Since Freestyle dropped Nacco's liquid version of D-76 from the catalog I've gone back to the stuff in the yellow envelopes. My issue with powdered chemicals is mixing and I've been looking for a quick, efficient way to "get 'er done" for some time and I took the opportunity of recently mixing some D-76 and Fixer to play around with various techniques (the most obstinate darkroom chemical I've mixed is Dektol, but I no longer use the stuff so I can't say if this would work on Dektol)
Going through my stuff, I found three "swizzle sticks" two Kodak yellows and a Yankee blue. I recollect misplacing the Kodaks and getting the Yankee as a replacement (the souvenier swizzle sticks that come with Mai Tais generally aren't long enough to reach the bottom of my graduates) and so I was amazed that all three somehow mystically united within the dark confines of a utility drawer! But these were also reminders of the drudgery of stirring darkroom chemicals ad nauseum I also came across my two Patterson 2-liter/litre graduates.
After a visit to Patterson's website I discovered that what I'd been caling graduates aren't--- Patterson calls them Mixing Jugs. A lightbulb could have appeared over my head---maybe one did, but I wasn't looking for one so I couldn't tell you.
I put half an envelope of Fixer into one of the mixing jugs along with half a gallon of distilled water (the temp was within the range Kodak recommended) and started pour the slurry fron one jug into the other over the sink, back and forth until no soiids were evident then into the amber glass gallon storage jug. I repeated this with the remaining distilled water and chemicals ad within a few minutes had my Fixer all mixed, labelled and stored!
I did the same with the D-76 after heating the distilled water up to the recommended temperature range, and the results were to my satisfaction.

OK this is pretty sophmoric stuff you say. True, but I thought I'd post it for the benefit of the new guys.