Another Sous Vide Euro

[TOGIE]

Seems more and more people are trying these, sorry if y'all are sick of these posts. But I wanna chronicle this as potential list of what to do and what not to do for this - implying whatever I screw up this time around. It's not yet finished, but just started it this morning.

A little buck that I'm very happy with. I am glad it's not some booner otherwise I would be a little more tepid about only my second euro attempt on it.

Pulled it out of the freezer last night. Spent some time removing the large chunks of meat, removed eye balls, and got the mop bucket with 2.5 scoops of oxi clean ready to go.

I'm starting at 140 for 24 hours. I've borrowed much of this from @wllm1313 and his Elk Euro Sous Vide methods. I've combined his methods with a touch of methods from Whitebone Creations. I'm considering changing the water even before that - which would be this evening at 12 hours. Then change again at the beginning of the next 24 hour period. Plan is to step down in temp after the first 24 hours, perhaps 130. Still deciding.

12 hrs @ 140
Change water
12 hrs @ 140
Change water
24 hours @ 130

Then rinse, pick, rinse, whiten. I stray from wllm with a clear peroxide/hot water bath. Not planning a degrease specific step, but I've been thinking about it.... thoughts? Not sure it's entirely necessary. Especially with young deer.

The spare bathroom work station (if there wasn't a functional fan sucking to the outside I would never get away with this. Though, in my humble opinion it barely smells regardless):



Just a little more hair to cut off. I don't worry too much perfection with removing hair around the antlers, the first hot bath takes care of that.



I also don't worry about perfection on getting the base of the antlers totally wrapped. I consider it a foregone conclusion that no matter what the base of the antlers will lose some color if you do a boil/sous vide/hot water soaking method. I will re color with wood stain at the end, CAREFULLY.



2.5 scoops of oxi clean, filled to cover the head with the hottest water your hot water heater can put together, stick in the sous vide at 140 with a 24 hour timer, cover with plastic to minimize evaporative losses



I'll keep this updated as steps are completed over the next two days. I haven't perfected this method, only my second try, so this isn't a gospel post on how to do this.

 

[Sdolan617]

Following....

 

[MTelkHuntress]

I'm excited to see how this turns out. I'm currently attempting my first one and still cutting off chunks of meat right now.

 

[Deleted member 28227]

Nice work, excited to see the finished product.

Also, I've had decent experience with pipe thread tape on the base. It's not 100% but it's by far the best thing I've used to keep from from discoloring.

YMMV.

 

[TOGIE]

Nice work, excited to see the finished product.

Also, I've had decent experience with pipe thread tape on the base. It's not 100% but it's by far the best thing I've used to keep from from discoloring.

YMMV.

I actually recall you saying that recently in your deer hunt thread. Laziness got the best of me this morning and I didn't wanna go looking for some pipe tape.

After helping my dad install his sprinkler system later this summer hearing you say pipe thread tape definitely caused the light bulb to go off in my head though

finagling some sort of plastic wrap with electrical tape is a PIA

and forewarning to those that haven't ever tried before! DON'T DO RAW ELECTRICAL TAPE WITHOUT SOMETHING UNDERNEATH IT

 

[rwc101]

I'll tack on to this post since I just followed the @wllm1313 method to the best of my abilities.



Now trying to figure out a wood background for it to hang on.

 

[Deleted member 28227]

I'll tack on to this post since I just followed the @wllm1313 method to the best of my abilities.

View attachment 162289

Now trying to figure out a wood background for it to hang on.

Nice work I see you but the bugglers back in.

 

[rwc101]

Nice work I see you but the bugglers back in.

They are tenuously super glued in hopefully the correct position. Couldn't figure out what else to do with them.

 

[TOGIE]

I'll tack on to this post since I just followed the @wllm1313 method to the best of my abilities.

View attachment 162289

Now trying to figure out a wood background for it to hang on.

how did your nose bones turn out? or did you even attempt to keep them intact?

my goal is to attempt to keep them intact on this deer. my patience got the best of my on my last (first) deer euro and i smashed em to pieces and pulled em out.

hoping my patience holds up this time

 

[rwc101]

how did your nose bones turn out? or did you even attempt to keep them intact?

my goal is to attempt to keep them intact on this deer. my patience got the best of my on my last (first) deer euro and i smashed em to pieces and pulled em out.

hoping my patience holds up this time

 

[Deleted member 28227]

View attachment 162290

Man I feel like I'm gonna start getting death threats from taxi's and dudes with beetles, you folks need to keep this shit on the DL...

Seriously though, A+

 

[Carl 9.3x62]

They are tenuously super glued in hopefully the correct position. Couldn't figure out what else to do with them.

I like to put them back in for euros

 

[TOGIE]

Day 2: Beginning of the next 24 hour period

I ended up doing the first 12 hours of the first 24 period at 145, then stepped it down to 140 for the last 12 hours. I also changed the water at the first 12 hours and pulled large chunks of material off with my hands. I added a fresh couple of scoops of oxi clean at that step too.

I pulled it out today at the end of the first 24 hours. I used my hands to pull of as much tissue as I could, scrambled the brain with a long screw driver and got 95% of it out. I picked a little more with the screw driver, did a little brush work, and a lot of rinsing down the nasal cavity. Material is coming off pretty easily at this point.

My logic right now is now that a lot of the major stuff has come off, I wanna ease up on the temp to take it easy on the connective tissues holding bones together.

It went back with fresh water and fresh oxi clean for another 24 hour soak at 130. I'm not as concerned with making sure the top of the head is fully submerged this time.

 

[TOGIE]

I went and investigated about 3.5 hours before schedule this morning. Nose bones were feeling a little loose, teeth feeling loose, and initial inspection showed this second soak took care of nearly everything else there was to take care of.

I set it to 130 for the first 3-5 hours, put it up to 133 for a few more hours, then dropped it to 129 before bed. Ultimate soak time was right around 20.5 hours for this second soak.




Yeah, the freakin nose cartilage isn't entirely gone, but i was quite happy to see this soak took away about 70% of it or so.

I poked at it with a knife and barbeque skewer, made a tiny bit of progress but largely this thing ain't coming out (properly) with my level of patience. So, I called it quits, gave some more rinsing down the nasal cavity and stopped poking around in there. That small amount of cartilage is not of concern to me right now.




I lost a tooth. Pretty common occurrence making euros. I'll be sure to keep track of it and glue it in later.




I picked some more stragglers in the brain cavity and i'm done for now. I want it to dry up before I do the peroxide bath. I want all those bones to set up and the sutures and connective tissues to solidify again before putting it back in warm to hot water. Unfortunately it's cloud cover right now outside as I would like to to let it sit in the sun for a while to dry.



It is pretty white already once you see it in more natural light. But also, the phone camera is being a little tricksy here. It's not quite as white as that looks.



Once I feel it's dried up enough, and hopefully this mountain wave cloud disappears and I get some sunlight, the peroxide step will occur sometime this afternoon. That peroxide bath should simultaneously put the final stamp on any little bits that haven't fully been taken care of as far as little sticky tissues or some tiny bits in the brain cavity.

 

[TOGIE]

Let the sagas of sous vide euros continue

started my peroxide bath around 2:30 or so, i guess mountain time.... whatever, just over 2 hrs ago...




ratio ended up being like 1 gallon of peroxide to 1.5 gallons of water. i re wrapped all the way to the base this time



an hour or so in i removed that black piece in the bottom. all of the bubbles from reactions with the peroxide, plus that bases desire to float kept causing the skull to want to come up for air



obviously, the hotter i kick it up to the faster it will whiten. but i really wanna keep it easy on the skull at this point. i don't know how long i'm gonna keep it in. right now i'm sticking with 120 degrees and it will sit there until it's whiiiiiite



since this will moisten up again and loosen, when it's done and ready to dry i'll be take @ElkFever2 's great idea and find a rubber band, or steal a hair band and wrap it around the upper nose bones to let it dry with those bones together and hopefully solve the split.

that split occurred, in my mind, because i was careless with working on the nose cartilage, and it's a young deer that can't take heat and water too well

 

[TOGIE]

I had thought about letting it sit in the peroxide over night, but i got too stressed thinking about it. I bailed just about 11 o clock last night. Totaling somewhere around 8 to 8.5 hours in the peroxide water bath at an average of probably 123 degrees.

I took a new idea from @ElkFever2 in attempt to close up the upper nose bone split. I went with a zip tie instead of a rubber band. it didn't entirely want to stay put - the zip tie wanted to slip down in the narrowing direction of the nose. but it settled in a spot that i was okay with. i was thinking of folding up a paper towel to give it some friction to stay where i wanted it to, or even using a rubber band that won't tighten the nose but will make the zip tie stay put and then you can cinch it down as much as you think it should be tightened.



I think it worked out quite well, and though i don't need to i'm keeping the zip tie on while it continues to dry.




they were talking about the covid vaccine on the news, nothing weird going on on that tv... promise



Overall, i'm quite happy with this, 8 hours at that temp and peroxide ratio seemed to work great. Lot's of oils were rising to the surface of the peroxide water which is why im really liking the peroxide bath, seems to really pull a lot more oil out. It also seems to finish off any stubborn material too.



I had it drying in front of a fan overnight, there is still some water hiding in there that starting showing itself when i held up the skull at different angles. Now it's drying more on the porch in the sun.

all that's left is to glue some teeth back in, and re color the base of the antlers. though, i'm realizing that a really well done properly wrapped antler base should be able to survive this process, i didn't even try to protect the base during initial sous vide, but you should be able to do this without affecting them much

i'm going to give up on electrical tape entirely. the steam and moisture causes black gunk to subtly end up everywhere that can be a huge pain to try and get off your skull if it ends up there. it gets on your gloves and you don't realize it and you start touching things, like your skull, or the bathroom door....

 

[TOGIE]

yikes. i guess it only makes sense, this euro was going so well that something had to go wrong.

i couldn't find the bottle of super glue that i has always been laying around. i've used it on two animals to glue nose bones back and it was perfect.

well couldn't find it. went to the store and bought white gorilla glue. i mean why not? it's white/clear and a fairly big bottle will last me a while



for whatever reason i actually glanced at the directions after sitting down with gloves on. i noticed that this glue is activated with moisture. i thought to myself that's really dumb, already not liking this glue i just bought.

but whatever, no biggie, i'll just dab the tooth sockets with a moist q tip, put a dab of glue in each one and all will be well. i also put a little glue on some loose teeth.

i look at it two minutes later and it's frothed and bubbled out and spilled onto the roof of the mouth bringing some horrific orange color with it

i don't know if that was an extra reaction with something in the bones or what. i also put a dab on the nose bone to cement it where it was for good and that stayed clear.

but effff man. not the biggest deal, barely noticeable honestly, especially if it's not displayed teeth side up

buy good ol pre mixed loctite super glue

 

[Deleted member 28227]

Bizarre!

 

[rwc101]

Gorilla glue always foams up like that. I use a thick CA glue.

 

[TOGIE]

overall, the final product i'm very happy with. total turnaround was around 3.5 days. @wllm1313 's sous vide euro method/idea is pretty spot on

antlers re colored, nose split fixed, and teeth glued