Care & feeding
Your board isbasically a pet.A very quiet one.
It cannot bark when it is thirsty or sulk when you leave it in the sink. So here is everything it would tell you if it could.
Three minutes of reading. About four minutes of actual work a month. In return, a board that outlives the kitchen it lives in.
Wash it.Dry it.Stand it up.
That is the whole daily routine. Everything else on this page is detail.
01
Wash
Scrape off whatever is left behind, then a good scrub with warm water and a small amount of mild dish soap.
Mild. Dish soap, not bleach — bleach is not a seasoning.
02
Dry
Rinse it well, then towel both sides dry immediately, while you are still standing there anyway.
Boards like to drink. Boards do not swim.
03
Stand
Prop it on its edge to finish drying, and leave it standing whenever it is not in use.
Water trapped under a flat board is how you end up owning a rocking chair.
One addition, for the sake of your dinner guests: after raw meat, poultry or seafood, wash and sanitize before anything else touches the board. Better still, keep a second board for produce and bread. Two boards is not excessive. Two boards is how careful people live.
The short list
Six waysto ruin it.
Avoid these and the board is nearly impossible to kill. Ignore them and no amount of oil will save you.
- 01
No dishwasher
A hot, humid box that takes wood apart for sport.
- 02
No submerging
A quick rinse, never a long soak.
- 03
No harsh chemicals
Mild soap cleans without stripping the wood.
- 04
No leaving it wet
Dry both sides, right away, every time.
- 05
No hot pans on top
It is a cutting board, not a trivet. Scorch marks are forever.
- 06
No forgetting the oil
A dry board cracks. Oil is cheap insurance.
Oiling
Feed it beforeit asks.
Your board arrives already oiled and conditioned. Keeping it that way is the single thing that decides whether it lasts five years or fifty. Two products do it, and they do different jobs.
Mineral oil
Soaks in.
A deep conditioning treatment that sinks into the fibers and keeps them hydrated. Spread it around, let it soak, buff with a cloth, repeat on the reverse side. You cannot over-oil — keep going as long as it keeps disappearing.
Board butter
Seals up.
The moisturizer that sits on top and keeps the surface smooth. A quarter-sized amount spread with a cloth, left a few minutes, then buffed in circles. Either one alone is fine. Both together takes four minutes and is the version your board would choose.
Never vegetable, coconut or olive oil. Those carry fats that turn rancid, and your board should smell like wood, not like a salad someone forgot about.
The rhythm.
- Every use
- Wash, dry, stand it up.
- Weekly, first month
- A coat of mineral oil. A new board is thirsty — let it drink.
- Monthly, after that
- Oil, butter, or both. The more you use it, the more you feed it.
- Now and then
- One part white vinegar to four parts water to sanitize. Wipe, dry fully, re-oil if it looks thirsty.
Stains & odors
Beets happen.
Food colors the wood. Washing straight after use prevents most of it. For the rest, try these in order.
Garlic & onion
Rub the spot with a raw potato or half an apple. It sounds like folklore. It works like magic.
Stubborn stains
Baking soda paste, three parts to one part water. Rub gently with a soft cloth, let it sit a minute, rinse and dry.
Lemon & salt
Salt on the stain, scrub with half a lemon, wait five minutes. The acid lifts, the salt scours.
Prevention
Wipe spills as they happen and oil on schedule. Oiled wood keeps the beet juice on the surface instead of letting it move in.
Why wood,anyway.
Cared for properly, a wooden board outlasts every plastic one you will ever buy, combined.
Kind to knives
Wood gives where plastic resists, so your edges stay sharp far longer.
Naturally antibacterial
Wood resists bacteria on its own. Plastic develops grooves that trap exactly what you do not want trapped.
End grain heals
End-grain fibers absorb the knife and close back up. It looks better the more you use it.
No two alike
Every board has its own grain, and its own patina a few years from now.
Still havequestions?
Ask us anything — board care, custom sizes, or what happened the one time somebody put theirs in the dishwasher. We have heard it all, and we do not judge. Much.
