How To Make Ink From Walnuts

Making ink is easy, and you can do it at home from nothing more than a few natural ingredients that you can make yourself. Walnut ink requires a small amount of manual labor, but the result is definitely worth the effort.

Making ink is akin to making food, similar ingredients and a recipe to follow. Follow these easy steps and this ink recipe should yield a decent amount of ink. Just expand the ingredients to make more or less ink.

The first ingredient you will need is ripe walnuts. Make sure they are ripe or your ink will not be very dark. You will need a dozen walnut shells. So go ahead and eat the walnuts, but save the shells. Nothing is wasted!

Now take a hammer or rock and crush the shells into a coarse powder. The smaller the better, as smaller pieces provide more surface area and allows for easier more efficient extraction of the chemicals.

Next cover the shells with some water. About 1 cup at least and heat for an hour. You will have to add more water as the initial water will evaporate off. Do not heat the water to the boiling point, that is too hot.

Let the liquid cool for 12 hours at least, then strain out the walnut shells using a very fine mesh strainer of some sort. A metal strainer works best but cloth can be used too. Metal is better because it doesn't absorb any of your work. If you do not have a fine strainer, then do this entire process with larger shell pieces. However, be aware that you will have to soak for a number of days and probably add new shells to strengthen the solution.

Now, add 1/4 teaspoon of vinegar and an equal amount of salt. Stir until the salt is completely dissolved. Store this in an appropriate container WITH A LID. That is it! You now have usable ink for writing.