Posted: Sun Nov 30, 2014 6:37 pm
In order to get the freezer cleared out in time to get the venison from the processor, I needed to get started on a couple of projects this weekend.
Started with by fleshing two deer hides for making buck skin. This always wears me out. This year the one of the buck was especially a task because it's super heavy. Scrapped the extra meat and fat off the flesh side of both skins and have then soaking in a water and lye solution now to get them ready for graining (removes the hair and upper skin layer). According to my directions they need to soak 3-4 days but can soak longer as the lye and water solution is near sterile so they should rot or start stinking. I'll let you know how that goes, as I won't be able to pick up that stage until next weekend.
As the buck was a decent 9 pointer, the rack was big enough to want to do something with, but not so awesome as to spend the money on a taxidermist mount. So I went and bought a turkey fryer and am trying a European mount. Started boiling the flesh off the skull today. Definitely not something you want to try indoors. Not a horrible make you gag smell, but strong. Kind of a gamey meat, eyeball and brain soup. Have the skull with most of the meat removed in the back yard. Will have to boil it some more next weekend. Should be fairly rank by then. Not sure how the week in between will affect the process. I'll let you know.
Started with by fleshing two deer hides for making buck skin. This always wears me out. This year the one of the buck was especially a task because it's super heavy. Scrapped the extra meat and fat off the flesh side of both skins and have then soaking in a water and lye solution now to get them ready for graining (removes the hair and upper skin layer). According to my directions they need to soak 3-4 days but can soak longer as the lye and water solution is near sterile so they should rot or start stinking. I'll let you know how that goes, as I won't be able to pick up that stage until next weekend.
As the buck was a decent 9 pointer, the rack was big enough to want to do something with, but not so awesome as to spend the money on a taxidermist mount. So I went and bought a turkey fryer and am trying a European mount. Started boiling the flesh off the skull today. Definitely not something you want to try indoors. Not a horrible make you gag smell, but strong. Kind of a gamey meat, eyeball and brain soup. Have the skull with most of the meat removed in the back yard. Will have to boil it some more next weekend. Should be fairly rank by then. Not sure how the week in between will affect the process. I'll let you know.
