The Berry Juice Works! But Will It Attract More Than My Eye?

[strikes]

After reading about pokeberry and "Oregon grape" ink on these forums, I had a go with store-bought frozen blackberries. I found that blackberry juice makes for a nice, cloudy-purple ink that is both pleasant and legible in medium to broad lines, and behaves beautifully on every paper I have--and I don't as a rule buy nice paper. (More than that, even store-bought it's cost effective, with the amount of juice you get! I only hope the cloves and refrigeration will keep the mold away long enough to use it all. And I do still have to test its resistance--or not--to fading. The pokeberry and Oregon grape posts have me hopeful.)

My hopelessly naive question is, might there be any ill effects from having notebooks lying around which are filled with dried berry juice?

I am writing from an apartment in a densely populated city. We have been fortunate enough never to have an infestation in our decade or so of living here, but if you live in Manhattan you're never more than a couple hundred feet from a cockroach. I'm the sort of person who takes the trash downstairs to the bins every night, no matter how much trash we have. Am I also the sort of person who doesn't do a lot of journaling in berry juice?

 

[Addendum: My inky method was scarcely a method at all. If you make jellies or jams, you won't be surprised by it. Defrost blackberries in a saucepan until you can mash them up a little with a fork, to get the juices going. Use this juice for the boil; don't add water. Turn the heat on medium-high until you get a boil, then simmer on lower heat for maybe ten minutes or so, stirring the berries to stop them burning. Take off heat. Strain. If you're going to load it in a fountain pen--though I haven't tried it--you'll want a jelly bag or cheese cloth for this; if you're just dipping, any old strainer will do. Stick a couple whole cloves in. Let cool and write. Store in refrigerator.]

 

EDIT: Mods, I had a hard time figuring out if this was better in Inky Thoughts or Th-INKing Outside the Bottle. Sorry if I chose wrong!

Edited March 21, 2017 by strikes

[amberleadavis]

Head over to the recipe section. We have others who have made juicy inks.

[sidthecat]

I seem to recollect that Meriwether Lewis was making pokeberry ink in the later stages of his expedition. David Livingstone also resorted to some kind of African juice in order to keep his diary going.