For your Knife - what cutting board do you use?

[Indigo_Swale]

The best way I ever heard it described was like this.

Take a handful of dry spaghetti. Hold it in your fist. The spaghetti should be going up and down. Picture a knife going down through the spaghetti. It slips between the strands instead of actually cutting them. The is what end grain wood is like and why it is more gentle on your blade. The knife actually slides between the wood fibers.

oohhh....I get it! Thanks all who answered my question!

 

[Chipotle Tom]

I use solely plastic for cutting and wood for baking right now, but after reading all the posts on this thread, I am saving for an end-grain wood board. I have considered an end-grain board before, but I was always worried about scarring it.

 

[Andy M.]

All cutting boards will scar. Go for it!

 

[SteveP]

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned the importance of cross contamination between different types of food, especially between raw and cooked meat.




I use a mahogany board for carving hot meat, and I have a set of six colour-coded anti-microbial high density chopping boards bought from a catering equipment supplier. The set also came with a plastic wallchart detailing which colour to use with which food type.

Red - Raw Meat
Blue - Raw Fish
Yellow - Cooked Meat (I only use this for cold meats)
Green - Salad & Fruit
Brown - Vegetables
White - Bakery & Dairy
​

 

[heavyG]

I have 20 or so cutting boards-- wood, plastic (colour coded for different uses), bamboo, a new composite paper board that is dishwasher safe!

I never use glass, (why would you do that to your knives?) and since my counters and island are concrete I always keep a flexi plastic board down on one end for cutting veg.

Just shot a piece on cutting boards and the wood vs. plastic "which is more sanitary" question. Should be up on my site mid-December.

G.

 

[Hawkeye16]

I know it's not the best but I usually carve my raw meats on a dinner plate (stoneware) right after thawing it. Other than that I have a hard plastic board that goes over my sink. Very nice for disposing of the parts I don't need.

 

[justplainbill]

For heavy cutting of raw beef, lamb, pork and venison, preferably a bolted up end grain birch or maple but blocks so configured are expensive and not readily available. For fish, chicken, hard cheese and sawing through bones, I use a 1/2 inch thick poly board that I sanitize with Clorox. For added stability when sawing I usually put the poly board on top of a wooden one that has legs on it. For cooked meats I usually use an edge grain glued up cherry board. For slicing salami & cutting soft cheese I use a teak board covered with 4 layers of wax paper.

 

[Poppinfresh]

I'm all over the map. I have wood boards, block boards, plastic boards, flex boards. Heck, I even have a couple of marble boards.

My favorites though are a Boos board that I bolted into a roving server cart and a Pampered Chef bamboo board that has an edge moat on one side and an oval indentation on the other side for turkeys.

Since I mostly use ceramic knives, I don't typically have to worry about which board I'm using.

 

[nathanKent]

I tried my hardest to love flex boards. It never took. I have three plastic boards, all different sizes. My favorite is an 8x12 with rubber gripping feet. I'll probably go back to a wood board eventually, but I do love being able to toss the board in the dishwasher, so maybe not.

 

[CharlieD]

I've always preferred wood, made my first one in school over 30 years ago and my mother still uses it. That one was an edge grain board, walnut and cherry.

I now make end grain cutting boards, they rarely get marked by my sharpest knives. We've tried glass and lexan and threw the lexan away. The glass board, it's pretty, but it dulls my knives though.

What do YOU use?

Hill Dawg

I like polymer materials. Though wood is great too.

 

[Hill Dawg]

Could someone kindly enlighten me as to what "end grain" means, exactly? And why it is generally so much more 'spensive than other kinds of wooden cutting boards?

Thanks!

Think of the classic butcher block cutting board made up of little squares or rectangles of wood, that's end grain. It's super hard, so it takes a beating from tools much more damaging than sharp knives. It was used in metal working shops as well.

The real cost comes from the extra time in manufacturing. End grain boards have to be cut and glued 2x, not just once. It also requires an obscene amount of sanding, something you don't have to do with edge grain. If I get a chance, I'll post an image of the boards I just finished, but you can see a video of one being made on the woodwhisper site, lookup the cut above video.

Steve

 

[Andy M.]

End grain boards are made from pieces of wood that are cut off a long board and placed side by side on their ends. Cutting into end grain is easier on knife edges than edge grain boards.

 

[buzzard767]

Although my wife uses a walnut cutting board for slicing, etc., I like to chop vegetables when possible. To best protect and therefore prolong my knife edges I use a rubber Sani-Tuff board. Most of my vegetable knives are Japanese Hitachi blue super steel and I keep them sharpened at razor angles. Because of the very hard, small carbided edges that are prone to chipping if mistreated, the Sani-Tuff board goes a long way to protecting them. I am a 100% fan.

Buzz

 

[affable_artist]

I have one large glass one that isn't used much, and two smaller plastic ones that I place on top of a towel (so they don't slide around). I don't handle raw meat, so no worries there. A wood one would be nice and one day I'll get there!

(oh so new to cooking regularly!)

 

[buzzard767]

Sani-Tuff rubber boards. Does ALL the good things shown above and NONE of the bad things - except beauty. USDA approved, the least blade edge damage, and easy maintanance.

Buzz