To prepare the solution, simply mix the brains with about a gallon of water and then heat them slowly on a stovetop until the brains have dissolved. You can use any brains you have available, from the deer’s own to cow or pig brains you can find in a butcher’s shop. Brain tanning is the act of using animal brains (approximately ½ a pound per hide) mixed with warm water to tan the deer hide. The first and most traditional way is brain tanning. Two of them work extremely well for hair-on-hide and leather. There are several different ways to make a solution to tan a deer hide. If you’re making leather, you can be less cautious-once you are done scraping the underside of the hide, turn it over and scrape off all the deer hair from the hide. If you want to leave the hair on the hide for a wall display or blanket, be careful as you scrape so you don’t expose the roots of the hair. This is also a point where you have to make a decision. This is a vital point: If the membrane isn’t removed it won’t soak in the tanning solution. Now pin it back up on a rack or board and start scraping away the mucous membrane from the underside of the hide with a dull knife. Once the hide has dried, fold it over and pull it back and forth across the edge of a board until the hide softens. When the hide is soft and easy to manipulate, pull it from the water and wring the water from it. Soak the hide until it begins to soften, changing out the water every few hours. Shake off whatever salt remains, then untack the hide and place it in a bag or bucket and fill it with water, making sure the hide is completely covered. Salt absorbs the moisture and dries the hide, preventing rot and preparing the deer hide for tanning.Īfter salting the hide for a day or so, the hide will become stiff and dry. This process should be repeated two to three times. Once the hide is tacked down with no parts of the hide folded over, cover the entire thing in a thick layer of non-iodized salt. Tack the hide to a flat piece of plywood or on a square frame built of dimensional lumber so air can better circulate around it. Do this by laying the hide out, fur side-down, then scraping away every part of fat or flesh from the underside of the hide with a relatively dull knife or scraping tool, being careful not to punch through the hide.Īfter all flesh and fat has been removed, the hide needs to be salted. Once the hide has been entirely removed from the carcass, it should be fleshed and scraped immediately. Continue to peel and cut slowly until the hide is entirely free. Peel the hide away from the carcass slowly from the deer meat, starting at the rear legs and peeling hide from the carcass to the front shoulders, only cutting gently beneath the surface of the skin when it won’t be pulled away from the meat easily. If you want to tan a hide, though, you have to skin with care.Īfter gutting the deer, remove the hide carefully by first making shallow cuts down the center of each of the deer’s legs to the center of the deer’s carcass. They simply use the “grip and rip” method, where they peel the hide off quickly, cutting away any part that resists. Many hunters don’t take much care when skinning a deer. With a bit of ingenuity and elbow grease, and following a few simple steps, almost anyone can tan their own deer hide. But the process is actually incredibly simple. Most hunters leave deer hides behind because they simply have no idea how to tan them. Nor is it because they don’t want a nice piece of leather to make into a knife sheath or sturdy gloves. Most do so not because they don’t want a nice deer hide for their wall or bed. ![]() Every season, thousands of hunters who wish to utilize every part of their kill still leave their deer hides behind in the woods or discard them after butchering. Yet, of all the ways to use every part of the deer we harvest, the one that seems most obvious-but is most frequently overlooked-is tanning our own deer hide. We do it because we respect the animal and its sacrifice, and we desire to honor its life. Some of us even use the hooves to make racks to hold up our deer rifles. We use deer sinew for sewing and deer tails for making flies for fishing. We make knife handles out of deer bones and jewelry from deer teeth. ![]() We scrape every last scrap of meat from the carcass.
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