I have several wood cutting boards in various sizes, most are maple but I have a walnut one that’s about 5X7 and one maple that’s 4x5.5, they aren’t thick, maybe 3/4” thick, my wife loves to use them and they are her go to boards, I prefer something a little bigger, I go for a John Boos NSF listed maple board typically, it’s apx. 10x16x1.25 thick, but we have some big ones at home, 14x24 and a 20 x 30 with a routed blood channel that I use for butchering deer and pigs from quarters, the 14x 24 is thick and heavy, maybe 2” thick, the 20x30 is about 7/8” thick. Note I wrote heavy, those big ones don’t move around much, one of the draw back to a smaller board is it’s light weight and can move around depending on your slice motion; this is why I go for a bigger board than my wife, she’s a professional chef, her slice is fast and precise, her little boards don’t move much, my slice is clumsy in comparison and when I use the little boards they move on me and I don’t like having to use my off-hand to steady them while I’m also positioning the product for slicing.
I’ll tell you guys a cool story I heard yesterday at the NAFEM foodservice trade show in Orlando, FL from the sales manager at the Michigan Maple Block Company (I hope I get this right)...
After Chicago burned to the ground in 1871 they were in desperate need of wood to rebuild the city so they turned to the woodsmen in the northern Michigan area for 2 reasons, the forests there were abundant old growth and the logs could be floated to Chicago and milled there cutting transportation time and cost.
It took a good 10-years before the demand for wood subsided and by that time the logging industry was well established in northern Michigan. Industrious and looking for ways to market their wood, the woodsmen, mills, and furniture makers began turning out finished wood products for the bustling Chicago marketplace which at that time, and for many decades thereafter, was the meat butchering capitol of the US . One of those products was the end-grain butcher block with legs that has become the icon of the Michigan Maple Block Company founded in 1881.
The end-grain is the key for its natural fibers gives away to the knife’s edge and then the fibers reform giving longevity to the end-grain block (I’m no expert here, I’m going by what I learned from the person I talked to at the show) and end-grain maple is the best wood to use because it strikes a good balance between hard and soft for a knife’s edge.
KR