Soaking: Balancing Operational and Quality Issues using Both Fresh and Brine Cured Hides

摘要

This paper compares contemporary soaking practices to historical methods, emphasizing those aspects that are widely acknowledged as critical for optimization of beamhouse chemistry. It examines current practices and challenges the commonly accepted measurements used to gauge soaking of fresh and brine cured hides. It also reveal differences with respect to removal of the non-collagenous hide component, hyaluronic acid, for various process chemistries on both fresh and cured cattle hides.