Cheese board

[No skills]

Hi all

Just been asked to make a cheeseboard by swmbo, I've wandered to the garage/tip/fortress of solitude and found a piece of oak roughly the right size. So is oak OK for this application? (Household use), if so what should I finish it with?

Thanks!

 

[rafezetter]

I don't know if Oak is suitable or not - though it's very open grain may be an issue. However I did recently look up food safe finishes and found this site which may help:

http://www.finewoodworking.com/how-to/article/food-safe-finishes.aspx

 

[dickm]

I'd be a bit wary of oak for a cheeseboard. Like others have said, very open grain so difficult to keep clean, and if the cheese is the least hygroscopic (all the salty ones are) it may get wet and start to react with any non-stainless steel items.
Maybe insert a tile into the oak for the cheese to sit on?

 

[Jacob]

Just use it as is and wash it after use. No need to treat it though you could put linseed or olive oil on it when it's nice and dry.

We've been using all sorts of offcuts for plates, cheeseboards etc. More useful than you'd think - a piece say 12x10" just right for two slices of toast and a cup of coffee in bed. Cut a groove around the edge to catch crumbs.
They double as mats for hot things on the table, or as chopping boards.

Wood is surprisingly durable in the kitchen - we regularly use bowls which are 50 years old or more (my old dad made them). Just have to avoid excess heat and moisture - a quick wash, no soaking etc.

 

[Racers]

I seem to remember Jamie Oliver selling an oak one that was just a piece of oak with the sapwood on one edge for £60 ish.

Google cheese boards, loads of different woods and cracks, knot holes etc.

Danish oil is food safe a few costs rubbed on with a scotchbrite pad should make a slurry that will fill the grain.

Pete

 

[MrYorke]

Just go for it. Too many say this, that and the other about all sorts of timber not being suitable for chopping boards.......but how many oak worktops are out there?!

Looked after properly they'll be fine. Crack on I say

 

[No skills]

Right then, I'll have a go with this piece of oak - it doesn't have to last forever or look fantastic. In fact the brief from swimbo when she saw the oak was "can you make it look so that it didn't come from the bottom of the garden?"

I might have some Danish oil already, I'll have a look. One thing I have just found is a small piece of maple of a similar thickness, if I have time I might try a stripey board.

Thanks very much for the help.

 

[Zeddedhed]

Just so you know, being a keen cook I have 'lots' of chopping boards, made from leftovers from table tops, worktops and the like.
Oak, Maple, Walnut, Hickory, Beech, Iroko and even Sapele. The only wood I regularly use in the workshop that hasn't made it's way into the kitchen is Douglas Fir (and Accoya but that doesn't really count as wood as far as I'm concerned.)

All my chopping boards get a few coats of Tung Oil which is renewed every 'whenever I remember.'

No one has yet to die from eating food prepped on any of these boards, although I have prepared some truly disastrous meals on them.

HTH

 

[SteveF]

plenty of "solid" oak worktops out there in use
so i guess must be "safe"

Syeve

 

[No skills]

Lol, thanks Zed.