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Posted By: Lorin cutting boards for good knives - 02/24/12
I am looking at getting a good board and not sure what to look for? Some say to look for end grain boards. what about bamboo?
Good question. I use a couple different plastic ones and a old wooden one. Lucky I'm still alive..............

It'll be interesting to see what some of the guys have to say.
Posted By: add Re: cutting boards for good knives - 02/24/12
If, you are using higher end Japanese style knives (performance geared; thinner geometries & higher hardness), end grain wood boards are the ticket.

Poly, glass ( shocked ), bamboo, etc., and to a lesser degree edge grain boards are tough on these types of knives... chipping damage, prematurely dulling of your edges, etc.

David's stuff is stellar.
http://www.theboardsmith.com/

The type of wood (hardness) is also a factor, see Janka scale:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janka_hardness_test

Wood block size, layout, and type of glue used will also contribute to board quality and knife edge retention.

Sani-tuff, a rubber commercial grade (dishwasher safe) maker of cutting platforms is also a decent option. You will be restricted on size, unless you can cut to fit...
Oh crap, one of those boards is just one more thing I just have to have.


Am I the only one that gives the wife the stink eye when catching her cutting against plates?
Originally Posted by Boise



Am I the only one that gives the wife the stink eye when catching her cutting against plates?


No!!!!!

whistle

Even though I have wood boards.

Von Gruff.
I like a good thick Boos Vermont Maple board


for quick work though, I often use a 'flexible' plastic one.
I have a maple dish washer top that works pretty good, and a large piece of unknown wood I inherited from my father that is full of bug holes, but works really well.
I also use a piece of the plastic they use in offices under rolling chairs that if the easiest to clean up, but kinda hard on the blade edge.
Mostly though, I try to cut only the meat and not the board.

Rick---not sure what the "stink eye" is, but sounds interesting.
Tim
Wow, looks as though I asked in the right place. The Boos boards are quite reasonable. Many thanks. Lorin.
Arn't wooden cutting boards and butcher blocks prime breeding ground for bacteria?
Posted By: add Re: cutting boards for good knives - 02/25/12
Originally Posted by Lorin
Wow, looks as though I asked in the right place. The Boos boards are quite reasonable. Many thanks. Lorin.


Boos tend to use smaller end-grain pieces/parts and as such will be more prone to separation, cracking, etc.

More joints = more susceptibility to weakness (glue failure, strength, etc... due to more surface area of adjoining components).
Posted By: add Re: cutting boards for good knives - 02/25/12
Originally Posted by 1234567
Arn't wooden cutting boards and butcher blocks prime breeding ground for bacteria?

No.

http://faculty.vetmed.ucdavis.edu/faculty/docliver/Research/cuttingboard.htm

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1882/whats-better-a-wooden-cutting-board-or-a-plastic-one

In short, many woods contain natural anti-microbial properties...

Knife made scarring on poly boards however, tend to harbor bacteria.

Also, best to have a dedicated meat/protein board. smile
Posted By: add Re: cutting boards for good knives - 02/25/12
These folks appear to make a great board as well, might be my next one... a small custom shop and very reasonably priced.

http://www.substrata.net/store/cuttingboardscounters/CuttingBoardsCounters.html

I would stick to their brick-style construction end grain.
Strength and durability.

A well made board, properly taken care of, can be passed down generationally... cool
My fascination with all things "knifey" documentedly goes well beyond the pale, and I'm unabashedly a snob where science and truth dispel popular notion. As regards boards I'll offer this: my wife grew up in her Mother's two restaurants and catering business, and in following me around the world in my career has earned degrees and certificates from seven renowned Institutions, ALL of which use Boos boards. In our home and vacation home we have Boos boards from my MIL's restaurants over 2 decades old. Boos is "the" name in what they do for a reason - they are the best; to assert otherwise is patently ridiculous, and demonstrably so...
Posted By: jpb Re: cutting boards for good knives - 02/25/12
Originally Posted by add
Originally Posted by 1234567
Arn't wooden cutting boards and butcher blocks prime breeding ground for bacteria?

No.

http://faculty.vetmed.ucdavis.edu/faculty/docliver/Research/cuttingboard.htm

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1882/whats-better-a-wooden-cutting-board-or-a-plastic-one

In short, many woods contain natural anti-microbial properties...

Knife made scarring on poly boards however, tend to harbor bacteria.

Also, best to have a dedicated meat/protein board. smile

When I took a microbiology class, one assignment we did was to quantify and describe the bacteria on cutting boards. I too was surprised when the data from the class indicated what wood was better (although variation was admittedly high).

1234 (if I may be so familiar as to address you like that! smile ) -- that first link is excellent, and in addition to their own scientific findings, report another good study:

We believe, on the basis of our published and to-be-published research, that food can be prepared safely on wooden cutting surfaces and that plastic cutting surfaces present some disadvantages that had been overlooked until we found them.


In addition to our laboratory research on this subject, we learned after arriving in California in June of 1995 that a case-control study of sporadic salmonellosis had been done in this region and included cutting boards among many risk factors assessed (Kass, P.H., et al., Disease determinants of sporadic salmonellosis in four northern California counties: a case control study of older children and adults. Ann. Epidemiol. 2:683-696, 1992.). The project had been conducted before our work began. It revealed that those using wooden cutting boards in their home kitchens were less than half as likely as average to contract salmonellosis (odds ratio 0.42, 95% confidence interval 0.22-0.81), those using synthetic (plastic or glass) cutting boards were about twice as likely as average to contract salmonellosis (O.R. 1.99, C.I. 1.03-3.85); and the effect of cleaning the board regularly after preparing meat on it was not statistically significant (O.R. 1.20, C.I. 0.54-2.68). We know of no similar research that has been done anywhere, so we regard it as the best epidemiological evidence available to date that wooden cutting boards are not a hazard to human health, but plastic cutting boards may be.


I tried to find another study I recall reading, but could not. However, if my memory is correct (don't count on that, so take this with a grain of salt!), the wooden cutting boards that were best were those made from woods with high tannin contents like northern red oak Quercus rubra -- these compounds evidently helping to kill the bacteria.

John
Originally Posted by add
Originally Posted by Lorin
Wow, looks as though I asked in the right place. The Boos boards are quite reasonable. Many thanks. Lorin.


Boos tend to use smaller end-grain pieces/parts and as such will be more prone to separation, cracking, etc.

More joints = more susceptibility to weakness (glue failure, strength, etc... due to more surface area of adjoining components).


now ain't that weird? And to think that I have been using their products in both commercial kitchens and at home for probably 40+ years with no problems. Dang. shocked
Scrap piece of Corian, router a decorative edge. Mark one side meat the other veggies. (After each use, clean well and run thru the dishwasher.)
Originally Posted by Journeyman
My fascination with all things "knifey" documentedly goes well beyond the pale, and I'm unabashedly a snob where science and truth dispel popular notion. As regards boards I'll offer this: my wife grew up in her Mother's two restaurants and catering business, and in following me around the world in my career has earned degrees and certificates from seven renowned Institutions, ALL of which use Boos boards. In our home and vacation home we have Boos boards from my MIL's restaurants over 2 decades old. Boos is "the" name in what they do for a reason - they are the best; to assert otherwise is patently ridiculous, and demonstrably so...


What type of wood is the best?
Boos website shows mostly hard maple and a couple walnut or cherry boards.

I thought maple was relatively soft when compared to other hard woods BUT they do state 'hard maple' and they obviously know what they are doing.
Hard Maple is a lot harder than Cherry and Walnut, but not tremendously hard compared to the really hard stuff. 1450 on the Janka scale.
Posted By: add Re: cutting boards for good knives - 02/27/12
Originally Posted by Journeyman
Boos is "the" name in what they do for a reason - they are the best; to assert otherwise is patently ridiculous, and demonstrably so...

Ridiculous? lol

Boos may be one of the better mass-produced commercially available products along with Michigan Maple/Bally:

http://www.mapleblock.com/detail/michigan-maple-block-history-53/

But Best? *

Quality wise, something coming out of a small woodworker's shop that uses larger end grain pieces, properly cured wood, assembly technique, and far better attention to detail and quality control... I examined Boos and a few others, in hand, and went with a BoardSmith. It was an easy choice...

* For further reading- Google Boos and board failure, cracking, splitting, etc.
It's a mistake to get too caught up on Janka hardness in a board. Texture, grain, specific gravity, strength, and tangential and radial stability are all equally or more important. Many very hard woods are actually totally unsuitable for cutting boards due to being open grained, meaning large pores. Hard maple is as close to optimum as it gets; it's a 'hard' wood, fine textured, closed grain with very small pores, tangential stability approaches 10%, and specific gravity is .63. It is also very dense, weighing 3.3 lbs/bf. It's nice when your 18x24x2.25 board weighs 25-30 lbs and doesn't scoot around on your countertop.

As add pointed out be careful and research what you need. Boos and others offer cheaper edge grained products in addition to their end grained offerings. One's needs vary. In fact,'there are reasons behind smaller vs larger end grained pieces and patterns. My wife has different boards for rocking cut and drawing/slicing vs chopping for instance.

Good thread...
From my experience, I would say it depends on how fast you want to slice and how often you want to sharpen your knives! The harder the board, the faster you'll slice, but you'll sharpen more often. The hardest, fastest board I've ever used was bamboo. The slowest probably end grain maple. My Aunt's are end grain maple, and for them, (old and uncoordinated) that's a good thing. I don't want to cut 100 pounds of vegetables on them. I have laminated maple, which is still pretty slow. Plastic, which is still slow. Oak, olive wood, and bamboo are faster. I like bamboo. No drag. Your knives will get dull faster though. For bacteria, I cut meats on their own plastic board. I wash boards regularly. My interesting exception is my big board for rolling dough. Pizza and pasta dough have eggs in them, but I never wash my dough rolling board. Dough won't stick as bad if I don't wash it. Kind of like a cast iron pan!
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