Sour Smelling Capes?

[RWTaxidermy]

 I usually use safety acid for my pickles, but just recently I tried a different brand of acid in my pickle and the results were somewhat disappointing. 

4gal. water,4# salt, 2oz acid, had a PH of 2 so I put my cape in and monitored the Ph on a daily basis. However i was unable to pull the cape from the pickle in the minimum time of 3 days, it ended up pickling for 9 days, I noticed a grayish white film kind of looked like mold starting to form on the surface of the pickle solution, even after stirring pickle on a daily basis this film kept reoccurring and was more abundant as the days went by. I pulled the cape from the pickle and drained so I could Begin shaving, this is when I noticed a horrible smell, it was coming from the cape and it kind of had a rotten sour smell to it. Don't know exactly what happened to cause all of this, like I said I stirred the pickle and monitored the PH on a daily basis.  I wont mention the acid I used but I will definitely contact the company who makes it to get a better idea of what might have caused this. So back to Safety acid for me.

 Anyone else ever had this problem, if so what was the culprit?