How to de-flesh a deer hide

Do you enjoy tanning your own deer hides but hate the laborious task of getting all that flesh off? If you have ever spent countless days, bent over a hide, painstakingly scraping meat and tissue off with a blunt knife, you’re going to love this quick video tutorial that shows you a simple way to deflesh a deer hide using just a pressure washer. Modern technology makes the job so much quicker and easier.

Watch the full video for all the details, but here are some basic tips: 

• De-fleshing is done after the hides come out of the pickle (see the Tanning At Home tutorial for full details on how to tan a deer hide). 
• We used a Karcher K3 with a maximum PSI of 1950. We use this with a rotating head, which does a great job of getting all the meat off. 
• Gently move the rotating head from side to side at about 20 – 30cms away. 
• This process is probably a bit too intense for a soft skinned animal, like a rabbit, though to reduce the pressure, you can choose a more gentle head. 
• Once de-fleshed, hides can then go into the tanning solution. 

If you have any questions about this process, send us an email to [email protected] or hit us up on Facebook or Instagram.