Iron Gall Ink (Apple Gall Ink)

I have in the past, made my own iron gall ink, wanting a permanent, hand-made ink.  Recently, when starting a project called "READ THEIR NAMES BRING THEM HOME" regarding the 7800+ MIA Korean War, I again have been looking into making my own ink.

I did a brief overview in this video: Iron Gall Ink Overview (Apple Gall Ink)

My MIA Korean War blog has me currently using Parker pens and Noodler's inks, both for quality, to avoid pens made in China, and for permanence.  However, as I said, I knew I could make my own inks, and have dug out my supplies for making iron gall ink.  In addition, I have cut some new pens from turkey feathers, a video you can find here:

Making Your Own Pen From a Feather

The steps I am taking are below to make my own ink:

1. I break the apple galls up with either a nut cracker or hammer, whichever is easier. You can then grind the pieces with a mortar and pestle. 

2. I place the broken/ground  pieces in a washed-out peanut butter jar and cover the galls with water.  I did not weigh the galls before I started the batch I am currently making, but 1-1/2" of broken apple galls, covered to the top of their mass with water, in a 16 ounce peanut butter jar, weighs 8.5 ounces.

3. This needs to soak for a week, at which time I will remove (strain) the gall pieces out, and the resulting liquid will be made into ink.

4. In the past I had added 1 tsp. ferrous sulphate to the liquid in that batch, which had started with 1 ounce of oak apple galls, weighed before being ground.

This is what an apple gall looks like when cracked open:

In the photo below, you see the pieces of oak apple gall ready to be ground in a mortar and pestle:

The galls and water are only on their second day of soaking, yet the tannins leaching out of the galls are already visible in the water:

I will post more photos as I complete this batch. You can find more information at Iron Gall Ink dot Org , including recipes!

After a week, the oak apple galls in water looked like this:

I strained the above mixture, heated it in a double boiler to a very low temperature, and added 1 tsp. of iron sulphate. The resulting ink is below:

and below are the different color hues achieved with varying amounts of iron sulphate added:

This is a beautiful ink, and depending of the type of dip pen in use, can be either very dark or paler.