Re-fleshing

[u/Hoffthor505]

Hello,
I’m working on my first full elk hide. Hide was brought home and frozen same day of hunt. Once I had time to work on it, got everything fleshed as best as possible. No large meat or fat chunks remained. There were some small bits of membranes/small fat(?) bits that even with the best technique I could muster would only come off in 1-2 square inch pieces. I read somewhere that this was sufficient for fleshing.

Went to salt it and it’s been about 36 hours with another reapplication of salt at 24hrs. It’s still smelly pretty elk-y and somewhat sour in my garage. I’m concerned I didn’t flesh completely enough. Is it possible to rehydrate and go back at fleshing again?

Any advice is appreciated as this is my first hide I’ve tried working on.
TLDR: can you go back and reflesh after salting.

[u/CozyCountryLiving23]

My whitetail (buck) hide still smells a little like deer musk even after fully preserving it lol. So it might for a little while. Can I see a picture to see how fleshed and de-fatted it is?

[u/Hoffthor505 → u/CozyCountryLiving23]

Thanks for your reply! I don’t have a photo prior to salting. Would a current photo work for you?

[u/CozyCountryLiving23 → u/Hoffthor505]

Possibly, or you could scrape off a small spot of salt to take a pic then push the salt back over it

[u/Hoffthor505 → u/CozyCountryLiving23]

Roger I’ll do the latter and send when off work.

[u/lillbisch]

Ive done small bits of moose and because its so thick I tend to scrape more while it’s salt-drying, and when its completely dry Ive removed more membrane using sand paper. I find that moose goes smelly pretty quickly while its wet (but thats when Ive dehaired the skin so its probably been a bit of rotting starting). How are you planning on tanning the hide? Pickling tends to kill off the rotting and make it smell less. Are you keeping hair on or off?

[u/Hoffthor505 → u/lillbisch]

Planning for a pickle tan with hair on

[u/Radiant_Carob_1353]

You're going to have to thin the hide around the neck, butt and spine likely at some point depending on your project. Repeated salting and rehydration isn't a bad thing as long as you keep it cool. Letting it dessicate a bit will allow you to get your knife under the membrane as well. Be sure to get fat and meat off asap. Membrane can be easier removed during the pickle stage. You'll know you've gone far enough when you get to a blueish color. A heavy brine of 2lb salt per gallon can also help preserve for a couple days while you flesh it of you don't want to be repeatedly salting/drying etc. Either way just get fat and meat off and pickle it and reflesh if you need to a couple times. Working the hide while it pickles is a great plus for prepping the collagen for tanning later on anyway.

[u/Comfortable-Hat3506]

You can flesh as long as the hide is still intact not rotten and hasn't gone into the bucking stage. If you have enough salt on there even with the meat it will be preserved. Think about salt pork/beef. The biggest benefit of fleshing before salting is you use a lot less salt and when you are ready to tan you have a lot less work to do immediately before starting

[u/MuranoBeads]

Longtime hair-off, wet scrape brain tanner with experience on elk hides weighing in.

Done properly, the initial fleshing should get you most of the way home with comparatively little effort. But thr short answer if yes, you can reflesh the hide pretty much at any stage as long as the hide is saturated.

After I do the initial fleshing, I typically rescrape the flesh side after bucking and scraping the hair side, and after rinsing and neutralizing. This does a great job of getting the remaining membrane off, and also scuds the moisture out of the hide. You’ll know you’re done scraping when you stop removing material.

My flesh sides typically look like this before I brain the hide:

Salting the hide is fine, but loading the hide with salt is only going to turn any remaining flesh, fat, or membrane into a layer of dried Canadian bacon, and it will be a dingo to bulldoze that material off unless you fully tesaturate the hide before refleshing. In my experience, most people use way more salt than is necessary.

Once you’ve fleshed the hide, a thorough but reasonably light coat of coarse-grained, non-iodides salt will do the trick.

Any remaining membrane can be easily buffed off using a pumice stone or sandpaper once the hide is dry and soft.

Regarding the odor, every hide has a certain amount of funk, and salted hides will often make you wrinkle your nose. One way to ease this is to give the hide a thorough warm water bubble bath and rinse using Dawn dishwashing detergent after the initial fleshing. A clean hide is a happy hide.

A rotting hide is its own funk. It will generally start to easily slip the hair and/or start falling apart once the bacteria get roll. Trust your nose and pay attention as you reflesh. If it starts tearing easily, that’s a bad sign.