Cutting Board Maintenance
In this article you will learn how to properly care for your cutting board. Failure to maintain the board can result in cracks, splits, and warping.
Our cutting boards take a tremendous amount of time and effort to produce. Each one is also 100% unique. There will never be another quite like yours. At Far North Woodworks, we care about the longevity of your piece. In order to ensure the heirloom feature, you will need to maintain the quality of your cutting board.
To properly care for your cutting board, you first need a slight understanding of how they are made. Each individual piece of wood you see in the design of your board is being held together using water proof wood glue. Each little piece of wood is also the end grain of the wood. Wood fibers are much like straws. These straws are what sends water and nutrients up the entire tree and into the branches. So your cutting board is basically a bunch of little straws standing up and glued together. End grain is the best for cutting boards. It allows your knife edge to push the straws out of the way rather than cutting the wood fibers. Generally speaking, a side grain cutting board will produce many more knife marks and scratches. When looking at the face of your cutting board, you are basically looking at the end of the straws or wood fibers. This also allows the finishing oil to penetrate the board deeper than a side grain piece. This results in a much longer lasting cutting board.
Each of our cutting boards comes conditioned and ready to use. We apply a very generous amount of food safe cutting board conditioner. This process takes us several hours over the course of a couple days. Since we build with very dry wood, the initial conditioning or hydrating of the board takes a lot of resources. You can see the conditioner soaking into the wood and drying in real time. We constantly apply the finish until the wood noticeably stops becoming dry on both sides. Then we always wipe off the excess. Never let the conditioner pool up and dry. The board will become tacky. Once we wipe the excess off we let it sit and fully cure for at least one week. The longer you can wait the better, but it won’t hurt to use the board a day or two after. As long as the surface does not feel oily to the touch, you’re good to go.
Impregnating the wood with the oil based conditioner is mostly to protect the wood from absorbing food oils, and soap and water from washing it. If the board is allowed to absorb water it may crack and warp. If the board is allowed to absorb food related oils or juice then it may also warp and may also smell like said food. Some applications this is a good thing. Such as a Caesar salad bowl for example. Generally speaking you should hand wash the board after every use. HAND WASH ONLY! NEVER PUT IN A DISH WASHER! The high heat and excess water from the dish washer is likely to split and warp your board. Wood does not like water on it for an extended period. Make sure to always dry your cutting board immediately after washing. You won’t need to reapply conditioner after every wash. However, the more you use the board and wash it, the more often you will need to rehydrate it. The dish soap naturally extracts the oil from the wood. Any food grade cutting board oil will be sufficient. There are many different options found online or at local hardware stores. If you follow the information in this article, this cutting board should last you many, many years. If you have any questions at all, or you are unsure if your board required attention, feel free to contact us. We will help you in any way we can.