More on Walnut Dye with Black Walnut Hulls

[Johnny McCrae]

I've got me a new batch started for next year. Two five gallon buckets of green walnuts that had just fallen. Collecting rainwater and will sit freeze/thaw and brew throughout the winter.

I used Cliff's method and let two five gallon buckets of walnut hulls collect rainwater over the winter. These hulls were not green but dried out. It is a rather powerful mixture and I thinned it out a bit with water. The picture shows a Holster I slopped together out of scrap leather for my 9mm SCCY. This was immersed in the dye for two hours. It came out very dark. The sample swatches from various hides were immersed in the dye for 15 minutes. All have three coats of Neet's Foot Oil on them.

I'm going to do some more experimenting with various immersion times.

[Cliff Fendley]

I just did a money belt for myself that came out that dark Johnny. I have two kinds now after using that method to brew the stain. I keep some full strength and some that I extra filtered and diluted a little.

The buckets I poured this last springs mix off of have been sitting out by the shop door and are almost full again. I'm curious how that stain will be and whether it will be as strong since it's only had varying temps of heat and cooler but no freezing weather.

[Johnny McCrae]

Thanks for replying Cliff. You gave me an idea. I'm going to filter some of this. Ii does seem to be too thick.

[Marshal Will Wingam]

I think I'll start a batch of dye and let it stand through the winter with all my dried black walnut hulls. No super cold weather here but perhaps just the time soaking will do the trick. Boiling them for three days in a row with overnight cooling didn't do much. Thanks for the idea. I'll round up one of those 7-gallon buckets from the hardware store and get it going.

[Cliff Fendley]

Thanks for replying Cliff. You gave me an idea. I'm going to filter some of this. Ii does seem to be too thick.

Johnny, When you make it like that there are a lot of fines in it that pretty much create a sludge in the bottom of the pot which I stir up before using if I want it full strength but it does make it a dark aged looking piece. I filter it through cheesecloth and a piece of screen for the regular "extra filtered" I call it.

[Cliff Fendley]

I think I'll start a batch of dye and let it stand through the winter with all my dried black walnut hulls. No super cold weather here but perhaps just the time soaking will do the trick. Boiling them for three days in a row with overnight cooling didn't do much. Thanks for the idea. I'll round up one of those 7-gallon buckets from the hardware store and get it going.

Hey Marshal, if you have a big freezer that may work too if you want to get a little more extreme temp swings. I really think the freezing and thaw cycles make a huge difference which is why I'm curious to check this second batch from the same walnuts sitting out by my shop now. What has really made the best walnut stain with all my experimenting was as I explained before when I basically did nothing and let mother nature do all the work but I'm thinking the freeze and thaw is going to make a stronger batch than just sitting because even boiling husks never got the strength of stain I'm getting the way I do it now.

I did that by gathering the green walnuts in used BLACK five gallon oil buckets (cleaned very well obviously) so they gather heat from the sun in the winter. Why black buckets? I had two out the first time one black and one white and would notice the black bucket would thaw during borderline freezing temps during winter days. This way with Kentucky weather I get a lot of freezing and thawing cycles.

After all our temp swings here in Kentucky is one of the things that help bourbon age in the barrels so well here by working the spirits in and out of the charred oak barrels. I had went through all kinds of work making big tea bags of the green walnut husks and boiling them and everything and never had these kind of results.

I had a couple buckets of walnuts that I had not gotten the time to do anything with by the time they were already turning brown and had already gathered some rain water. At that point it dawned on me hey that is how Whisky gets its color from the charred oak barrels so I just decided to leave them for the winter and see what happened. The results were very pleasing and I've been doing it like that for the last three years now.

Another thing is your dealing with natural clean rain water to start so there are no minerals and in the case of city water it has chlorine and all kinds of other things added.

[Marshal Will Wingam]

Thanks, Cliff. I'll have to see if I can find room in the freezer. I'll also see if I can find black buckets. This will be a good experiment.

[Johnny McCrae]

Thanks again for all of your input Cliff. I'll be doing some more experimenting with various mixture strengths and immersion times.

[Cliff Fendley]

Thanks, Cliff. I'll have to see if I can find room in the freezer. I'll also see if I can find black buckets. This will be a good experiment.

Marshall, Black bucket probably wont matter if you are freezing it. I just did that noticing that the daytime sun when it was right at freezing temps in the winter would thaw it so that it would refreeze during the night. Figured that added more freeze/thaw cycles on those days in the 30s.

[Marshal Will Wingam]

Marshall, Black bucket probably wont matter if you are freezing it. I just did that noticing that the daytime sun when it was right at freezing temps in the winter would thaw it so that it would refreeze during the night. Figured that added more freeze/thaw cycles on those days in the 30s.

Thanks, Cliff. No freezing weather here in the winter to speak of. I'll take whatever color they have available.