Photo Essay: To Make Tartar

For more background information on tartar, cream of tartar and alum faces, see other posts.

“… as well as its property of not being soluble in water without much difficulty: for a very great quantity of water is requisite to keep the crystals of tartar in solution; and it must moreover be boiling hot; otherwise as soon as it cools most of the tartar dissolved in it separates from the liquor, and falls to the bottom in the form of a white powder” From the Encyclopedia Britannica, 1771.

From the information given in the above text, among others, I choose to boil the winestone and let it cool down to re-crystallize the tarter out of the suspension.


The Process:
   

Rinse and dry crude tartar. My tartar came from a local wine maker (Barry Family Cellars) and comes from white wine (which is why it is uncolored). It smells weird. The crude tarter is added to water. It only dissolves during the boiling stage of water and settles back out of solution when the water cools down.
         

The refined tartar settles out of solution in a fine powder and as a sludge can easily be dried.
When using red wine winestone, this stage would be done multiple times while decanting the water which would contain most of the colorants and tannins.

I assumed it would crystallize to the sides, given the text by Lémery from 1686 below:
“Boil in a great deal of water what quantity of white Tartar you please, until it be all dissolved; pass the liquor hot through Hippocrates his Sleeve, into an earthen vessel, and evaporate about half of it: set the vessel in a cool place two or three days, & you'l find little Crystals on the sides, which you are to separate; evaporate again half the liquor that remains, and remit the vessel to the Cellar as before, there will shoot out new Crystals: continue doing thus, until you have gotten all your Tartar , dry the Crystals in the Sun, and keep them for use.” 

This did not happen. I did not filter the hot liquid but let it cool down on its own, as indicated by the more recent texts. I wonder if the little crystals indicated are cream of tartar instead of straight tartar, as cream of tartar will keep appearing at each new boil until the liquid is exhausted.

The dried sludge is broken off and powdered in a fine mortar and sieved.
The resulting white powder is tartar, or potassium tartrate.

 
Winestone donated by my friend Ian Barry of Barry Family Cellars.
https://www.facebook.com/BarryFamilyCellars/?ref=page_internal

All photography by Susan Verberg.

For a complete bibliography, more background, more photo’s, and how to make cream of tarter, you can download my documentation at:
https://www.academia.edu/32370309/Alumen_faecis_An_unusual_Medieval_Ingredient._Includes_some_thoughts_on_the_production_of_Tartar_and_Cream_of_Tartar