The stir test – how homogenized is your glaze?
Are you stirring your glaze for long enough?
“When you said in the stir test, 10 Seconds. 30 seconds. 60 seconds of stirring. Are you talking about high speed mixing or just hand mixing?”
In my free Strategic Glazing class, I gave an example of where I took a large bucket of glaze and I stirred it. You can read more about this test in my blog post Are You Mixing Your Glazes Well Enough?
In this experiment, I just stirred it with a wooden dowel so it wasn’t high speed mixing. I stirred it for 10 seconds, dipped a test tile. Then I stirred for another 20 seconds, dipped a test tile. And then another 30 seconds (60 seconds total) dipped a test tile. The results were very, very different depending on how long I stirred the glaze for.
The takeaway from that experiment is – most people are probably not stirring for long enough.
I was using my phone stopwatch to measure 10 seconds and that actually felt like quite a long time to be stirring. 30 seconds definitely felt like it was going to be good enough, but it actually wasn’t enough for this large, garbage-can-sized bucket of glaze.
One of the tips I gave in the Strategic Glazing class was to stir your glaze for as long as you naturally stir it for, and then pour your glaze into an empty bucket. This will show you if your glaze is homogenized, meaning it is nice and smooth throughout. Sometimes just the top is nice and smooth and then you get to the bottom and it’s all sludgy. That is not a homogenized glaze, and that’s going to affect the consistency of your glaze application. You want your glaze to be completely homogenized.
How often do you stir the glaze?
For me, when I’m glazing my pots, I always high-speed mix all of my glazes at the beginning of a glazing session. And then I stir physically, manually, with a spatula before each and every dip. So I stir a couple times around before I dip every piece just to make sure, just in case some of the water has risen to the top. When water rises to the top, that’s going to saturate your bisque even faster, if you have more water at the top of your glaze bucket.
I always high-speed mix at first, and then I stir between each and every dip. If a few hours go by or I take a break, when I come back, I’ll high speed mix again. I use an immersion blender/hand blender for any glazes where the blender will fit into that size of a bucket. If I have a huge bucket of glaze, then I would use a drill with a paint mixing attachment.
So to recap – high speed mix at the beginning, stir before each and every dip. If you’re not sure if your glaze is homogenized, pour it into an empty bucket and you’ll be able to see. Either it’s going to pour smoothly or you’re going to see lumps at the bottom. And if you see lumps at the bottom, then you just need to mix more.
Not all of us have access to an immersion blender or a high speed mixer. If you can, I definitely recommend that you get one. But pouring into an empty bucket is a good way to just tell if your glaze is homogenized before you go about your glazing process.
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What You Need to Start Mixing Glazes from Scratch
Are you interested in learning how to mix your own glazes? When you start mixing your own glazes from scratch, your glaze options become infinite. Not only will you be able to stand out with unique glazes that you created yourself, but you'll also start to develop a more intimate relationship with the materials you are using to make your pots.
But before you take the plunge into the world of glaze mixing, you might be wondering what tools and supplies you’ll need to have in your studio. Watch my free "on-demand" class to find out! Click the button for all the details.
Learn to Mix Glazes from Scratch
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