Hey all you knife enthusiasts out there that like to keep a keen edge: what type of cuttin’ board do you prefer?
I have and use typical wood ‘with the grain’ mostly but have been thinking an ‘end grain’ would 1. Last longer and 2. May keep my edges lasting longer.
I do a lot of food prep and really like those flexible (yet hard) colored plastic boards. Super useful for chopping the bowing to toss your veggies/meat into the pot. But I feel they’re hard on my fine edges.
What do you think is the best type of cutting boards to use for kitchen/food/game prep? Wood edge or end grain? Poly urethane plastic or what?
I use both end grain wood and the plastic type.
I save the plastic type for meats, fish and raw foods, especially fowl and poultry with blood or biologic juices that could possible contaminate or transfer onto to other foods that could make us sick. These plastic type boards are easier to clean well and to sanitize.
I use the wood for the salad, fruits and veggies and foods I don’t need to worry about.
There is a very good article by Vadim Kraichuk, a professional sharpener in Australia. KG, as he is known on several boards and forums, does a scientific study of cutting boards and their effect on edge sharpness.
http://knifegrinders.com.au/SET/Chopping_Boards.pdf
Ed K.
I have a cherry wood end grain board that I use with my nicer knives. I will cut cooked proteins and any vegetables on that board. I cut any raw meat one of my plastic boards for the same reasons that MarcH cited. I don’t have any data, but I do believe that the end grain board is more gentle on the edge than the plastic ones.
That’s a very interesting article and goes against what I totally thought. Thanks for sharing it, Ed. I guess I’ll stick to my wood edge board and poly boards for the same food safety reasons mentioned. I had no idea end grain would dull faster.
That’s exactly what I was thinking until I read the article above. The article and testing is so in-depth yet the results shatter what I thought about the cutting board to knife edge sharpness. Oh well - live n learn!
Thanks all!
I don’t think you can extrapolate results for an edge grain bamboo board to conclude that all edge grain boards are bad.
Yep. I agree.
He tested Acacia boards as well as Bamboo - both end grain and long grain.
He says that the Acacia wood in the AU is comparable in hardness to Maple used in the US.
Of the nine cutting boards tested, only 3 showed a negative impact on sharpness. Bamboo end grain, low density polypropylene, and tempered glass.
For the Acacia/Maple boards, end grain increased sharpness 20 BESS points and long grain increased 10 BESS points. Not really significant in my opinion.
My takeaway was that the knives were perfectly perpendicular/vertical to the board for all cuts. If the knife drifts from vertical as you slice, the edge will roll and dull the edge. It took 2000 cuts to realize the full benefit. He cautions about using the knife edge to scrape food off of the board. Which, until I re-read the document, I have been doing forever. He suggests using the spine for that task.
Ed K.
Ed K.
I use mostly the UHMW plastic cutting boards. I do have some rather large wood boards, but I reserve them for carving cooked poultry and larger roast meats - but mostly because they have the perimeter grooves to catch juices.
I read some time back that wood tends to hold bacteria more readily than plastic. I would expect end grain wood to be more likely to do this than face-grain. Some kitchens keep their cutting boards separate (veggies vs meat) to avoid cross contamination of bacteria. Plastic boards can be run through dishwashers, so as to sterilize (?) them.
One important thing I have learned is to avoid applying down-force against a cutting board to avoid bending or chipping the edges of low dps knives. The lower the angle, the lower the pressure the edge can withstand. My Japanese knife has an 8-12 dps edge on it and cutting through crusty bread just smashed the hell out of the edge, regardless of the board’s material. Now I limit its use to gentle slicing of tomatoes and the like.
Now this is a cutting board, I just ordered
That board certainly is a beast. Just like I uses a different style and size knife for a specific purpose, I also have and use a different size and type of cutting board to best match the job at hand.
I have a couple of boards in Hinoki (Japanese Cypress) that I really like. I use for veggie prep or cooked proteins. I prefer ones that are just 0.5" thick as they are easy to store and move around although you can get them thicker if you like that look sitting on your counter full time. They have a very, very mild cypress/citrus smell and naturally suppress mold and bacteria. I have treated them with board oil but they say that isn’t necessary. Hinoki wood is edge friendly.
Like others I use a plastic board for raw meats and once they start to get a bunch of scoring marks from cutting that make them more difficult to clean, I swap them out for a new one.
I also used to use a large kitchen knife to scoop or scrape cutup food to put in a bowl or a plate. I also figured I might be dulling or rolling the knife edge using the knife as a food scraper.
Now I use the proper tool for scraping that I keep next to my wooden cutting board. Like 5 bucks on Amazon for a stainless steel scraper and it also has a ruler on it for slicing pieces like celery or carrots as example, for platter presentations all the same size!
My end grain wood cutting board lives on my countertop next to the sink and the plastic ones stood up in a lower cabinets. I’ve used the wooden one so much that I got a level out at it’s 6-year mark and laid it out end to end and there was a 1/4" concave dip in it from my cutting veggies. So I took it out to the workbench and using a belt sander, proceeded to return it to it’s original flat state. Then a coat of polyurethane and I’m good for a few more years.
Yeah, it’s something I bought at Lowes. Combination poly/linseed especially made for cutting boards/food stuffs. Went out to the garage to take a picture but I must have used the last of it.
Oh good! Glad it is something appropriate for the purpose!
I have a couple of Japanese cutting boards and I really like them because These Japanese-type boards are easier to clean well and to sanitize. If you have Japanese knives then use the best cutting boards for Japanese knives. I think this cutting board is best to use for the home kitchen.