Different walnuts, different shades of ink

I wanted to find out what the difference in color and consistency would be with a batch of English walnut hulls.  I gathered fresh hulls from a dozen nuts and simmer them in four cups of distilled water.  Before I had used just tap water, and it worked fine, but I've read that you can get more consistent results with distilled water.  I've tried a few things with tap water than I'll talk about in another post.

So after simmering the hulls for 4 hours and reducing the liquid to half, I removed the hulls and continued to simmer and reduce it to one cup.  Its much thinner than the black walnut ink, but its a beautiful, much lighter color.  I think this would be better suited to a watercolor wash than dipping ink.

For now I'm going to concentrate on just black and butternut.  I have found no real benefit to separating the two from each other, but combining them makes for a unique and rich ink.

This is another comparison test. 

Batch #1 is the lightest but #2 was very nice.  I called it Sienna just to give it a name other than #2.  I called #3 Mahogany and its my favorite.  Its got a very rich, almost sludgy consistency that lends itself well to dipping pens.  #4 is a store-bought spray I purchased to compare mine to.  Its very thin, but of course it would need to be to work in a spray bottle.

My first try at ink

Since I'm trying to work out the best way to make ink, I'm going to try a few things and compare the results.  So I'm putting on my proverbial lab coat...

Sept. 4, 2018:  I took roughly four cups of fresh walnut hulls (a mixture of black and butternut) and simmered them for six hours in a pot with enough water to cover them.  I strained the hulls with muslin and simmered again for six more hours and then let it sit overnight with a few pieces of rusted iron. (#3)

Sept. 8, 2018:  This batch was made with fresh hulls again that I soaked in a bucket of water for 24 hours which was then simmered and reduced. (#2)

Sept. 12, 2018:  Just for fun, I wanted to see what the difference in quality would be if I soaked old crusty nuts that have been lying around for a season, I followed the same process with the second batch. (#1)

If you notice the numbering is off (batch #1 is labeled #3) try not to stress.  I made a mistake when I was writing things down and labeled it wrong.  By the time I realized, I had it recorded in too many placed and decided to just run with it.  Works for me.

A new adventure with walnut ink

After slipping and sliding over the walnuts pretending to be marbles in the backyard, I decided something had to be done.  So the time has come to turn them into ink.  This is my little lab experiment and I thought it might be nice to document the process and share it with the world.

Too many walnuts to slip on

I love my walnut trees.  But they're messy and prolific.

Black walnut over the barn

Black walnut over the house

When life gives you lemons, you make lemonade.  When your trees give you black walnuts, you make ink.  Once I get it labeled, I'll be selling it in my Etsy shop.