Chopping board questions

[Jacob]

A lot of people use food safe linseed oil.

Most people use nothing. It'd be lost into the food, or the washing-up water, and be gone in no time.
Though you can perk them up a bit if they look faded, with a bit of olive oil, as long as the flavour is acceptable.

 

[JakeS]

I rather think the Ameriacns did 10 years research into chopping baords and found that the natural wood ones were better than the plastic, but perhaps for domistic use. Something to do with pore sizes....

A summary of the research you're probably thinking of is here:

http://www.naturalhandyman.com/iip/infx ... board.html

The findings were basically:

- If you wash your board by hand, a wooden board is far safer to use than a plastic board; it's hard to recover bacteria from the wooden board after a scrub in hot water with a sponge, but with the plastic board it's next to impossible to clean it enough.

- If you wash your plastic board in a dishwasher, it gets as clean as the wooden board would by hand-scrubbing.



I believe I also read somewhere that the caveat of all this was that no finish was used on the wood at all, as any finish inhibited the wood's natural ability to impair bacterial reproduction. But I've tried to look for this since and failed to find the reference.

 

[twothumbs]

Thanks JakeS for that. Most interesting. I never liked the plastic anyway. So I will stick to wood. A good boost for all woodworjers who make the odd board.

I'm sure the American army did tests (back in the 70's) and discoveerd that you lost approx. 25% body heat out of the top of your head, which sounds possible, except....their tests coverd personel with heavy clothing on but wearing no hat.

Thanks for checking out the boards. On the order of finish I think you have struck some sense there. Never though about that before.

 

[bugbear]

Thanks very much again for all the replies.

Beef dripping?! Really? I will give it a go for sure! Bug do you use a finish on yours?

Yes - beef dripping. :roll:

People often comment that pasty boards always look great - it's the fat from the pastry.

BugBear

 

[fraser]

With the end grain boards, I just wondered if the grain had to be arranged in any sort of order or if it is completely random.

Also what glues are suitable please?

 

[fraser]

Btw, I am going to make both and see how they go. The edge grain is all good, though the edge grain board i am going to arrange the various blocks in a certain way. I wondered what is the best way to glue these up, whether it is perhaps in a couple of rows at a time, or all in one. And also how to ensure perfect alignment?

 

[bugbear]

Btw, I am going to make both and see how they go. The edge grain is all good, though the edge grain board i am going to arrange the various blocks in a certain way. I wondered what is the best way to glue these up, whether it is perhaps in a couple of rows at a time, or all in one. And also how to ensure perfect alignment?

IIRC there was a thread on this a while ago, with advice and links to video tutorials.

BugBear

 

[fraser]

Thanks!
How thin can these be? It is the other halfs birthday coming up and she has been banging on about one for ages-as much as I'd like to make a 24 x 18 x 2" board shed need me to pick it up everytime she wanted to use it! So will make her a smaller one. How thin is the recommended minimum for an end grain board?

 

[fraser]

I have just bought some mineral oil and beeswax to finish my board and wondered how it's best to apply these. How do you mix the wax into the oil, should both applied with every coat, if not how I best to apply the oil, should it be heated , how long between coats and what prep between coats etc etc.
Any help would be great, hoping to get the first coat at least on by tonight.

 

[marcros]

i saw "how its made" the other night and they were just dipping them in vegetable oil and hanging them up to let the excess drip off and to dry.

With mineral oil, I would just wipe on, leave for a few minutes and wipe off the excess. I did my work bench top the other night and used tru-oil (not suitable for chopping boards). One method of applying that was to pour some on and massage it about with your hands. it was very quick and easy- this time i used latex/vinyl gloves because it horribly sticky the first time I used this method without said gloves!

 

[Phil Pascoe]

One good tip from Jamie Oliver (and I detest J.O.) - buy supermarket packs of small plastic boards, and use them for things that are likely to taint such as chillies and anchovies: when used throw them straight in the dishwasher. This saves tainting bigger, better boards and inadvertently tainting the next ingredient handled. A lot of larger boards don't fit a domestic dishwasher.

 

[fraser]

Thanks very much the reply. Any tips on beeswax and prep between coats?

 

[Jacob]

Thanks very much the reply. Any tips on beeswax and prep between coats?

Yes. Don't bother - it's wasted on a chopping board as it won't stand the chopping and the cleaning. Nothing is best, or raw linseed or olive oil.