Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game How do you get the brain out of a deer skull?

I've seen some bone cracks develop from boiling.

(just speeking for myself)

I've eaten moose brains, but never deer brains. We used a chainsaw to remove the top of the skull, and just pulled the whole thing out. Eating it didn't make me one spark smarter, though.

Actual boiling can make the skull chalky. That is why you have to simmer it instead, but most still call it "boiling" including myself. Problem with cooking skulls is you cannot get all the meat out of the internal parts of the skull, and it will attract bugs. There are nerves in the cheeks, and gristle way up in the sinuses that are about impossible to get out without bugs.

A Core-lok will do it...

Toss the head in a freezer. Spring thaw I wrap the horns in aluminum foil, triple bag the head in plastic, hang way up in a tree. End of july or so I take it down and wash it off...bugs and other mystery larvae have pretty much cleaned it for me....

W

A 250 gr. .338 round at 30 yards comes to mind..... Worked on a moose at 70 yards for me once. Expanding spray foam filled in the leather-covered skull mount quite nicely.

cook it first in salt water then suck them out with the straw.

Send it to a liberal college for a semester. It will come back clean as a whistle.

BP...

Washing soda, whats the chemical name... I forget if I"m on the same page, but that too, if you don't go by directions, can eat the bone away totally, IE I got some for a friend... oh yeah he'll be real careful.... dunno how many beers later, read hours, the realized the skulls were still in the kettle simmering.... not much at all left..

And yes, simmer, don't boil. Which is why I don't do that either, wait till 130 in the sun TX temps and just let it in water, about the same. Boiling also liquifies the grease, and opens the bone pores, and allows more grease to lodge in the bones than you had to start with. Will turn yellow and smell rancid.

Simmer it and quick to the car wash.

Soaked it in a bucket and that softened everything up pretty well. Do people ever add vinegar or ammonia to the water?

I've only done one Euro mount. It had sat in dads barn for the better part of 2 years, so most of the goodies were already gone anyway. Then I just let sit in a 5 gallon bucket of water to soften up, let sit for a couple weeks, every few days I'd pull and scrape and pressure wash off the last bits. Time consuming process, but no worries about chalking up the skull, or pushing oils into the bones.

M-80.

Seriously, I'd probably go with dermestid beetles.

Tom

I used a 225-gn Partition at about 20 yards:

nice picture Jeff...