å utvinne kaffeinsyre fra 10 påfølgende kaffekokinger, inntil vi har et konsentrat, underveis vil det selvsagt tilsettes små mengder ferskt vann til skylling, samtidig som inntil 1/3 av vannet fordamper under koking. Man ender således opp med et godt konsentrat, og forhåpentligvis mye syre.
Nu deler jeg konsentratet i to, en del benyttes til vidre fangst inntil jeg har konsentrat fra 20 kaffekokinger. Den andre delelen benyttes til første eksperiment:
To filmer identisk eksponert i samme kamera sammenlignes.
1. film fremakalles med ren Kaffenolfremkaller, basert på amerikansk resept fra Digital Thruth, og med instant kaffe og så mange teskjeer som respten sier. Ingen KBr, ingen vitamin C, kun rein kaffe.
2. film fremkalles med ekstraktet som er fremstilt, så mange milliliter som er nødvendig for 1 fremkaller-tank, med tilsats av så mange teskjeer soda som DT-respten sier.
evt kaffeekstrakt-overskudd kan brukes til film nr 3:
3. film fremkalles med ekstraktet, like mye soda og tilsatt så mye vitamin C som DT-respten sier.
Deretter gjentaes eksperimentet med 2 eller 3 filmer, identisk eksponert og fremkalt og sammelignet med ekstrakt fra 20 kaffekokinger.
Først nå sammenligner man de ferdige resultatene, og avgjør om det er noen forskjell mellom pulverkaffe og kaffeekstrakt og om dette er en farbar vei og gå.
Det tar meg 2 - 3 dager å skaffe nok ekstrakt til å sette i gang. Om nødvendig kan man selvsagt samle opp ekstrakt fra 30 eller 50 kaffekokinger om resultatet skulle bli tynt....
Jeg har satt film i en nyinnkjøpt Minolta Dynax 3000i........... Rapport følger.

Har nå samlet opp kaffegruten fra de siste to kaffekannene fra traktern' og "utvunnet" kaffeinsyra som er igjen som rest i kaffegruten når vi dekanterer over kaffen i kaffekopp og kaffekanna.
Fra 10 kokinger laget jeg 1 liter ekstrakt. Denne literen skal jeg bruke som rein kaffe-fremkaller etter forslaget fra "papir-fremkaller-mannen".
Jeg planlegger ganske enkelt å ta 350 ml av dette ekstraktet, tilsette soda (54 gram x (350/1000) = 19 gram soda og fremkalle en film.... skal ut å svi av en gammal Kodak Gold-film i morra og fremkalle til kvelds.
Så skal jeg sammenligne med en film fremkalt i en blanding av 19 gram soda og 14 gram vanlig pulverkaffe og se hvilken fremkaller som gir de beste negativene.
Deretter skal jeg ta 350 ml af kaffegrut-ekstrakten og tilsette 10 gram lutperler (kaustisk soda) og gjenta for å se om høyere pH gir kraftigere kaffe-fremkaller.
Jeg lover å ha fullt sikkerhetsutstyr, vannavkjølt bad for å forhindre koking når kaustisk soda tilsettes og løses (forsiktig!) og vernebriller før jeg blander ut kaustikksoda!
Rapport følger
L8ER