How to make your own sumi ink sticks
2025-10-28
I will preface this by stating that the japanese word Sumi (隅) means ink, so calling them sumi ink sticks is as nonsensical as saying bao buns (bao means bun) or ATM machine (The M is short for machine), it is just the term I see used the most on english sites, so for the sake of clarity I will use it here in the title, but in the rest of the text will refrain from using the double noun and instead refer to the ink sticks as sumi sticks or ink sticks.
This is a recipe that is still being developed, and more like a collection of my experiments rather than the best possible recipe. My recipe is largely based on the recipe listed on https://worlds-oldest-inksticks.jp/?page_id=22248.
I was inspired to try making sumi sticks after seeing a fantastic Business Insider documentary on the matter. My intent is not to disrespect the artistry and craftmanship of the craftsmen and women who create sumi sticks professionally. No doubt that they make greater and much higher quality sumi sticks than I ever could and hope that anyone who sees this and has the opportunity to do so will support these artisans and help keep the art of making sumi sticks alive. However I live in Finland and have not found any extablishment here that sells sumi sticks, so I don’t really have that option. Ordering quality sticks from Japan or China is also not an option as I am still a student. Besides knowing myself, this is likely bit of a passing fancy so I would rather not sink large amounts of money into it. However, when watching the documentary I was suprised by the simplicity of the ingredients. It’s just soot and glue kneaded together, so I figured I would take a crack at it. If nothing else it might make for a moderately entertaining afternoon at little cost.
Funnily enough this was the trickiest part of this whole endeavor. In theory collecting soot is easy. Just burn shit. In practice however, in order to get any useful amount of soot you have to burn quite a bit of shit. More than I was willing to do in my apartment. Now if you have a yard and a place to burn stuff this might be a lot less of an issue than it was for me. I initially tried the method of taking a candle and placing a tiny bowl I use for sauce dipping on top of it, but quickly realized I would find myself going gray before I got anywhere near as much soot as I wanted with this method. Filling my home with candles with various bowls on top of them was also not an option, even if it could have been marginally faster. So I tried just burning paper instead to maybe speed it along. As my equipment was limited, I could only burn small scraps at a time, and while that was clearly faster than the candle method, it was still obnoxiously slow. So if you’re going to use soot, I suggest just buying some sort of fairly pure carbon powder instead, as that is pretty much what soot is. Or if you really want to do it the hard way, burn a whole bunch of stuff at once in a barbecue or firepit. Although even that will be slow and likely not even all that worth it monetarily.
Powdered pigment. That is essentially the function of the soot in the recipe. It is a powerful pigment that essentially makes the ink be black, but it is also dries the glue making it into a workable mass. It acts much the same way as flour in a dough. Flour and water on their own are a bit unwieldy, but combined in the right ratio they make a solid dough that can be shaped. That is essentially the idea here. To turn the pigmented soot into a more convenient form. So as such I would argue that the soot can be replaced with basically any strongly pigmented powder.
In the documentary they mention that they use animal glue. Now I have no easy way of getting animal glue so I had to think of a cheap alternative. First I tried wheatpaste. It more or less worked, but I would not recommend it. It takes a very long time to dry and comes with the risk of rotting if not prepared with the appropriate additives. I found the Finnish general purpose Erikeeper glue to be quite a good choice. When it dries it becomes tacky and when completely dry it remains slightly flexible and it is water soluble. I believe that these are all desirable properties when creating sumi sticks.
At this point the stick seems to be perfectly usable. Now the original recipe dries it for at least a week in ash and then continues air drying for a month. At this time I cannot attest if that does anything to the quality of the stick.