News — Deer & Oak

If you want your cutting boards to last 5 to 10 years, the simplest rule is this: wash plastic boards hot and often, and oil wood boards every 4 weeks. Wood needs drying time and oil, plastic needs heat and regular replacement. Once you know that, choosing how to maintain wood vs plastic cutting boards becomes very straightforward. Wood vs plastic cutting boards: what actually needs doing? Wood and plastic boards fail in different ways, so their care routines are different. Wood boards (bamboo or acacia) Daily: Wipe, wash in warm soapy water, rinse, stand upright to air dry. Weekly:...

If you want to protect your knives for 5 to 10 years of regular home cooking, a medium hardness wooden board is best, and for most kitchens that means a Moso bamboo or acacia chopping board around 38x28cm to 45x35cm rather than very hard maple or soft plastic. How bamboo, acacia and maple actually treat your knife edge Your knife edge is only a fraction of a millimetre wide. Every time it hits a board, the surface either cushions it or flattens it. That is why the board material matters as much as the knife steel. Moso bamboo is a...

If you are choosing a new chopping board and want to know which wood is harder, maple or acacia, the short answer is: acacia is usually harder than maple by around 10–30% on the Janka hardness scale. That extra hardness means acacia chopping boards resist dents and knife marks for longer, while maple is a bit gentler on your knife edges. Maple vs acacia: which is harder for a chopping board? On the Janka hardness scale, which measures how resistant a wood is to denting, typical values are: Hard maple: about 1,450 lbf Acacia (common kitchen species): about 1,500 to...

If you want a straight answer: for most wooden and bamboo chopping boards, food grade mineral oil is still the most reliable choice, but high quality fractionated coconut oil can work well if you prefer a plant based option and you re happy to reapply it every 3 to 4 weeks. Fractionated coconut oil vs mineral oil for boards: the quick verdict When customers ask us what s the best oil for a Deer & Oak board, we normally recommend food grade mineral oil for long term stability and simplicity, especially on larger boards like our 45x35cm Large Bamboo Board...