Iron Gall Ink, part 1

Sometimes I wonder if I a medieval monk in a former life? I have such a fascination with "how things used to be done." Or maybe it's just the deep satisfaction of making things from scratch as opposed to picking up a shiny plastic bottle of modern chemistry at the art store. I simply prefer to work with materials made from my own hands, whose ingredients are known and natural and completely pronounce-able, and which can be executed with humble means. And so it is with the latest project in the studio: iron gall ink.

I was down in southern Oregon recently, spending a lot of time in the dry woods there. Scrub oak abounds and every now and then you see these golf ball and baseball-sized pale tan bulbs on them. Some sort of fruit? Nature's christmas ornaments? It turns out they're oak galls -- dry, hard, gourd-like growths on a very small percentage of oak trees.  These growths are the result of the tree trying to protect itself from a parasite, the gall fly, which is a generic term for any insect that causes a plant to produce galls (oak aren't the only trees to make these). Being the "medieval art techniques" geek that I am, I remembered that these galls were a key ingredient in the way ink used to be made so I brought home a big bag of them.

What makes these important for ink making is their high level of gallotannic acid, which (correct me if I'm wrong) is the thing that keeps the ink from fading. Probably also the reason why red wine stains so badly, due to the tannic acids (this coming from a Google-armchair-chemist so don't quote me!). Anyway, most of the galls are a pale tan color, but color variations include beautiful blushes of pink and peach, to dark brown and even nearly black --

When I first brought them home they were so pretty and pristine. I could have filled a big bowl with them, making a nice centerpiece. But I kept them in the bag for a day or two as I gathered info and ingredients.  When I went to open the bag I was surprised to find that the galls were full of holes! Not only that but when I opened the bag a couple of moths flew out. Apparently their larvae had been living inside the galls and had hatched and chewed their way out. At the bottom of the bag were some telltale larva casings --

Pretty voracious eaters, too. White most of the holes were very small (maybe 1/8" in diameter at most), some were quite large --

But the moths had their chance to escape.  I let the galls sit out a few more days to make sure the moths were gone.  Soon it was time to proceed with the ink making. The monks of old would have used a mortar and pestle, but if they'd had these oh-so-useful electric spice grinders I'm sure they would have sung praises to the heavens for the miracle of technology, probably drawing little Cuisinart cartoons in the margins of their manuscripts with happy little monk-dudes dancing nearby --

Big bowl of ground oak galls -

Since iron gall ink was pretty much the only ink used for centuries, recipes are numerous. But typical of really old recipes like that, every single one is different, often drastically so. I've decided to go with one of the fermented recipes as I read they make the darkest ink. Since I've got a considerable amount of ground gall I'm going to use a recipe that uses a high proportion of gall-to-water. Since I don't have a bucket of rainwater sitting around, I'm using distilled water. Four parts water to one part ground gall, by weight (below I'm using 60 oz. water to 15 oz. gall)

Now to set it in a sunny corner for a few days or a week to ripen it. I just hope the stink doesn't get out of control.