Walnut end grain butchers block

The best way to keep your beautiful MiW cutting board healthy and to ensure it serves you a long time is to exercise some basic maintenance.

Your cutting board has already been prepared by bathing it in MiW Cutting Board Oil and polishing it with my very own MiW Cutting Board Wax. These preparations minimise the effect of seasonal wood movement (cupping and warping) caused by the wood fibres absorbing and shedding moisture from/to the air.

The foodsafe cutting board oil helps by sealing in moisture and preventing cracking due to excessive moisture loss; the foodsafe cutting board wax is a blend of mineral oil and beeswax (which is a natural anti-bacterial) that is also waterproof and polishes to a nice sheen.

Things to avoid:

• Avoid submerging your cutting board for longer than a few seconds.
• Do not use organic/cooking oils to treat your cutting board. Cooking oils like sunflower, canola, olive, peanut, etc. have a sell/use by date for a reason; the oil will penetrate the wood fibres where it will go off/rancid under the surface and allow bacteria to fester. Other oils (like raw/boiled linseed oil, tung oils, etc.) are NOT food safe; if you need any evidence, just wipe some on a piece of wood and leave it in your garden – it will attract and kill insects; you do not want this on your cutting board.
• Never place your cutting board in the dishwasher – doing so will instantly destroy your cutting board as the hot water/steam will break down the the lignin that bonds the fibres of the wood together, causing it to warp and crack. If you need to remove heavy stains, please read further below.
• Seriously: do this and you will end up with little more than very expensive fire wood.

Frequent maintenance:

• As often as you use your cutting board for cutting dry goods or if it gets wet with water (e.g. from washing vegetables), you can simply wipe the board clean or wipe/dry off any moisture that is not organic in nature.
• Keep your knives sharp – it sounds counter-intuitive, but a sharp knife does less damage than a dull/blunt object scoring the surface; you also need to exert more downwards pressure, which leaves deeper dents, even in harder wood species.

Semi-frequent maintenance and/or after heavy use:

• Whenever you cut cut something on your board that leaves behind fluid or anything of an organic nature (e.g. cutting meat or fruit and vegetables with lots of natural juice), you should clean the board properly by either washing it with a scrubbing pad and a little bit of dish washing liquid and rinsing off the soap and residue under running water (luke warm will do).
• You can also clean and sanitise your cutting board with lemon juice if you prefer to not use liquid soap: cut a lemon in half, grind some coarse salt over the exposed core of the lemon and scrub your board until clean. Rinse with running water.
• In either case, dry excess water off the board and leave it to air dry completely.
• Once your board is comepletely air dried, apply some MiW Cutting Board Wax to the working surface of your board. Spread with a cloth and rub into the surface until the wax is melted and can seep into the wood fibres (this only takes a minute). Leave to stand for about 5 minutes and then wipe off the excess if you want to – the wax is perfectly food safe and will not go rancid; a light wipe and polish does leave your board looking good too.

Infrequent maintenance:

• Over time, your board will build up a nice patina, showing off the rich, deep colour of the wood, but it can also start to look dry in places as it gradually loses all of it’s natural moisture content (some species, like beech, are more prone to this than others). If your board starts looking a bit “dry and thirsty”, you can revive it to almost-as-good-as-new appearance by bathing it in MiW Cutting Board Oil.
• Remove the silicone bumpers and simply lather on the oil, give it about 5 – 10 minutes per side for the fibres to soak up the oil and then wipe with a cloth (mutton cloth works best, but you can also use a rag, kitchen towel or even paper towel).
• After wiping, the surface will be oily to the touch for another 24 – 48 hours, but this too is food safe and you can continue to use your board directly after treatment.
• For optimal results, follow up the oil bath with a light polish with MiW Cutting Board Wax on the working face of the board.
• NB! Attach the silicone bumpers/feet again. The bumbers allow air to move over all the surfaces of the board, thus ensuring that gradual/seasonal mositure loss is consistent on both the top and bottom of your board. Laying the board flat on a counter (without an air gap) might cause moisture to breathe out of the top of the board faster than the bottom; this results in the wood fibres shrinking and contracting at different rates which will cause the board to cup on the side that is more exposed. If your board’s bumpers are damaged/broken or just don’t look nice anymore, I’ve got you covered – now selling repalcement bumpers as well as maintenance kits (bumpers included). Just check out the related products section below.

Heavy scarring and stains:

• Over time the wood fibres will be severed as you cut accross the grain and/or fray the ends of the fibres of end-grain cutting baords. These scars are typically fairly superficial and can be sanded down with a good random orbital or drum sander using good quality abbrasives. Please reach out via the contact page if you feel that your cutting board needs a bit of a refresh; verified customers qualify for a free refresh at least once.
• Food stains can be removed with a good, heavy scrub more often than not; however, some fruits and vegetables can leave stains if not wiped off in time and fluids (such as blood) from cutting meat can leave stains that are hard to remove after the fact. Prevention is better than cure though. In exteme cases (i.e. you really messed up your/your partner’s favourite cutting board), stains can be removed with oxalic acid. Beware! Oxalic acid is used to “bleach” wood and/or restore the natural appearance of wood that has built up a heavy patina (e.g. dark woods going very dark over a long period of time). After such a treatment, the steps under

It sounds like a lot of work, but trust me: just the basics of keeping your board clean after use and washing after heavy use will help preserve your cutting board for decades. Cutting boards are made tough and durable when made from good quality wood; a good quality, expensive cutting board that is well maintained works out a lot cheaper than half a dozen cheap cutting boards in the long run.