Euro mount maceration style....

[B B]

WARNING: Don't use this method if you have neighbors or live in an apartment!  If you do you will most likely be served with a search warrant and they will be looking for a dead body 

1. Skin your deer head.

 

2. Remove as much meat as you can and the lower jaw if you're not going to clean it.  Be sure to remove the eyes also.

 

3. Take you homemade brain remover and remove as much brain as possible.  I just swirl it around and it eventually falls out.  

It's important to remove the eyes and as much brain matter as possible as both are very greasy.

Edited February 24, 2019 by B B

[B B]

4. Get yourself a fish tank heater and a five gallon bucket.  

 

5. Fill your bucket with water, put the heater in THEN PLUG THE HEATER IN.  Don't plug the heater in and let it heat up before placing in the water.  It will crack as soon as it hits the cold water.

 

6. Throw you deer head in making sure the skull is fully submerged in water.

 

7. You can throw in some yeast to speed up the bacteria building process.  Not necessary, but it does speed up the process.

Edited February 24, 2019 by B B

[B B]

I did this in my DETACHED garage so to retain some heat and to keep the odor down I threw a trashcan over the bucket.  

 

8. In a few days check the water level and add if needed making sure the skull is again completely submerged.  In colder temps the water level will go down because of evaporation.

 

9. Give it a few more days and check it.  Most if not all of the flesh will just fall off when you pull it out.  If not leave it in and give it another day or so.  Squirt it off with water and hang outside for a while and let Mother Nature take care of the stench. 

 

In the end what you have is one stinkin ass deer skull, but believe it or not the smell will go away.  Usually it would go right into the degreaser, but for now I'm just gonna let it hang outside until the warmer weather arrives so my degreaser, which is in the garage, doesn't have to steady run to maintain temperature. 

This is nothing new and I learned it off the internet.  It might seem like more work than it's worth, but I've done the simmer method and this is basically easier and a set it and forget it way of cleaning your skull.  

 

Edited February 24, 2019 by B B

[Silver Belly62]

Awesome job man, thanks for posting  

[Rusty]

It came out nice.  How long did it sit in the bucket of water?  

[Lunatic]

How long does it take??

Edited February 24, 2019 by Lunatic

[Greybeard]

How long doesit take? I have a bucket heater that is more like a hot water heater element. Didn't think of it. Thanks for posting.

[Merkel]

Nice job! I’ve just buried the skull in the back yard and covered it to let the bugs work their magic.  Your method seems much faster. Thanks for sharing.

[kalmat]

Very nice, I'd recommend to add some dish soap makes it less greasy.

[beaverman]

A friend of mine did one like that and it took several weeks to get it clean, then it had some residual odor after he took it out.  I don't think he added yeast so that may be part of the reason it took so long, I guess water temp could also accelerate or slow down the process.  Not sure how warm he ran the bucket heater.

 

I prefer to run them on the turkey fryer at a simmer for a few hours.

 

[B B]

Sorry, I did leave out some details.  The time it takes is usually 5-7 days.  You want the water temp. to be between 85-95 degrees Fahrenheit.  Any colder and the flesh eating bacteria can't produce and/or won't survive.  Any hotter and you can damage the bone.  The cool thing about this process is, in the summer when it's very hot, you don't even need the fish tank heater, just get a black bucket and go through the process with it sitting in the sun.  

Edited February 25, 2019 by B B

[B B]

43 minutes ago, kalmat said:

Very nice, I'd recommend to add some dish soap makes it less greasy.

Dish soap will prevent the maceration process from happening as it will keep the bacteria from forming.  I do use the blue Dawn dish soap in the degreaser.

Edited February 25, 2019 by B B

[Buck154]

Nice but to stinky for me. Rather just boil

[Rusty]

1 hour ago, B B said:

Sorry, I did leave out some details.  The time it takes is usually 5-7 days.  You want the water temp. to be between 85-95 degrees Fahrenheit.  Any colder and the flesh eating bacteria can't produce and/or won't survive.  Any hotter and you can damage the bone.  The cool thing about this process is, in the summer when it's very hot, you don't even need the fish tank heater, just get a black bucket and go through the process with it sitting in the sun.  

Good to know.  

[Swamp_Yankee]

Anyone ever use lye (sodium hydroxide)?  5-7 days isn't bad but lye would probably be quicker and not smell as bad.  After it was done you could neutralize it with vinegar and just dump it out.