Care instructions

Wood is an excellent choice for chopping boards, placemats and platters as timber contains its own (mild) antibacterial properties and is more resistant to bacteria than plastic. It is also kinder to your knives, leaving them less likely to become blunt.

To maintain and clean your board:

Wipe down with warm soapy water and allow to dry naturally
Do not immerse in water or wash in a dishwasher
Do not place near direct heat.
Wood is a natural product and so movement or cracking may occur. Periodically wiping your board with Bunbury oil and a soft cloth will assist in protecting and maintaining it.

Check other answers below for more detailed instructions.

Do not submerge your board in water

Do not put it in a dishwasher, place it in a microwave or near any direct heat

Wipe clean with a clean cloth, sponge or paper towel using water and mild detergent or vinegar
Wipe excessive moisture from board and allow it to dry naturally standing on its side or end
Do not rest your board behind the sink as splashing water will soak into the board causing it to be come wet through.

For more stubborn problems (such as dried on tomato pips, dried out cheese or other mysterious ingredients), dab on some soapy water over the area affected (only) and leave it for a few minutes to soak. Do not soak the whole board. Then wipe off as above. If necessary, use a scouring sponge, but be careful not to scratch the surface of your board if using a particularly harsh scouring sponge.

Once you’ve done this a couple of times, you will begin to realise that it is much easier to clean your board if you clean it “on the go”, rather than leaving it for a few hours!

Once the board has dried off, check to see if the wood looks dry or “thirsty”. If so, apply some oil. You can find more information on oiling your board in one of the answers below.

Over time, stains may soften and become less noticeable – or maybe we just get used to them and accept them – but when they first occur it seems disastrous!

Liquid stains

Liquids can penetrate the wood and, especially if left for a while, can leave a stain within the wood itself rather than just on the surface.

A number of methods can work, depending on the nature of the stain:

Salt & Lemon: Wet the area of the stain and put a rough salt (e.g. sea salt) over it for a while. Rub the salt into the stain with a lemon “wedge” for a bit and then wash it off.
Vinegar: Rub the stained area with vinegar for a few minutes and then wipe it clean. If it seems to be working, do this once a day for several days.

Baking Soda/Bread Soda and toothpaste: Scrub the stain with a baking soda and toothpaste mix using a toothbrush. This will work for permanent marker. I have also used bread soda with lemon to good effect.

If it’s a more serious stain and none of the above work, you may have to use sandpaper to sand it out. Re-oil the sanded area several times afterwards.

Scorch marks

Light scorch marks can sometimes be removed by wiping with methylated spirits. Heavier scorch/burn marks may have to be sanded out. Re-oil the board afterwards.

Black pot stains

These are black stains or ring marks that “suddenly appear” on wooden surfaces in kitchens, particularly oak surfaces. They can be very hard to remove. Rather than being burn marks in the wood, which can be the initial impression, these black marks are usually caused by a chemical reaction between water, metal (especially iron) and wood tannins. Chopped/sliced potatoes can also cause this staining. The stain goes into the timber itself, rather than just lying on the surface.

I have tried a few experiments, including the use of vinegar, baking soda/bread soda, toothpaste, lemon (all as mentioned above under “Liquid stains”). The one combination that definitely worked for me on the oak worktop in our kitchen – which had several black ring marks in it from the kettle, pots or lids off the stove – was a mix of bread soda (bicarbonate of soda) and lemon juice:

Sprinkle the bread soda over the stain.

Squeeze a lemon over the bread soda (it will fizz up).

Using your finger, mix into a paste and make sure the affected area is well covered.

Leave for 5 to 10 minutes.
Scrub the stain.

The stain gradually eases out of the wood.

Afterwards, give the area a really good wash with water or vinegar and allow it to dry out.
Finally, apply at least one coat of oil to restore your board back to normal.
This method worked well. The oak was slightly darker in colour afterwards, but this faded back to it’s normal colour after a few days.

Alternatively, it may be necessary to sand the stain out. This will definitely work, but will take a few minutes of elbow grease (or use a small mouse sander, if you have one – they’re not very expensive). You can use a fairly coarse grit to start with (e.g. 60 or 80 grit sandpaper) for deep, stubborn stains. Once the stain has disappeared, or for lighter stains, use a finer sandpaper (180 to 240 grit) to finish the surface nicely before re-oiling the board several times.

Oxalic acid can be used to remove stains very effectively, although it is toxic. (Oxalic acid occurs naturally in black tea, chives and rhubarb leaves and in relatively high concentrations, although you’d need to eat about 4 or 5 kg of rhubarb leaves in one go for it to have lethal effect – see http://www.oxalicacidinfo.com/.) If using oxalic acid, wash the board very thoroughly, neutralise the wood with baking soda and re-oil the wood several times.

Stain prevention:

Regularly oiling your board will reduce the penetration of water based liquids, and therefore stains.
Wiping your board regularly and immediately after spillages almost eliminates any possibility of staining.

Never place hot or wet metal pots, pans, tins or other metal items on a wooden surface.

Wood always moves depending on changes to its immediate environment, such as temperature or humidity. Under normal circumstances your board should remain relatively flat and intact.

Sufficient fluctuations in the moisture content of timber can cause it to warp, cup or even split. This can also occur if the board has been soaked in water and dried rapidly. Never soak your board for more than a couple of minutes or place it in the dishwasher. Damp cupboards can also cause problems over a period of time.

Solutions:

Using the same side of a cutting board again and again inevitably means that one side is getting cleaned more than the other. Two possible outcomes of this are that either the “top” side is cleaned so often that the oils are removed and the board dries out so much that it shrinks on the top side (causing the sides of the boards to rise), or the moisture from cleaning the board soaks into the wood so that it swells (causing the centre of the board to rise along the grain). Try using both sides of your board equally frequently, keeping the board cleaned and oiled regularly. Don’t forget to oil the entire board – not just the top.

Sometimes cupping/curling/warping can be fixed by simply turning the board over onto the cupped side and leaving it to rest for several days. Boards often straighten again using this method. If the board was accidentally soaked for too long, let it dry our properly – either leave it standing vertically or lying flat over a flat surface in at room temperature for a week or two. Even cracks can “disappear”, or at least become considerably less noticeable in this way.

If you would like further advice on your board, please email us at sales@bunbury.ie with a brief description of the problem and, ideally, a photograph of the board, and we will get back to you by return.

There are several oils that you can use. We would, of course, recommend Bunbury Wood Oil!  This a linseed oil based product, combined with other natural ingredients such as turpentine (as a solvent, produced from trees) and cold-pressed orange oil.

Other good oils for your board include walnut oil, poppy seed oil, linseed oil, boiled linseed oil, lemon oil (actually lemongrass oil) and sesame (seed) oil.   Not all of these are drying oils, which means they will mostly wash out of the board again quite quickly.

Light food-grade mineral oil is probably the most commonly recommended oil, although there some, including ourselves, would prefer to steer away from petrochemical products where possible.

Many suggest that it is not wise to use vegetable oils, such as sunflower oil or olive oil, as it can go rancid in the wood. There must be examples of it going rancid or people wouldn’t be talking about it, although, personally, we have used olive oil occasionally in the past and never had this problem.

We would advise against the use oils with solvents (e.g. Danish Oil), unless you are familiar with such products, you know how to use them and you know how long it takes for the solvents to evaporate.

Apply oil regularly or especially when the wood looks “thirsty” and has that dry, washed out look to it. (Cleaning your board inevitably removes some of the applied and naturally occurring oils from the wood after a while). After you have oiled your board a few times, you will understand more about how often it makes sense to apply oil. It will vary depending on the species of wood and the amount of use the board is getting, but as a general rule you should oil your board every few days to start with, then every few weeks and then every few months.

Using a soft cloth, rub the oil into the wood leaving a small amount on the surface for two or three minutes. You will probably be able to see this surplus oil being “sucked” into the wood if your board is particularly dry in some areas (in which case your board definitely needs the oil!). After a couple of minutes, wipe the surface clean of any surplus oil using a clean soft cloth.