I just checked my pickle and found that the PH has gone up to 5!
I immediately added more acid and brought it back down.
The capes seem ok, hair still tight.
Will they be ok or should I start worrying?
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I never had safety acid drop that much. I think you might be trying to put to many hides in a solution. I put 5 gallons of water for every hide. When I drop the solution to 1 it never usually goes up higher than 2 with my hides over a 12 hour period. Back to your question is your hides still good. Maybe! Try a electronic ph meter if you havent already have one. Need anything email me.
I agree with Scott. It's usually pretty stable. However - if you have a high local water PH to contend with, or someone uses Borax to dry their capes as they flesh, or as Scott suggested - you try to put too many capes in the Pickle, the PH will go up. Hopefully you caught it before anything went wrong - just keep the PH down to under a 2.0 and you should be OK!
I notice when I have a stable pickle and add one cape ,within a 24 hour period I'll have added almost 2 ounces of Safteeacid to restablize it.This has been a rule of thumb of mine for the past two years. Each additional cape in the hide is another 1 1/2 -2 ounces.Be sure to keep checking your salinity at the same time to keep it around 43 % give or take 2% .