Based on the Iron Gall Ink; now Featuring Acorns! handout by Robert Meyer.
I took this class in the winter of 2016 and had great fun doing so, thank you Robert!
Iron Gall Ink can be traced back to antiquity and was one of the most commonly used ink on old manuscripts. It is often referred to as 'common ink'. Some of the oldest recipes come from Pliny the Elder, a roman author, and even the dead sea scrolls were found to contain iron ink.
Traditionally, ink was made with oak galls. Galls are growth found on oak trees that are triggered by insects puncturing the branches and can be very difficult to find. A good substitute are the acorns from the tree. The chemical used for ink is called tannin. Slow cooking galls or acorns in water will allow the tannin to be released. To preserve their ink, some scribes would ferment their ink, whereas others would preserve it with cloves.
Acorn tannin is a hydrolysable tannin, meaning it is a type of tannin that, on heating with hydrochloric or sulfuric acids, it yields blue black gallic or ellagic acids, the base for ink. Iron ink is made by adding iron sulfate, also called vitriol, to your tannic acid. The darkening of the ink is caused by oxidation of the iron. Ink would range in pH from about 2 (a lemon) to a 5 (a cup of coffee); if too acidic the addition of crushed egg shells, which contain the buffering agent calcium carbonate, would raise the pH to about a neutral 7.
Now we're cooking!
As continued multiple day cooking is optimal for making ink a modern crockpot or slow cooker is a safe option.
Fill the crockpot half full with oak acorns, and top it off with water.
Cook for 3 to 7 days and keep adding water as needed to keep the acorns covered.
As this can get smelly it would be good to cook this outdoors in a garage or similar.
Meanwhile, put as many rusty metal nails, chain, pot scrubby, fencing remnants, wire etc in a jar and cover all of this with vinegar. Let this sit - without a lid! - for a few days. The exothermic reaction will build up pressure and can blow the jar or lid right off! Now you've made your own iron sulfate, also called iron mordant in dyeing jargon, by sending ferrous iron through a sulfuric acid bath. As it sits you'll notice the liquid darken and see bubbles floating to the top.
After waiting patiently, strain the now dark liquid from your cooked acorns through a colander into a a container. The spent acorns can be tossed. Take the liquid and put it into glass jars. Place the jars back into the crockpot and pour water around the bottles, au bain marie style.
Cook for about three days to evaporate excess water from the tannin solution.
Keep adding water to the crockpot so it does not run dry (and overheat the tannin jars) and do not put lids on the jars as then the tannin liquid can not shed its excess water.
And now we'll make ink! Take the reduced tannin and pour in the iron sulfate. Make sure to give the iron sulfate a good shake, with the lid on, before adding it. Then add some honey. This is the binder that will help maintain particle suspension throughout the solution. And then you can add a lid, and either ferment it, or add some cloves as a preservative. Both methods were commonly used.
You can also add 10% alcohol by volume as a preservative (like 100-proof vodka) by using the following recipe, where X stands for the amount of alcohol needed to end with a 10% concentration.
AX = B(C+X)
Where:
A = alcohol proof divided by 200. This is the alcohol concentration of your alcohol expressed as a decimal.
B = the alcohol concentration, expressed as a decimal, in your finished ink.
C = the volume, in ml, of raw ink you are starting with.
X = the volume, in ml, of alcohol you must add to the raw ink.
If oak galls are used instead of the more easily to find oak acorns, break up the galls and simmer in water for about a half hour. If cooked in cast iron, the iron from the pot will be absorbed into the tannin liquid as well. Then add iron sulfate, give it some time to oxidize and test by writing until it is dark enough or until it is saturated and does not stay in solution anymore. Of course, any plant that contains gallic acid can be used to make ink with; black oak galls have a very high concentration of gallic acid at 6-9% but plants like sumac, witch hazel, tea leaves, oak bark, black walnut etc can also be used.
Gum Arabic is another period ink additive, like honey it keeps the iron in suspension but it also glues the ink to the paper and helps lubricate the liquid for easy writing with a quill pen. Use 1 part gum Arabic to 30 parts ink.
Interested in learning more?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_gall_ink
http://irongallink.org/igi_index.html
https://elementsunearthed.com/2014/05/08/making-iron-gall-ink/
https://sites.google.com/a/open-ink.com/open-ink/inks/old-recipies/vegetal/black-walnut-ink
For period ink recipes check earlier posts on this blog in the On Pigments & Ink chapter.
No comments:
Post a Comment