I just recently tried McKenzie tan. In the instructions the last step is to rinse skin side of hide with cold water. Then towel dry hair side and can be mounted right away or freeze to mount another day. It doesn't say anything about tumbleing the hide. Should I tumble the hide before I mount it?
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What you've done is produce a home tanned, wet tanned hide. Wet tans aren't tumbled as they aren't intended to be dry. They also don't need to be broken since it's not a soft tan you're working on. You'll find that the hair grooms easier and the hide is more manageable when wet, and it WILL dry long before the water based hide paste underneath it will.
I tumble all of my wet tanned skins instead of washing them I just put in a hand full of ditenacious (sp) earth and mineral spirits and it cleans them up and gives them luster. You are not trying to dry it out completly. Another thing I do is tie a piece of cape thread around the base of the ear to keep the saw dust out.
It's "diatomaceous" earth, BTW, but if you put your hide in a washing machine, it will spin most of the moisture away. Since you must wash the McKenzie Tan out of the hide anyway, it's a great time to wash your hide. The real reason to tumble is to remove the water molecules that attach to the hair follicle at the hair base/root which can cause slippage. Spinning the hide (commercial guys use centrifuges I'm told)will accomplish the same result. Bruce Rittel advises hardwood sawdust with some unscented mineral spirits to use in tumbling the hide to replace the gloss.