Black walnut ink

[jjdeal]

I have this pretty large black walnut tree in my yard. I am trying to harvest the nuts from it to make a black walnut cake like my grandmother used to make, but that's a story for another blog, I guess. Last week on a lark I took some of the hulls that encase the nuts and boiled them down on the stove. Strained them and boiled some more to concentrate them, and it made the most beautiful honey brown ink. I am not a fan of brown inks, but this is really beautiful. I'm sorry that I don't have a scanner so that I can post a visual. I did NOT pump it up into one of my vintage pens but rather used a dip pen for it. Just don't want to take the risk of "stuff" getting in the feeds of my good pens. It was a great experience, and I am interested in trying it with other fruits, nuts, etc. Anyone have similar experiences??

JD

[jbb]

FiberDrunk sent me some of her Black Walnut ink as well as her Pokeberry. She's done lots of ink making and hopefully she's see this post.

[fiberdrunk]

Thanks for the heads up, JBB! I don't get over to FPGeeks very often it seems.

@ jjdeal: I have made a variety of inks from plants, including black walnut ink. I have the recipe (with photos) posted on the Open-Ink Wiki. I seem to have problems posting photos here for some reason. You're right... I wouldn't recommend using this ink in a fountain pen, only a dip pen (however, I do have a cold-process recipe, posted at the link, that makes a less saturated ink that can be used in some fountain pens). The pokeberry recipe is here. I'm currently making a fresh batch of pomegranate ink (an iron gall ink).

You're so lucky you have your own black walnut tree! Such an amazing tree with so many uses.


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