Native American Technology and Art originally had this on their site. I used web archive to retrieve it.

1. Flesh the deer hide. All you are concerned with is getting the meat and fat off. Then place the hide in water and soak over night. Make sure the hide is completely soaked (the greener the hide the easier to dehair).

2. Dehairing : Take the hide out of the water and place it over a beam and dehair. The objective here is to get the brown layer (epidermis) off. Keep in mind the fresher the hide the easier it is to dehair. If you are using a "flint" or dried hide with the hair still on, soak it overnight and flesh it again and you will notice the hide whitening out as you flesh. When done, throw it back in the water overnight. It soaks much faster. Dehair the next day.

3. This is what I call pre-braining. Its better to pre-brain the hide after you dehair while the hide is still pliable rather than letting it go to rawhide. After you de-hair the hide put the hide in either an old brain solution or a new one. If it goes to rawhide, soak overnight in cold water and then stretch by hand. You will see the hide whitening out (not totally). The objective here is to open the pores ( don't work all day it only takes a couple of minutes) A metal strapping band ( the kind used to bundle wood with) works the best for me. You can soak the hide in the brain solution for as little as twenty minutes or over night. I prefer over night. Brain solution recipe is at the end of the article.

4. After pre-braining take the hide and hang it out to dry. Its not necessary to wring out the hide Don't fold the hide on itself, prop it open with sticks or whatever, or hang it straight up and down.

5. Soak the dried hide in COLD water over night. Lace the hide on a frame, this is the pre-stretching phase. ( I emphasize cold water because the hide is pliable enough to put on the frame and whiten out.) Before I begin staking the hide, I sew all the holes. I do it at this point because then there is no pucker, I use artificial sinew (personal preference). All you are trying to do is whiten the hide out by staking it. The weather dictates how often the hide needs to be staked (remember, your not trying to soften it your just trying to whiten it). In recent experiments it seems to stake out better when working side to side rather than up and down. You will notice that when staking the hide, it sometimes starts to soften up, if you like, keep working it, I don't.

6. Pre-smoking. After the hide is whitened and dried out, smoke it. If you think about it, if a white buckskin is smoked and gets wet, it softens back up with very little work. Why can't you do it a pre-stretched hide! I smoke the hide for three hours in a smoke house. (its nothing more than a box made of four sheets of 4X8 plywood and a roof.) I hang my hides horizontal about three foot from my smoke pot. The thing to keep in mind is don't bake the hides. Keep a warm smoke (punky cedar is in my experience, the best wood to use but you can use any kind of punky wood.)

7. After smoking, put the hide back in the brain solution. I leave the hide in it for thirty minutes to an hour. Take it out and rub it over the band (I do this to make sure that there are no hard spots in the hide, if there are hard spots, then soak it a bit longer.) Put it back in the brain solution, you can either leave it for three hours or over night.

8. Take the hide out of the solution, it is your choice of either putting it through clothes wringer which is what I use, or wringing it out in any method you choose. Work the hide on a rope, beam, cable etc. to soften it up. Remember, a smoked hide doesn't require that much work to soften it up. This is the same principal as was described in the pre-smoking step. The idea behind this method is that you don't work on it constantly until it is dry. It requires you to be lazy. Not real lazy. It IS possible to overwork the hide.

Brain Solution Recipe: One cow brain, two gallons of water. Make it look like a weak Campbell's tomato soup but don't eat it. Heat the solution until warm, NOT hot. The beauty of this pre-smoking method is that you can tan more hides with one cow brain. You will notice if you use this same solution (add more water when needed) the hides will get easier and easier to soften out and the solution smells more like smoke than brains. Sometimes I have to add another cow brain depending on how much additional water I have added. I have found that rain water works best when making the brain solution. Any kind of chemical in the water, such as chlorine seems to have an adverse effect. I have done as many as twenty-two to twenty-four hides with two cow brains.

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