This weekend Ian and his lady Hroswitha came over to bottle up the 5 quarts of leftover ink from we made at the event in December. I procured more bottles and some equipment form American Science & Surplus and we got to work. Because the ink sat for 2 months we decided to not re-filter what we had, just decant it.
Let me just say, that unfiltered oak ink resting on its oaky sludge for 2 months totally rocks! Nice and dark and we didnt have to add more copperas to that batch of ink. The pre-filtered ink needed more oomph with a dash of copperas. What we added to both batches however was ground eggshells to lower the PH of the ink. Hroswitha with her molecular-biology-grad-student-lab experience determined we were able to lower it from a 3 to a respectable 5 just from stirring the powdered eggshell into the decanted mixture before we re-decanted it into the small bottles-it worked that fast!
Well now we have 50 bottles of oak gall and 25 bottles of walnut ink ready to sell at Gulf Wars. We will see how it sells before I follow Ian into the world of SCA merchanting...to be continued. ; )
Let me just say, that unfiltered oak ink resting on its oaky sludge for 2 months totally rocks! Nice and dark and we didnt have to add more copperas to that batch of ink. The pre-filtered ink needed more oomph with a dash of copperas. What we added to both batches however was ground eggshells to lower the PH of the ink. Hroswitha with her molecular-biology-grad-student-lab experience determined we were able to lower it from a 3 to a respectable 5 just from stirring the powdered eggshell into the decanted mixture before we re-decanted it into the small bottles-it worked that fast!
Well now we have 50 bottles of oak gall and 25 bottles of walnut ink ready to sell at Gulf Wars. We will see how it sells before I follow Ian into the world of SCA merchanting...to be continued. ; )
