pH was raised to about 6 on Sun PM after thinking the 1 pH may have "killed" the bacteriacide effect. After adding new bacteriacide to the soak Sun PM, and seeing new mold and bacteria Mon AM, all skins were pulled. 4 slipped badly, the rest were ok.
The soak smells very strongly of phenol. Yuck.
Samples of the soaks were saved for spore & colony count.
Must have been a bad batch of bacteriacide or something. Won't be "going there" again.
Soapmakers and candlemakers have something called PhenoNip that sounds a lot like this. Works above 3.5 pH only.
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Why the bacteriacide in the first place? Normal operations with a good, fresh hides make the use of such chemicals a waste of money. And I don't mean to be judgemental (it just seems that way I suppose), but it sure sounds like you don't have a clue as to what the results from yo-yoing the pH is having on the hides.
The pH should remain low until you neutralize in the final step. Could you provide more information? There is a good chance of repeat failure here.
The soak was raised to 6 just to see if the bacteriacide would kick in above 3.5. To see if it was the product vs. the process. The bacteriacide did not kick in (new was added after pH raised to 6). The mold and colonies of bacteria re-grew. The skins were pulled and re-dipped in clean 1 pH for a short float. The solution is very nasty, but skins are so far, ok.
The skins though, they did "clean up" ok, I have 48 drying right now, 55 dry, and some in line. I only actually lost 6 of them. I *almost* lost 190 skins. Close call!
Bacteriacide is added to all soaks to protect skins. When I dress skins I want nothing left to germs. Bacteria slip is the most preventable cause of slip and thus the cause I give no self-leeway on. Bacteriacide never harms, sometimes it does nothing (see examples), and if it works, it only helps.
It is not so expensive that it should not be used in all soaks, if you work with the volume of pelts I do. 95% of taxidermists do not. So maybe it doesn't seem necessary to most. I do recommend it, at least tested-good batches of it.
Now, for something expensive that doesn't work... what's up with Kilz-Odor? I put it on these because they smelled like socks. Oh, sure, they smelled like pine for 10 minutes, but then went right back to socks. I had coyotes go from "rotting smell" to pine, back to "rotting smell" in 24 hrs. Skunks went piney and then back to oily/skunky. Mink went from musky to piney and then down to a modified musky. Total skins tested so far is above 500. The same effect is noted with Hair Sheen. Malogon is good, but even Malogon will fail on 3 week standing coyotes, and very strong skunks. A truly effective odor neutralizer besides peroxide/baking soda - something along the lines of Simple Solution for pet spots/stains - would be great for the taxi market.