Board butter tips!?

Advertise with us
Kitchen Knife Forums

Help Support Kitchen Knife Forums:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
M

mark76

Senior Member
Joined
May 1, 2012
Messages
1,032
Reaction score
11
My wooden cutting boards (yes, I've got more than one :) need a coating of board butter again. I used to have a pretty large jar from MTM Wood, but that's empty now. So I need to make my own board butter.

As far as I understand from searching on the 'Net, it's one part of beeswax and four parts of mineral oil. All recipes recommend to heat both substances au-bain-marie (in a jar in hot water). One recipe stated that it's not necessary to heat both substances separately. I thought that was a useful tip, since it means you can use only one jar in the preparation - the jar you're going to use for storing the butter.

Now I wondered whether it is necessary to heat the mineral oil at all. Can't I just mix it (at room temperature) with the melted beeswax?

And anyone who has any other tips for making board butter?

Thanks!
 
Make your own, this way you can make it exactly how you like it. For double boiler I use a pot, and a ramiken, and take it out of the pot with a Channellock ))). If you want to do it properly, uou can make a double boiler- a smaller souse pot with a handle, that fits in a larger pot that has a cutout on the side to accommodate the handle of the smaller souse pot.

I use mineral oil, bees wax and carnuba wax. One to four part of wax to oil is about right. I use very little carnuba, mostly for scent. I heat oil in double boiler, add gradually shavings of wax and mix until they melt. Once all ingredients are incorporated, I poor the mixture in containers and let it cool.
Do some testing for the ratios before-hand, and make adjustments as desired. I, for instance, like the mixture be slightly on a thicker side, but without a need for microwave melting, and I rub it in the board with the hand. Some might prefer it to be a bit more on a liquid side.

Wax is just for surface protection. Do a proper mineral oil treatment (pour on top of the board generously,, and let it soak in overnight) before applying wax.
 
mark76 said:
My wooden cutting boards (yes, I've got more than one :) need a coating of board butter again. I used to have a pretty large jar from MTM Wood, but that's empty now. So I need to make my own board butter.

As far as I understand from searching on the 'Net, it's one part of beeswax and four parts of mineral oil. All recipes recommend to heat both substances au-bain-marie (in a jar in hot water). One recipe stated that it's not necessary to heat both substances separately. I thought that was a useful tip, since it means you can use only one jar in the preparation - the jar you're going to use for storing the butter.

Now I wondered whether it is necessary to heat the mineral oil at all. Can't I just mix it (at room temperature) with the melted beeswax?

And anyone who has any other tips for making board butter?

Thanks!
Click to expand...

I bought some premade stuff because I'm pretty lazy and a not insignificant number of reviews of beeswax I saw on Amazon are people complaining about the beeswax smelling weird. Or perhaps being adulterated with some cheaper/different type of wax. So find a good source of beeswax.

Totally a shot in the dark, but perhaps it's to stop the beeswax from dropping back down to solid temperature as you try to blend it if you pour the oil in at room temp too quickly.

Beeswax has a relatively low melting point range of 62 °C to 64 °C (144 °F to 147 °F). If beeswax is heated above 85 °C (185 °F) discoloration occurs. The flash point of beeswax is 204.4 °C (400 °F).
Click to expand...
 
You can do it withour heating the mineral oil. But it becomes a pain mixing well, since parts of the wac cool quicker.

But it is easy as to make.
 
The recipe from Marko sounds spot on. And do not worry about the smell - beeswax does not have a strong scent and I do not even notice it. On top of that - I do actually like the smell of bees wax :)
 
Two points to add:

1. The ratio is by weight.

2. Adding carnauba will make the resulting mixture much harder than just beeswax and oil, and will also make for greater water repellency.

Rick
 
Matus said:
The recipe from Marko sounds spot on. And do not worry about the smell - beeswax does not have a strong scent and I do not even notice it. On top of that - I do actually like the smell of bees wax :)
Click to expand...

We actually have beehives where I work, and the woman that works with the bees took the time to show me some of her supplies. They have frames with "starter" honeycomb on it that they put into the hives, and it has a slight honey smell to it. She also had a can of "pure beeswax polish" that someone gave to her. The polish smelled a lot like Obenauf's HDLP (which has beeswax in it), if you've ever smelled that. To me, the starter honeycomb and the pure polish smell quite different. Why, I have no clue. I'd be interested in knowing why, if anyone knows. (Fake edit - this sounds like what the bad reviews on Amazon are describing - http://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?303767-Why-do-these-beeswax-pellets-smell-bad).

The stuff I bought has a slight honey smell to it - pretty much like the starter honeycomb. Since this is for a food application, I would definitely seek a good source for the beeswax.
 
TurboScooter said:
We actually have beehives where I work, and the woman that works with the bees took the time to show me some of her supplies. They have frames with "starter" honeycomb on it that they put into the hives, and it has a slight honey smell to it. She also had a can of "pure beeswax polish" that someone gave to her. The polish smelled a lot like Obenauf's HDLP (which has beeswax in it), if you've ever smelled that. To me, the starter honeycomb and the pure polish smell quite different. Why, I have no clue. I'd be interested in knowing why, if anyone knows. (Fake edit - this sounds like what the bad reviews on Amazon are describing - http://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?303767-Why-do-these-beeswax-pellets-smell-bad).

The stuff I bought has a slight honey smell to it - pretty much like the starter honeycomb. Since this is for a food application, I would definitely seek a good source for the beeswax.
Click to expand...

Recently I bought some 100% beeswax and I was really unpleasantly surprised with the bad smell. Nothing even closely resembling honey.
 
I think we clear about $1.50 on the stuff we make and sell. That's with significant economies of scale due to pricing discounts based on the volume of beeswax and oil we buy. So if you're wanting to make your own stuff just for the experience of doing it, that's great. But if you're doing it to save money, I'm not sure whether that's feasible.

If you do decide to make your own stuff, feel free to give me a call if you want to talk through our process.

Best,
John
 
I just did a batch. The 4 to 1 ratio is about correct and did the ratio by weight. Mine was closer to 3 to 1. I did buy my Beeswax from Amazon, but I scoured the reviews and settled on this. http://www.amazon.com/dp/B019FRDBBI/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20 It had light smoky scent when I opened the bag but it wasn't too bad and seemed to dissipate when I melted it. I wouldn't buy it again because it appears the wax is from a different source and seller now under the same link and the bag I got was generically labeled. My only other choice would be http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00SNIN0DU/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20. It consistently seems to come from the same company and in a branded bag, but pricey. Normally, I would go find to a local apiary and buy it from them. I used Mineral Oil from Walmart. It's usually half the price of any other pharmacy.

While I was at Walmart, I bought the smallest cheapest non-stick pot they had and a 4 pack of Ball 8 oz wide mouth mason jars. I just placed the non-stick pot into larger shallow pot to make my double boiler. I melted my beeswax in the pot and poured in the Mineral Oil when it was fully melted. My mineral oil was not heated because it seemed to be too much of hassle to deal with having to warm oil and wax. I just had to let the mixture fully liquidate again. I personally wouldn't try to do it in the jar because I would be afraid it could tip over and wouldn't want to handle full glass jar of heated oil when I am done. I used 8 oz wide mouth mason jars because they are shallow and have a huge opening so it's easy to get the stuff out when you need it. Clean up was easy because the pot is non-stick and beeswax sticks to everything.

Hope this helps
 
Last edited by a moderator:
You must log in or register to reply here.

Latest posts

Back
Top