Image URL:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/128418753@N06/51240768931/in/album-72157719397334644/
The two mason jars, with the pint-sized jar on the left and the quart-sized jar on the right
Table of Contents
Dark red text has been formatted as certain heading types. To ensure the table of contents is rendered correctly, make sure any edits to these fields do not change their heading type. Lake Making |
Name: Mackenzie Fox
Date and Time:
Location: Home Kitchen
Subject: Lake Making
I chose to use 2 mason jars, one pint-sized and one quart-sized, to hold my solutions, and initially attempted to use one large pot as a bain-marie or hot water bath to heat both. I added both jars to the pot before filling it with water to a level where the water line would be slightly higher than the liquid in the larger jar with the potash and cochineal.
Image URL: | https://www.flickr.com/photos/128418753@N06/51240768931/in/album-72157719397334644/ |
The two mason jars, with the pint-sized jar on the left and the quart-sized jar on the right | |
Image URL: | https://www.flickr.com/photos/128418753@N06/51240967618/in/album-72157719397334644/ |
The larger jar in the bain-marie prepared for it; the bag with cochineal had been placed inside, and even without much agitation had already bled a significant amount of color into the water. I used a disposable chopstick as a stirrer. | |
Image URL: | https://www.flickr.com/photos/128418753@N06/51240059167/in/album-72157719397334644/ |
The smaller jar with undissolved alum at the bottom (I think that this was taken after pouring the extra liquid out, but as I’m writing this some time after the fact I cannot remember for certain) | |
As I filled the pot, unfortunately, the smaller jar (holding the alum), whose contents, despite the smaller size of the jar, reached a much lower height than the contents of the larger jar did, tipped over and took on a few hundred MLs of additional water. The alum remained at the bottom of the jar almost entirely un-dissolved, however, so I chose to simply pour the water back out to reduce the volume to approximately the original 50ml volume, being sure to avoid pouring any of the undissolved alum out (it may be that some had already dissolved, but I don’t think that much did; I was unable to get the vast majority of it to dissolve even with fairly vigorous stirring at room temperature; only heat finally managed to cause it to dissolve quickly). As I assumed this was likely to happen again if I continued to use a single pot for both jars, I took out a very small saucepan and made a second bain marie to use for the smaller jar.
After filling each of the pots with sufficient water (just above the height of the contents of each jar), I placed them on the stove and began to heat them, stirring each with a chopstick periodically. During the course of heating, the alum dissolved entirely before the water came close to boiling (my instant-read thermometer said that the water was ~160 F when it finished dissolving); I decided to turn off the heat, but to leave the jar inside the water bath while I finished boiling the contents of the larger jar.
I continued heating the larger pot on medium-high heat until the water in the water bath reached ~195/200 F, at which point, to avoid aggressive bubbles knocking the jar about, I reduced the heat enough to simply maintain that temperature for ~18 minutes more. Once the water was quite near this temperature, bubbles began to periodically rush out from beneath the bottom of the jar, causing it to ricket slightly; this may have something to do with the slight indent or dimple on the bottom of the jar, though I don’t know much about the mechanics of boiling/water so I can’t say for sure.
Image URL: | https://www.flickr.com/photos/128418753@N06/51240967438/in/album-72157719397334644/ |
The two jars in their bain-maries, shortly after beginning to apply heat. | |
Image URL: | https://www.flickr.com/photos/128418753@N06/51241821785/in/album-72157719397334644/ |
The jar containing the alum solution after the alum had dissolved (I apologize for how unhelpful this picture is at actually showing the mixture itself) | |
After heating the mixture for ~18 minutes (during which I stirred periodically - 1 or 2 times per minute on average), I turned off the heat, and removed the larger jar from its water bath, placing it on a dish cloth so as to avoid shocking the glass by placing it directly onto a cool granite countertop.
Immediately after placing the jar on the cloth, I removed the now only slightly warm jar of alum solution from the other pot.
Image URL: | https://www.flickr.com/photos/128418753@N06/51241821670/in/album-72157719397334644/ |
The jar with the cochineal and potash solution after heating, but before being removed from the bain-marie. | |
Image URL: | https://www.flickr.com/photos/128418753@N06/51241821465/in/album-72157719397334644/ |
The tea bag that was used to hold the cochineal after having been removed from the solution. | |
Image URL: | https://www.flickr.com/photos/128418753@N06/51241821415/in/album-72157719397334644/ |
The two jars with their solutions after being removed from their bain-maries, but before being combined. | |
I then began to pour the alum solution into the larger jar in small increments; each time I poured the alum solution into the larger jar, the liquid fizzed up, leaving a layer of foam on the top that slowly faded over time. I measured the PH of the solution 4 times. The first time, I measured it after adding about ⅓ of the alum solution, and got a reading of 9/10. I measured the PH a second time after I had added all of the alum (Professor Smith had said to continue adding the alum solution until the reaction produced was noticeably less vigorous than before, which never occurred; nonetheless, I did not see a need to take a second test until this did occur or I ran out of alum). The second time I measured the PH (after all of the alum had been added), the reading was much lower, a 4 or a 5. At the time that I took this measurement, the solution still had a fairly tall layer of foam on top which may have affected the outcome of this second test. When I measured the PH of the solution a few minutes later, once the foam had subsided somewhat, it gave a substantially higher reading of approximately 5 or 6, and a final test several minutes after this gave a roughly neutral reading of 6 or 7. The change in Ph may have simply been due to the foam layer’s disappearance, though perhaps the solution was undergoing further changes after I stopped adding the alum as well. Before adding the alum, the solution was a deep magenta in color, though after adding the alum it became noticeably cloudier and more bubblegum pink.
Image URL: | https://www.flickr.com/photos/128418753@N06/51240768106/in/album-72157719397334644/ |
An image taken shortly after I began to add the alum solution to the cochineal solution; a small layer of foam quickly began to appear, and the solution began to look cloudy. | |
Image URL: | https://www.flickr.com/photos/128418753@N06/51241821290/in/album-72157719397334644/ |
An image taken after adding more of the alum solution; the layer of foam had become noticeably thicker, and the solution also began to look even cloudier. | |
Image URL: | https://www.flickr.com/photos/128418753@N06/51240767981/in/album-72157719397334644/ |
Although the distortion caused by the glass makes it difficult to see, at this point all of the alum solution had been added. | |
Image URL: | https://www.flickr.com/photos/128418753@N06/51240767886/in/album-72157719397334644/ |
Another image of the cochineal solution (and the empty jar that had contained the alum solution) after all of the alum solution been added to it. The layer of foam reached its peak here, and only slowly dissipated over 10-15 minutes (I also used the stirrer to try to re-incorporate it, but the chopstick didn’t seem to be particularly effective at manipulating the foam.) | |
Image URL: | https://www.flickr.com/photos/128418753@N06/51241821045/in/album-72157719397334644/ |
This picture shows the results of the first three PH tests taken, with the first on the bottom, the second in the middle, and the third test on the top. The first test was a fair amount blue-er when it had first been taken out of the solution; it seemed to turn more reddish-orange as it was left to rest. The second, middle test primarily touched the foam layer, and seems to have given a very acidic reading. The third test, taken after the foam layer had settled somewhat, gave a reading much closer to neutral. | |
After allowing the solution to rest for a time, the pink particulates began to settle towards the bottom, leaving a layer of yellowish liquid at the top. At this point I decided to begin the process of filtering out the pigment. I do not own a kitchen funnel, so I struggled a bit to procure something that would be able to properly hold the provided coffee filter while the liquid slowly drained through. I first tried to use a narrow-mouthed Bell mason jar, but found it somewhat difficult to secure the filter. I then switched to a wide-mouthed Weck jar, and, as the mouth was too wide to use the filter alone, I placed a deep cocktail strainer over the mouth and then placed the filter over the mesh strainer. After slowly pouring the liquid through the strainer in small batches over the course of ~ 45 minutes, I drained the substrate and attempted to wash the pigment further. Because the cocktail strainer was fairly narrow, the accumulated pigment was rather thick, and it took a very long time for this additional liquid to strain through; the water showed almost no color after washing, though I worry I may have let it sit too long after the initial filtration and allowed it to dry out somewhat, perhaps reducing the effectiveness of the wash in some way. In any case, adding more water seemed more likely to hurt than to help given the short window we had to allow the pigment to dry, and thus I decided to leave the pigment to dry until thursday when we would paint it out.
Image URL: | https://www.flickr.com/photos/128418753@N06/51240057912/in/album-72157719397334644/ |
The solution after the foam layer had settled and shortly after the cloudy particulate in the solution began to fall to the bottom; a thin, clear layer can be seen just below the top of the liquid, and the cloudy part of the solution also seems to have a distinct texture in places. Unfortunately I was not able to capture the particulate falling to the bottom of the jar well on camera, but it was quite dramatic and visible for ~25 seconds shortly after this photo was taken, after which the process became much slower. | |
Image URL: | https://www.flickr.com/photos/128418753@N06/51241820955/in/album-72157719397334644/ |
The filtering set-up that I landed on after some trial and error. | |
Image URL: | https://www.flickr.com/photos/128418753@N06/51241535629/in/album-72157719397334644/ |
The filtrate after having filtered ~half of the solution; it had a light peach color at this point. | |
Image URL: | https://www.flickr.com/photos/128418753@N06/51240057697/in/album-72157719397334644/ |
The filtrate after all of the solution had been put through the filter; its color lightened somewhat compared with when the first photo was taken about halfway through. | |
Image URL: | https://www.flickr.com/photos/128418753@N06/51240057642/in/album-72157719397334644/ |
Another image of the filtrate; some pinkish clouding is visible, though it had largely settled at the bottom of the jar, while the rest of the liquid was much clearer. | |
Image URL: | https://www.flickr.com/photos/128418753@N06/51240057432/in/album-72157719397334644/ |
The filtrate after my first attempt at washing it; it had no visible color, so I decided not to wash it again. The color of the pigment can be seen as well. It seemed noticeably darker in color than the solution had been after adding the alum, closer to the magenta of the original solution than the bubblegum pink it had become after adding the alum. | |
Image URL: | https://www.flickr.com/photos/128418753@N06/51241535264/in/album-72157719397334644/ |
The pigment after being removed from the filter two days later, on the day when we used it to paint. The clump of pigment itself seems to have a deeper magenta color, though the color left on the filter (i.e., less thick clumps of pigment) have a pinker color. | |
