Thread: Cutting Boards for a Butcher

I believe that any pure, food safe paraffin oil will do. Pharmacies often sell it - more expensive but you do not need much.

Try a veterinary supplier, as I have heard that they have pharmaceutical grade paraffin oil (cheap).

I recommend a generous coating of mineral oil and let it dry, and then wipe a combo of mineral oil + bees wax (4:1).

Les, I made my first (!) cutting board the other day .. I had a scrap of She-oak that looked a natural. Anyway, I went looking for an oil to use. It needed to be food safe. My research said avoid anything that was petroleum based. The safe oils are natural oils. Tung oil get the thumbs up. Bunnings sell an oil for wood that is safe for food, and it is mainly tung oil. I think it was by Feast Watson.

Regards from Perth

Derek

Guys thanks for the replies.
Derek, The Feast Watson one is what I used for the proto-types (2 boards), but the odour is too strong and might overwhelm the steaks . I used the Rustins worktop oil which has almost no odour, for my own mobile butcher block but Carba-tec no longer carries the brand . I am probably going to end up making about 14 boards so I will probably use our sponsor's product as it is advertised having no odour or flavour. Timbecon have some in stock, but need to travel 40km to get it. Will have to just get more free steaks from my butcher .
Regards
Les

Hi Les

The oil is Feast Watson Kitchen Timber Oil.

You are not meant to pour it over the steaks! A little basting is enough before a BBQ

I have not noticed any odour at all once it is dry.

Will I see you at the Show - I'll be there Saturday and Sunday. Look out for me at Chris Vesper's stand.

Regards from Perth

Derek

Pharmaceutical-grade mineral oil would be safe enough. It's edible. 5W40 machine oil is not edible.
I'd want to well and truely waterproof the surface with multiple coats of any finish declared food safe in it's dried/polymerized final state.

Some years back, I carved a birch kitchen dish for wet scrub pads, sink stoppers and the like.
It got an oven baked bee's wax finish back then. Just as waterproof right now as the day I baked it.
However,
As time has gone by, the wax finish has taken on a dull milky appearance (crystallization?)
It isn't very attractive, and certainly would not look good for display purposes.

I agree with above, some sort of drying oil finish should look a whole lot better.

Baby oil is food safe mineral oil.

Years ago I read an article where the author turned a baby's rattle from celery-top pine; he finished it in baby oil because it would likely be also used as a teether.

I used liquid parrafin from the chemist on this bad boy. Here it is in the tub getting a soak. Cheap as and cheaper than Designated named "chopping board oil" and is food safe as 1 teaspoon will keep u regular!!IMG_3632.jpg

RV, I vaguely remember that you would bake your timber kitchen utensils, and then soak them in oil.

Unfortunately, I cannot find the post for the method/temperature/mix etc that you used - can you refresh our memories with the method you use?

Originally Posted by derekcohen

Les, I made my first (!) cutting board the other day .. I had a scrap of She-oak that looked a natural. Anyway, I went looking for an oil to use. It needed to be food safe. My research said avoid anything that was petroleum based. The safe oils are natural oils.

Derek - this is not correct. Some natural oils will go rancid in air after relatively short exposure and either the oil or its rancid components can taint food - an example of these are olive and canola. Pure mineral oil doesn't go rancid and has no strong odours so will not taint food which makes it better than some natural oils.

You'll need to remember the butchers boards will be washed hopefully in hot water and detergent on a very regular basis so there won't be much oil left in it after a few washes. Fortunately wood is naturally antibiotic (in fact it's toxic if you eat enough of it) so it sort of looks after itself so it doesn't even need any finishing. If the butcher wants to he can re-oil the boards but then cost may come into the equation.

I disagree with the notion of olive going rancid very quickly.

The oven baking process uses a simple fact of gas physics described by Charles' Law.
Preheat your oven to 325F, no hotter.
On a cake rack over a sheet pan, slather all your wood pieces with good olive oil.
Now into the oven for 3 minutes 30 seconds. Leave them longer and they will begin to brown like French Fries = fact.
Out to cool, you can see air bubblimg out of cut surfaces.
Brush on more oil if you wish, won't hurt at all.

Here's what happens:
As the wood heats up in the oven, the air in the wood heats and expands, then bubbles out through the oil.
Whe you take the wood out of the oven, the remaining air in the wood cools and contracts.
This sucks the oil far down into the wood to replace the heated and displaced air.

Heated air expands, cooled air contracts. That's the substance of Charles' Law.
Just to soak wood in oil is a constant battle against the elastic proerties of air that you are trying to compress to force oil into the wood.
Lazy sod that I am, I can do the whole job, once and for all, in 3 minutes and 30 seconds.

I use olive oil. In the years that have passed since I carved and baked 70 spoons and 30 forks, none of them are rancid at all.
Of course in this day and time, 75% of what is labelled as olive oil is NOT olive oil but maybe 10% of the contents.

Heating olive oil makes it go rancid even quicker - this is why olive oil is best not used for cooking because it loses most of of its health benefits. This is why a good chef will add olive oil AFTER any higher temperature cooking rather than before. The same applies to many other oils. Most people have no clue about this and are unable to tell if their olive oil is rancid so are constantly consuming rancid oils with little or no health properties. There are oils that can be used for cooking with heat that won't go rancid e.g. coconut and rice bran oil.

I have used Robson Valley's technique but with paraffin oil on an end-grain Crows Ash cutting board. At first, I thought that I had totally ruined it - the bubbling out that RV speaks about - but, over a year later, the wood is still really well sealed. This technique, with this oil and timber combination, does provide a very hard and impervious surface. Photos below, though this board is not at all beautiful, not even attractive really, it was basically just an offcut slice across a limb that had some spalting, but instead of being burned for firewood, it is a useful board.

Crows Ash cutting board RV heat and oil technique - close-up.JPG close-up of surface
Crows Ash cutting board RV heat and oil technique .JPGmy ugly, but useful, board