finish on butcher block question

[sawdust]

Working up some oak scrap cutoffs into butcher blocks. What is a safe finish?

-- DavisWoodShop

[Edwin Pawlowski]

For red oak? None that I know of as it is not a good material. White oak should be OK with mineral oil. \Ed

[George]

Traditional "finish" for butcher blocks is salted tallow or lard, depending on what was cut upon it last.

Of course, traditionalists wouldn't use a splintery wood like oak, either. Those rays are natural points of cleavage.

Mineral oil is light grease from a different source, and less the salt, a shelter for bacteria with lipid cell walls.

[Edwin Pawlowski]

When I was in school I worked in a grocery/butcher shop. We cleaned the cutting blocks with a bleach solution and metal brush. Nothing was ever put on top after. They may have had a finish when new, but that would have been some years before. They had a nice contoured top from years of cutting. Ed [e-mail]

[George]

Different health department stuff. We worked 35 years ago in NY with the old standard, salting the block every night.

Were you a member of the now defunct AMBWU (Amalgamated Meat-Cutters and Butcher Workers Union) ? Always loved that name.