so first a quick update on the batch of walnuts that we so diligently plucked
from their oily rinds, cleaned with aplomb, and left them out to cure in the sun.
well… they are still curing, on the porch, between two unused silkscreens,
patiently waiting until that undisclosed day that they are at last considered
to be well cured and are ready for a hardy gent to come along for with a large
pair of pliers to extract the nutty goodness (we hope) from within.
what could be more idyllic?
however, on the other end of the spectrum, the collected rinds from the nut extraction process
have been sitting in a bucket of water and have been slowly decaying into horrid sludgy bits
underneath the porch for the past week or so. who knows what sort of insect or quadruped
has been in contact with it, if indeed anything at all would want anything to do with
such a sour sop.
however, it has been doing exactly what i was hoping that it would do, turn the water in which
the rinds have been soaking a dark syrupy brown color.
today is the day for making the fabled walnut ink, so here we go…
What you will need to make walnut ink:
- Rotten Walnut Sludgy Bits
- Water
- A Large Cast Iron Cauldron or Stainless Steel Pot
- A Source of Heat
- A Stirring and/or Poking Tool
Any source of heat will do, as long as you can bring the contents of the pot to a slow
steady boil. A kitchen stove will serve just fine but today we are going pioneer style with
this process.
Here is what you need to do to do it:
- Place a premium heaping helping of walnut pulp to your pot, the more you add
the more ink you will reap
- Add enough water to the rinds to top off the mound of mush in the pot.
- Place the walnut water combo on the heat source
- Heat and allow the combo to reach a boil
- Boil for over 6 hours – you will want to boil off about half of the initial liquid
in the pot to get a good thick ink consistency
- Allow to cool
- Strain the ink from the mush into the container of your choosing
using my latent power of yankee ingenuity , i whipped up this handy little contraption using
found objects from the dilapidated barn across the street, please note, your stove may not
resemble the one in this picture.
five hours later, the concoction was still bubbling away…
after about six hours, the fire was allowed to die down and the mixture was
then covered and set out overnight to cure in it’s own special way.
the following day, the substance has turned into a pitch black muddy substance,
this was a bit disconcerting since it looked like the liquid that was left over from
last night had disappeared but happily, it had filtered down into the bottom of the
pot. The straining process was a bit more difficult than i had anticipated since the
muck had to be pressed to squeeze out most of the ink within.
another bump in the road was the cheesecloth that i had set aside for the straining
purposes, the liquid simply wasn’t straining through the pulp quick enough and the
cloth was absorbing most of the ink. luckily my most trusted old pair of nylon
stockings came to the rescue and the rest of the ink was easily strained through
the toe of the stocking.
and here is the result…
blue skies, and brown gold.
This is important!
Since this is a natural all organic substance, there have been cases of the ink
starting to grow mold. To combat this you must add a bit of denatured alcohol,
which is a bit hard to find but can be purchased online from certain art supply
outlets. Add a small amount of alcohol so it constitutes about 5 percent of
the solution.
Next time, I will post the result of ink usage.
