General Category > General Discussion
Spalted wood as chopping boards/serving boards
bodrighywood:
Sycamore and beech are the traditional woods used, sycamore apparently has natural antibacterial properties. Woods such as hazel, hawthorn, blackthorn are fine. Oak has a high tannin content that can leech into foodstuffs and yew and laburnum have toxins in the tree that can also leech out though again there are those who feel it is fine to use them. Personally I would rather err on the side of caution especially if you are selling your work. I'm not sure which 'common woods' Mark is referring to but woods with an open grain like ash are not suitable for practical reasons and soft woods are also not really the best to use either. If in doubt stick to beech or sycamore would be my advice.
Chopping boards are best made end grain by the way, butchers blocks for example are laminated up so the surface is all end grain.
pete
Mark Sanger:
--- Quote from: julcle on July 06, 2013, 12:01:29 PM ---Hi Mark -- When you say A bigger issue for me would be to utilize common woods for use with foodstuffs. Do you mean that some of the more common woods such as Sycamore, Ash and Oak would not be wise choice for food stuff ? as a relative beginner here I am still unclear which are safe and which are not so desirable -- Julian
--- End quote ---
Hi Julian
No I am not saying Ash, sycamore or oak would not be suitable as they are.
Pretty much any wood non toxic can be used, a sure fire way to know which is the best woods to use are to look historically at those used for treen. r look at wooden toys in shops to see what has been used. If it is safe for children you can be sure it is fine to us. Beech, box sycamore as well as others have been historically used, and it is not only the consideration of if the wood is poisonous or not which need to be considered.
IE Oak is probably fine but it contains a lot of tannin so if you use metal utensils other than stainless it could mark/blacken if used as a chopping board. Probably fine as most utensils today are stainless.
Also open grain woods such as oak, ash could trap particles of food so a close grained wood such a sycamore and beech were traditionally used for cutting boards, spoons etc. Fruit woods such as cherry and apple have also been used extensively as well as ash. If you want to make a vessel to hold liquid an open grain wood is not the best you would be better with a close grain hardwood.
Oak however is used for storing wine and sherry so it is probably safe to say it is food safe.
Just stay away from known poisonous woods (Yew as one), we wouldn't make a child's rattle out of Yew as they are likely to chew it or suck on it.
Personally I would not use heavily spalted wood, as like Andy pointed out it can get soft and this is no use for a utility item but I have read somewhere that spalted Maple has been linked to cancer. But how true this is I can not say.
The issue is there is so much information and cross information, mostly written by people that have heard it fro 'so-in-so' it is confusing and often no scientific or evidence base studies or facts can be attributed to it.
So it comes back to common sense, research and doing what has gone before, if it isn't broke I wouldn't fix it. For my utility bowls I use beech, sycamore and ash as I know historically they are safe and I apply only a purchased food safe finish. But that is just me, I do what I believe is correct but it does not mean it is the only way.
http://www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/wis30.pdf this may help
bodrighywood:
I use oak for medieval style goblets as on research I found it was commonly used in days gone yore and as Mark points out it is used for wine vats today. I also found that the ancient druids apparently used yew for ceremonial goblets and have been asked by pagans to make them but the suggestion was that it was because the drink mixed with any toxin and gave them a high so I declined. Blackthorn, if you can get it big enough is also brilliant as it has a lot of beautiful figuring and is very hard.
Pete
Mark Sanger:
--- Quote from: bodrighywood on July 06, 2013, 01:30:25 PM ---I because the drink mixed with any toxin and gave them a high so I declined.
Pete
--- End quote ---
ha ha and the kids today think getting tripped out is a new thing. :)
julcle:
Mark \Pete -- Many thanks for that, A lot of useful information that clears up a few question that I did have.
Ash is probably the most abundant wood that is cut in the form of tree clearance around here so I have a reasonable supply of it, Sycamore although plenty of it - doesn't seem to be cut quite as much. I will always pick up a few logs if I can where trees are being felled. Thanks again Guys. -- Julian
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