HOW TO MAKE BARK LIQUOR
Why is this perfect timing for fall?
Because hide tanning is irrefutably seasonal. Not in a cute, aesthetic, cottage-core way. It's seasonal in a rhythmic, efficient, and honestly demanding way.
Last HTOTM, we talked about how to tan hides in the heat. Go here to read that post. Summer has problems + adaptations that no other season has.
And fall has opportunity. Early fall is usually the time for cutting trees for firewood + cleaning up brush. We are doing this right now at the farm, a mad dash before it starts to rain every day next month.
→ If you live in a city and aren't about to fall your own trees, contact arborist company and local sawmills. They have the trees, and are sometimes open to sharing bark!
This is also a perfectly timed HTOTM because…. it's Hide Club season! Next month we are offering a MINI cohort, a Hide Club for a relaxed season. And it's all bark-tanning. Get your hides in the mail, join Zoom live or watch the recording, and steward the leather into emergence over four weeks of skill, history, methodology, and most importantly - practice.
To see the details for Hide Club, go here.
To learn how to make bark-liquor, read on.
Real Quick: what is bark-liquor?
Bark-liquor is a liquid solution in which we put hides to tan them into leather. Bark-liquor is a concentrated tea of any plant that has high enough tannins content and the right type of tannins to tan leather.
Bark-liquor is only used in the “bark-tanning” or “veg tanning” methods. They are the same method, but you usually see “veg tanning” used incorrectly in commercial leathers that have ingredients beyond tannins, so in natural hide tanning we've adjusted and just say "bark-tanning." And - you know I love combo-tanning, so I will add that you can take any smoke-tanned or mineral-tanned hide and put it in a bark-liquor as well, for a combo-tan.
First Steps: proper ingredients
Use plant material that has never been rained on ie keep the tannins in your plants until you make bark liquor.
Dry your harvested bark and store it safely. I've had bark mould on me due to moist storage conditions, destroying the tannins.
Use a known plant source for making leather. Not all polyphenols labelled “tannin" in chemistry are the original “tannins” coined as a word to describe hide-tanning molecules. You can't go wrong with Fir, Spruce, Oak, or Pine.
Next steps: preparing your material
Yep this is hide tanning. Three sections in and we're not even making bark-liquor yet. Take your time in the harvesting, processing, and preparing steps. This is how you get the most tannin or your labour + make the nicest leather.
To prepare your plant material, chop it up as finely as possible. You can use a hatchet, a grinder, a Log Wizard, or a stick chopper. The more fine the plant stuff, the higher concentration you can make your bark liquor.
Now Make the Bark-liquor!
Part 1
The Folk Method
Fill a large pot with your finely-chopped plant material/bark
Put the pot on a stovetop burner
Leave 2 inches at the top for water to swell when hot
Pour in cool water until just the top of the plant material
Best to use de-mineralized water such as rainwater or distilled, but not crucial
Turn on the heat. Watch. Wait until the liquid steams + becomes uncomfortably-warm hot tub water; but don't let it boil.
Keep it all soaking at this temp for 1-2 hours
2. The Tannery Method
Weigh your plant material by dried weight
Add it to your pot and put the pot on the stove
For every pound of (most) plants, add one gallon* of cool water
Turn on the heat. Watch. Wait unti the liquid steams + then measure the temperature. If it hover below 140F (60C), you'll extract the light-coloured tannins (elagitannins and gallotannins). If it goes over 140, you'll extract the rich, deep coloured tannins (condensed tannins). Don't let it go over 160F or tannins will break down.
Keep it at your desired temperature for 1-2 hours.
*If using Alder or Sumac, do two pounds per gallon. If you haven't worked with a plant before, it's a good idea to do 2-4 pounds per gallon to test the strength of the tannins.
Part 2
Let the liquid cool
Strain it into a bucket
Keep the plant in the pot
Fill the pot again, either Folk Method style or Tannery style
Heat it up again*. Now you've a second batch.
→ You are going to put your hide in the second batch first - the less concentrated extract.
→ The you'll use the first batch to continually strengthen your hide as it turns into leather, over the course of several days, sometimes weeks - and for a cattle hide, a year.
The actual bark-liquoring process is an HTOTM for another day. Go get your bark!
*The first extraction will ‘break open’ the cell walls of the plant, making the larger and slower tannin molecules able to be extracted the second time around. because the cell walls have ruptured, you can actually just pour in water and let it sit for a day, bonus points if it's in the sun. You'll find that tannins extract a second time around quite readily. But it's faster to use heat. :)