Jane Austen's Ink Recipe

[Craig]

Recently, several of us have discussed various iron gall ink recipes. Today, I got my hands on the recipe Jane Austen used circa 1813.

 

"To Make Ink"

Take 4 oz. blue gauls . . .

 

I've seen quite a few early recipes specify "Aleppo galls," presumably imported from Syria. These seem to have been the ne plus ultra of galls--I guess they had a higher tannin concentration than native oak galls.

[Wildoaklane]

The results at last! I finally found the ingredients and made the ink. It turned out very nicely and I like it better than the other iron gall recipes I've tried. Now, I have to learn the art of the dip pen/quill. This is just a partial picture for you.

 

 

Edited March 18, 2009 by Wildoaklane

[Craig]

A very nice result! It has a bluish look to it on my monitor. I wonder what the practical effect is of the beer and sugar in the formula?

 

[Rainbow]

Oh, that came out very nice!

[dannyboy]

Thanks for so many fascinating details about the history of a seemingly simple process of making ink in the early 19th century.

[liapuyat]

Amazing results! On my monitor it looks very dark and saturated. What paper did you use?

[Wildoaklane]

Amazing results! On my monitor it looks very dark and saturated. What paper did you use?

I just used some new note paper I ordered from Linnea Design. Works great with fountain pens...and dip pens so it seems!

 

[Kamiyashi]

Absolutely fascinating stuff! Thank you for sharing!

[TwilightFury]

This has been a fascinating thread altogether, and I really appreciate the scan you made of the finished product. Thank you for this.

[ZeissIkon]

Blue galls are basically oak galls and believe it or not, I found some on ebay! Yes, I plan to make it as soon as I can get the beer stale and the copperas (iron sulphate).

BTW, you can find copperas at garden shops. "Hi-Yield" (yellow bag w/ red lettering) is a likely brand -- I think a 5 lb. sack runs around $4-5.

 

-- Brian

 

I tried the garden sections of both Lowe's and Home Depot today, without anyone there even recognizing "Hi-Yield". I'll have to try calling a couple smaller shops around, I suppose, but I was also shocked at what the local Hobby Lobby is asking for the only brand/size of gum arabic they carry -- it's Windsor & Newton, the artists' color makers, and it's over twelve dollars for a 3-4 ounce bottle. I was expecting to see pints for about that or a bit less. Tempting to just add some battery acid and a handful of brads to the jar and let the ferrous sulfate form in situ...

[fiberdrunk]

What would happen if one used regular beer instead of stale beer?

 

I made this Jane Austen ink in December. I can tell you what happens when you don't let it go flat... it foams up and makes a mess, lol. That's why you let it go stale. It's easier to mix the rest of the ingredients with it. I had opened the beer bottles for a couple hours and thought it was flat enough, but no. I recommend letting it go flat at least overnight. I was still able to make ink successfully, it's just it was harder to mix and I had to wait for the foam to go down, which it eventually did.

 

Here is my handwriting sample of the Jane Austen ink. A woman from California sent me a box of oak apples, so I substituted those for the blue galls. I used more than double the amount of oak apples to compensate, since oak apples have about a 1/3 the amount of tannic acid than the blue aleppo galls do. It still made a very black ink. On some papers it has a reddish brown edge to it, rather than the bluish black the blue galls would impart (you can see this in the swap sample).

 

Most iron gall ink recipes use water rather than beer. I suspect beer was used as a natural preservative for this ink recipe. I add 10% alcohol to my black walnut inks to fend off the mold. (And yes, my Jane Austen ink smells like beer still.)

 

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5001/5357001501_d12852037a_b.jpg

Edited January 16, 2011 by fiberdrunk

[fiberdrunk]

She would have been using a dip pen, probably steel, maybe gold nibbed (but untipped). In periods of economy, I'm sure she knew how to select and trim a goose quill, too. The fountain pen with self-contained ink didn't really become popular until the discovery of hard rubber. Metal pens with rubber seals were around, but were definitely leaky and very expensive.

 

Peter

 

There is another good reason to use a feather quill with iron gall inks. I read from Dr. James Stark's (1855) observations (mentioned in 40 Centuries of Ink by David N. Carvalho) that "all legal deeds or documents should be written with quill pens, as the contact of steel invariably destroys more or less the durability of every ink." He did experiments on over 200 different kinds of ink formulas to see what made an ink permanent. If you don't have a feather quill, I recommend using a fine paintbrush to load your metal nibs with ink instead of dipping directly. I can also add from personal experience that this ink will corrode your metal nibs; so not only are the metal nibs bad for the ink, the ink is bad for the nibs.

Edited January 16, 2011 by fiberdrunk

[fiberdrunk]

Is there any existing manuscript sample of Jane's work? Would the ink have gone from black to a kind of sepia since their time? Or would it have remained black? What was the composition and quality of their writing paper at the time?

 

I know, so many questions. In those days people wrote and sent letters daily.

 

You can see her manuscripts online at Jane Austen’s Fiction Manuscripts. The ink did indeed turn to a lighter brown. Can we assume that she always used this same ink recipe for all of her manuscripts? I'm curious to know how long it took to change from black to brown, too.

Edited January 16, 2011 by fiberdrunk

[jennya]

Recently, several of us have discussed various iron gall ink recipes. Today, I got my hands on the recipe Jane Austen used circa 1813.

 

"To Make Ink"

Take 4 oz. blue gauls, 2 oz. of green

Copperas, 1 oz of half of gum arabic, break

the gauls, the gum & Copperas must be

beaten in a Mortar & put into a pint

of strong stale Beer; with a pint of small

Beer, put in a little refin'd

Sugar, it must stand in a chimney

Corner fourteen days & shaken two or

three times a day."

 

In a letter Jane wrote to her sister, Cassandra on 14 October, 1813, Jane expressed her concern that the ink bottle be filled. This was in a time when she did the majority of her writing.

 

Does anyone know what "small beer" is

 

 

I CAN NOT FIND THIS INK RECIPE IN ANY OF JANE AUSTEN'S LETTERS! PLEASE WOULD YOU BE SO KIND AS TO TELL ME WHERE YOU FOUND THIS?

[jennya]

I CAN NOT FIND THIS RECIPE IN ANY OF JANE AUSTEN'S LETTERS PLEAS WOULD YOU BE SO KIND AS TO TELL ME WHERE YOU FOUND THIS RECIPE YOU SAY IS JANE AUSTEN'S, THANK YOU

[laureat]

Very interesting! In doing some research on the internet I found a piece of manuscript from 1811 (in Dutch) about recepies and remedies for iron gall ink.

 

It stated that sometimes the gall"nuts" contained too much slimy aspects. If the gall contained too much tanine, "bottomblobs" would occure... (I sort of translated the Dutch word "nederplofsel")and it made the ink too thick to write with. Too little iron sulphate or too much gall-acid made the ink turn pale. (It would turn black in color in time, says the script...). Too much iron sulphate would make the ink turn yellow in time. One could re-color the yellow script by painting over the manuscript with a tincture from gall. The letters would blacken again.

Because gallnuts are a natural product, the amount of tanine in the gallnuts-acid and tanine may vary. For the brewery is a natural product, fungus may apear. Adding some cloves (!)seems to be helpfull.

 

 

I wanted to share this with you.

Edited January 11, 2012 by laureat

[Wildoaklane]

Recently, several of us have discussed various iron gall ink recipes. Today, I got my hands on the recipe Jane Austen used circa 1813.

 

"To Make Ink"

Take 4 oz. blue gauls, 2 oz. of green

Copperas, 1 oz of half of gum arabic, break

the gauls, the gum & Copperas must be

beaten in a Mortar & put into a pint

of strong stale Beer; with a pint of small

Beer, put in a little refin'd

Sugar, it must stand in a chimney

Corner fourteen days & shaken two or

three times a day."

 

In a letter Jane wrote to her sister, Cassandra on 14 October, 1813, Jane expressed her concern that the ink bottle be filled. This was in a time when she did the majority of her writing.

 

Does anyone know what "small beer" is

 

 

I CAN NOT FIND THIS INK RECIPE IN ANY OF JANE AUSTEN'S LETTERS! PLEASE WOULD YOU BE SO KIND AS TO TELL ME WHERE YOU FOUND THIS?

 

My apologies for not responding. I've been inactive on this site for a good while and am just now seeing this. The recipe is not contained in a letter. You must have spent many hours going through all that are published! The letter reference just illustrates Austen's concern about the ink supply. The recipe I obtained is contained in this reference:

 

Hickman, Peggy (1977) A Jane Austen Household Book: with Martha Lloyd's recipes. David & Charles, Inc. North Pomfret, Vermont, USA

ISBN: 0 7153 7324 2

 

As a student of Austen, you may remember that Martha Lloyd lived with the Austens, first in Southhampton and then at Chawton. The original manuscript belongs to the Jane Austen Memorial Trust. In 2010, The Morgan Library & Museum in New York had an exhibition of Austen's original works. The Morgan's website has an online Austen exhibition which continues to be available. I'm unclear if any of the works are currently on display.

 

 

 

[escribo]

Small beer is just an ale with less alcohol than strong beer. The larger the beer, the more alcohol it has. A small beer is one you could drink all day long. Sometimes called "lawnmower beer" these days -- you can drink one or two and function just fine, not that I recommend driving or operating dangerous machinery after quaffing (yaketty yakety yak), but that's the gist of the idea.

 

In the days when water was unsafe to drink, they had weak, or small ale to drink for quenching thirst.

 

Thanks for the Austen Ms. resource. I think Austen is awesome! Pride and Prejudice and maybe Persuasion (or another one) came with an ebook reader I have. I finally got desperate enough to read her, and I was astounded! Great sense of humor. Sorry for this OT part.

 

ETA: For the purposes of this time period in England, beer and ale can be considered synonymous. They knew about lager, but that was foreign beer.

Edited August 23, 2012 by escribo