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An ordered procedure: collect husks, simmer in water, strain, reduce, bottle — with times and safety notes.
Walnut ink is made by simmering the green husks of walnuts, Juglans regia, and straining the brown liquid. The procedure runs in five ordered steps, each with its own timing and its own typical failure.
Step 1 — Collect the green husks while they are still soft and unbroken; brown, already-rotted husks give a muddy liquid with little colour. Step 2 — Cover the husks with water and simmer; the liquid darkens as the colour extracts. Step 3 — Strain out the solids through cloth so no fibre remains in the ink.
On narrow screens, swipe or scroll the plate sideways.
Step 4 — Return the strained liquid to the heat and reduce it; the longer it reduces, the stronger the ink. Step 5 — Bottle the reduced liquid. A batch that is too thin will not write darkly; one reduced too far will crust at the rim of the bottle.
Safety notes: the husks stain skin and clothing on contact, so keep hands covered; never leave a simmering pan unattended; let the ink cool before bottling so the hot liquid does not crack a cold container.
The same pattern — extract by heat, remove solids, concentrate — applies to most bark and husk inks. Indigo does not follow it, because indigo is a vat dye that must be reduced to soluble white indigo before use and oxidized blue in air afterwards.
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