This is a negative scan of my first try with Caffenol C-M using expired Kodak 160NC medium format C-41 film.  It is shot as metered and shot with a Mamiya RB67/90mm lens.   My son playing in the first snow of the season. 

The Recipe was for Caffenol C-M

400ml distilled water
1g Potassium Bromide
22g Arm & Hammer Washing Soda
6g Vitamin C tablets from Walgreens (generic) crushed with Coffee bean grinder. 
16g Folgers regular instant coffee (crystals)

11 minutes at 20C/68F

Used water as a stop bath, and rinsed 7 times, then Fixed with normal B&W fixer. 

I love the medium format negative.  Very little grain...and lots of life left in this Color Negative film that was expired.  I happened to find a deal on Ebay for some Kodak Porta 160NC film.  22 rolls for $11. It was a great deal.  plenty of film to experiment with. 

You can use B&W film as well as Color Negative film (C-41) when using Caffenol.  I mention in this above example that the developing can  I was using is 400ml.  If you have a different size container that you are developing in, then figure for your own size.  The figures below give you an amount to start from using 1 liter.  Divide by 10 for each 100ml of solution.

54g Washing Soda

16g Vitamin C (ascorbic acid)

40g Folgers Coffee Crystals (not decaf)


So figuring out for 400ml of solution:

54 divided by 10=5.4g times 4 (400ml)= 21.6g or 22g of Washing Soda.

16g divided by 10=1.6g times 4= 6.4g of Vit-C

40g divided by 10=4g times 4 = 16g of Folgers Crystals


If you need some other variation of solution, then figure for your own volume requirement.

Caffenol is a one-shot developer..  Used once and then dumped.  I use distilled water.  It got to be expensive buying distilled water, so I purchased a Zero-Water pitcher and then I keep 5 gallons of purified water to mix my chemicals and for final rinsing of the the film. I kept getting water stains on my negatives and other strange things like bubbles and such on the film emulsion.  Since switching to the purified water I have not had any problems. It might have been the chlorine in the water.  Who knows. I really need to get a filtered and temperature controlled water system, and that is one thing I underestimated when building the darkroom.  There are workarounds like the filtered water pitcher, but it's a pain.

The white tube in the middle is a ventilation system I am building that takes filtered air from the wall behind this photo on the right and at the right side of the tube, I will install a vertical fan to evacuate the fumes outside the house.  You can see the Blue Zero Water pitcher, and the 2.5 gallon storage containers, one on the top right shelf and at the end of the 8 foot Homemade sink.  Here's a link to build a sink:

Darkroom Sink #1
Darkroom Sink #2