Kitchen Knives and cutting boards....

BOSS1

BOSS1

Gold Member
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Sep 16, 2008
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1,692
Greetings,

So, I just spent about an hour re-edging 3 of our kitchen knives...the lady of the house enjoys cooking, does it a lot.

Now we don't have super-high end kitchen knives... I know this. A few are 'ok' but nothing really 'top chef' type stuff. I do have the 'Forged in Fire' set mostly as a tongue-in-cheek 'It chops through a whole salmon!' bit of comic relief...when I do get tasked with 'helping' in the kitchen, it's what ' the burly man of the house' uses.

That being said, continually slamming a fairly decent/keen edge into a glass cutting board is going to have less than stellar results on the blade's sharpness. Examining the edges before I started, it looked someone had taken a little ballpeen hammer to them. They were beyond just 'touching up...' I was using 400 grit stones on the Edge Pro to kind of re-set the edge, and then finishing up with 1000 grit. They're back to being decently sharp, at least for a little while...if they were multi-hundred dollar knives, I would have put in a bit more effort.

I mentioned the whole 'sharp edges don't play well impacting the cutting board' and got the 'Sure dear' smile.

Anyhow...onward and upward...

Boss
 
Greetings,
Glass (as well as Bamboo) cutting boards really should be avoided as they are horrible for knife edges.
We all know you can sharpen a blade on glass. Personally I don't even use the plastic ones, which some people say is ok.
I believe wood is the best for any knife edge.
 
First off, get rid of the glass cutting boards. Like tonight.

Your knives will thank you and you'll notice that the knives will stay sharper much, much longer. Glass cutting boards were invented by phobic anti knife people who have irrational fear of sharp edge and wan to dull every knife in existence. Its actually a fiendish plot against knives.

In the universe I grew up in, cutting boards were wood. Period.
 
Have used a laminated maple 2 inch thick cutting board for the last 35 years. No problems; just wash it off, occasionally rub salt in and wash well with soap and water occasionally. No damage to knives other than that from lightly cutting wood and never had a food born illness. Wood, wood, wood!
Rich
 
Bocote makes a knice cutting board.

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K-Lastima said:
What is wrong with a bamboo cutting board?
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Bamboo is very hard and very tightly grained. Although not as bad as glass they are far from ideal.

Wood will not dull your knives and, contrary to what so many people want you to believe, it is not unsafe.

Sharp knives aren't just a luxury, they change your food. You can create so many different cuts, the cells retain moisture and don't oxidize, and so on.

Spend $50-75 on a decent board and about the same on a decent knife and figure out your sharpening protocol (not pull through deals) and you'll be amazed at what you can start doing and the difference it makes. Super thin radishes, tiny jalepeno dice, cleanly sliced tomato, etc.
 
K-Lastima said:
What is wrong with a bamboo cutting board?
Click to expand...

Bamboo is not "wood" it is a grass. It is much harder than woods used for boards. Bamboo, regardless of size is hollow and does not grow in a size and shape that can be cut down to make a board, smaller pieces must be put together with the use of adhesive material, some of which can become even harder than the bamboo itself. Bamboo will dull a knife. In the thousands of years cutting boards have been used in Japan, where both cutlery has developed and the use of bamboo as a material has been common in just about every conceivable way possible, no bamboo cutting boards were ever used. The same applies to the Asian mainland as well.
Bamboo cutting boards are a modern creation of western makers who felt the "Asian" aspect of Bamboo would sell well.
In both Japan and the Western countries the best cutting boards are wood of various kinds.
 
Alberta Ed said:
Plastic cutting boards won't dull an edge like wood or glass. Plus they are easy to keep clean (dish washer).
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Agree they won't dull a knife in the way Glass or Bamboo will. However, in traditional Japanese cooking, wood has been used for certain cooking utensils because of their anti-bacterial nature. The Sushi Oke, the large container where rice is mixed with vinegar is cooled and kept, is wood. For the same reason, cutting boards are always wood. While the anti-bacterial nature of wood has been considered just "traditional wisdom" in Japan, modern examinations shows it is not just some "wive's tale".
"
Dr. Cliver also discusses a case-control study of sporadic salmonellosis in Plastic and Wooden Cutting Boards:

(This study) 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).

Basically, wood cutting boards kill bacteria. Wood binds up water, which bacteria needs to grow. Wood also contains antimicrobial compounds. (Given that many other plants can be used as natural antibiotics, this is not entirely surprising.)"

4 Reasons Wooden Cutting Boards Are Better Than Plastic or Glass (commonsensehome.com)
 
jackknife said:
First off, get rid of the glass cutting boards. Like tonight.
Click to expand...

Sharpening knives a couple times a year is a small price to pay compared to the wrath of messing with her stuff in the kitchen:D...don't need the garage to get 'straightened up' while I'm at work one day:eek:.

Boss
 
KenHash said:
Bamboo cutting boards are a modern creation of western makers who felt the "Asian" aspect of Bamboo would sell well.
In both Japan and the Western countries the best cutting boards are wood of various kinds.
Click to expand...

I suspect this is true. My wife and I had all plastic boards and I was given a bamboo one by a friend and it immediately became a kitchen favorite; it looked good and was the perfect size for pretty much everything. But I suddenly couldn't keep a knife sharp. Every knife in our kitchen seemed permanently dull. Doing some digging into the interwebs I read about end grain boards and elected to test the theory.

NORTHWEST_KNIFE_GUY said:
end grain boards
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When I splurged and bought an end grain butcher board there was a marked difference in how long the edges on my kitchen knives held up. It's anecdotal, but there was no denying how hard the bamboo board was on the knives' edges. Don't misunderstand, I enjoy sharpening my knives... but I enjoy USING sharp knives more than I love sharpening them.
 
I got 3 cheap plastic cutting boards I can wash/toss. Like $15 for 3.

Then I got a real nice Boos Block - American Hardwood. It is beautiful, but I think the plastic's work just about as well.
 
ICutMyselfToday said:
I got 3 cheap plastic cutting boards I can wash/toss. Like $15 for 3.

Then I got a real nice Boos Block - American Hardwood. It is beautiful, but I think the plastic's work just about as well.
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If you take care of it (which is simple), your grand children will be using that Boos.
 
My son made my cutting boards in wood shop in high school. (30 years ago)

Laminated Red Oak. Outstanding results.
 
I am curious about the end grain vs "side grain". I am not trying to cut into my Boos, but the knife is perpendicular to the hardwood grains (they also have end grain blocks). Some of these end grain boards are lined up the way I would split wood. I would expect a blade to travel a bit farther into an end-grain that (don't know the propper name) side grain board. Any comments besides looks?
 
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ICutMyselfToday said:
I am curious about the end grain vs "side grain". I am not trying to cut into my Boos, but the knife is perpendicular to the hardwood grains (they also have end grain blocks). Some of these end grain boards are lined up the way I would split wood. I would expect a blade to travel a bit farther into an end-grain that (don't know the propper name) side grain board. Any comments bedies looks?
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That is probably why end grain is easier on the blade.
 
I tend to use hinoki wood (soft Japanese cypress wood ) cutting boards. In addition to being easy on the knife edges, they are lightweight as wood goes, which makes it easy to move from counter top to stove top to sink for washup. I follow the manufacturer's recommendations and have had no problems, which includes occasional treatment with a mineral oil cutting board oil.

I also have some edge-grain maple boards, and a Boos butcher block end-grain board (actually it is the top of a table).
 
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