Preserving of Hides and Skins Chapter 1: Drying

Chapter 1: Drying Chapter 2: Salting Chapter 3: Brine Curing Chapter 4: Dry salting Chapter 5: Storing of Preserved Hides The cheapest method of conservation is by dehydrating the hide as fast and as gradually as possible after slaughter before the process of deterioration takes hold of the hide or skin.It is wrong to dry a hide or skin in the sun or on the ground.In the sun a hide or skin more or less cooks in its own fat, and the ground retains the humidity that evaporates from the hide and delays complete dehydration, or worse, the ground can be humid and can transfer the humidity to the hide or skin.Ground drying delays the process and causes bad conservation quality.Skins can be dried on drying lines or poles, hides cannot because where the two sides of the drying hide face each other, humidity evaporates too slowly.Ideal is suspension drying where a hide or skin is suspended under tension in a frame.This increases the evaporation surface and the tension opens the fiber of the hides allowing faster dehydration. Hides should be suspended tails up, necks down.The butt is the most valuable part of a hide and by keeping the butt up gravity helps the water in the butt to descend first rather than collecting the descending water from the shoulder portion.Normally a goatskin dries in a warm ventilated climate within 24 hours, a sheepskin in 36 hours and a hide in 3 days.It is recommended that hides and skins should be bone dry before they are taken off the frame.Frames should be built in rows one parallel to the other with sufficient room for workers to pas between them.

The positioning of the frames should be such, that they are parallel to the prevailing wind direction. Wind should be allowed to stream easily between the hides as it blows away the humidity that is created by the evaporation process facilitating faster dehydration. Frames should be shielded from the sun and rain under a roof. In countries with a clear distinction between the dry and wet season will have generally a better hide quality in the dry season and a lower quality in the wet season. The slower hides and skins dry the bigger the chance for conservation defects in the form of putrefaction. It is absolutely imperative that dried or drying hides and skins are not exposed to water.