have a three month old salted elk cape ears turned ,eyes ,nose lips are not. the hide is hard but not rock like.I have heard twenty lbs. of salt in 30 gals of water for two days.but am unsure,do not want slippage .as this will ruin my day. thanks for any insight.
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The proportion of salt to water sounds about right,but 2 days might not be quite right. I usually soak until the hide becomes somewhat flexible. This can take as little as a couple of hrs to overnite. I then put the hide right in the pickle. The only hides that seem to take more than a day to rehydrate are some African skins and pigs. To really help in the softening of these skins, I use something called acid bate( sold by Rittles) I hope this helped some! Bob C