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Glad I could be of some help.
I'm interested to hear about your experiments.
Regarding your edit: sadly no, that is outside of my expertise.
I'm following up because you've been so helpful, and in case someone else has the same questions some day and sees this.
I ran out of alum, couldn't find any more locally, so I haven't tried the alcohol tincture process yet with aluminum phosphate.
However, when mixing the last of my alum with a blueberry dye bath, I had the same result as with cranberries. Makes sense since blueberries, cranberries and huckleberries are very closely related (I could do a whole spiel on that.) I tried boric acid with the blueberry dye — it just turned black and very opaque. I tried to dye with it but it wouldn't take to wool (the only raw fibre I had available.) I read that it needs to be an aluminum salt, but I don't know why.
As luck would have it, I got the last bag of aluminum sulphate soil acidifier from a garden center before winter, and it worked to precipitate every dye I've tried since; blueberry, cranberry, cabbage, and carrot. Plus, it's like ten bucks for 2kg as opposed to 200g of Alum at a pharmacy.
I had a small test batch of blueberries stewing (low heat double boiler in a closed container) in 99% isopropyl, which the aluminum sulphate worked with as well. I kinda liked that it didn't foam up as much as the water baths, but unless I get significantly better results it's not worth it economically to use alcohol since I hooked up with my new main squeeze (aluminum sulphate.) It'll be a week or so before I see the final pigment colours to compare.
Regardless, I continue to science and learn. I have my own mordants going with copper and iron in vinegar, plus lichen fermenting in ammonia, which is supposed to make a dye that doesn't need a mordant. I don't know why.
Maybe one day I'll write my own blog about it.
Thank you for the follow up! Interesting to read that a change in anion makes such a difference in result. But good to hear that you found a way forward.