Let me introduce you to my very first Walnut End Grain Cutting board from Brooklyn Butcher Blocks! Nils Wessell is the creator of these boards. He is truly a man that loves his craft. I must have asked him more than a dozen questions on cutting boards and he never failed to answer any of them! All of their materials are sourced in the USA, and their product line is designed to reduce waste, and compost whatever refuse is remaining.
They have been recommended by Men’s Journal and Thrillist and also recommended by America’s Test Kitchen as one of their best cutting boards. Brooklyn Butcher Blocks has also been featured in the New York Times, Tasting Table, Bon Appetit, New York Magazine and recommended by Andrew Zimmerman of Bizarre Foods. You can read more about his personal quest on how his growing company came to be here.
I was curious about the different grains of cutting boards that I read about and was excited when Brooklyn Butcher Blocks sent me their End Grain Cutting Board for Review! My first impression of the board was how solid the wood felt in my hands. It came already waxed and oiled. It comes with instructions on how to oil the board and Nils pretty much told me that wood is always thirsty, to assume its thirsty. I would recommend based on my personal use to oil it every other or 2 uses to keep it in tip top shape because the first cutting board I receive did crack in about a month. I reached out to Nils and ensured me that the one I got must’ve been a dud, as it rarely happens with end-grain wood, maybe 1% of the time he says. Getting a wooden cutting board, really is like getting a new member of the family. You use it everyday, and it has a very important job of holding the food you prepare before even cooking it. You must appreciate and nurture it to ensure it will be healthy.
I really love how clean and smooth it felt and how sturdy and strong it felt in my hands. It is beautiful and hearty. It is heavier than the long grain walnut cutting board. I had expressed in my last cutting board review that I always do some form of research before deciding on which kind to get. I found it amazing that every question that I nearly had about cutting boards were answered right on Brooklyn Butcher Block’s website! This showed me that they take their work seriously and most certainly did their homework about cutting boards and thats how they know why each piece of wood made from a specific tree is different from another. You can read more about the best wood for a cutting board as well as the different grains of them on their blog!
Walnut and End Grain is their most popular cutting board. Here’s two helpful excerpts, taken from Brooklyn Butcher Blocks’ website :
Walnut: I call it a happy medium between Cherry and Maple–it’s the “Goldilocks.” Very nice on your knife, and it takes a stain well since it is so dark to begin with. Walnut is probably the single most popular wood for us. Part of the appeal is its chic look. I consider this an added benefit more than anything though.
On Long Grain, it’s like the brush is lying left to right, and you’re chopping those fibers in half. On End Grain, you’re actually cutting between the wood fibers, keeping the board sharper longer and making it easier to clean and thus more sanitary.
I definitely felt the difference between cutting on a long grain versus end grain cutting board upon using it. They both work splendidly, but the end grain really is like cutting on furniture (can’t find the link now, but pretty sure I read that off their website as well). It seems more self healing than long grain and you can barely see the slivers you make with the knife. I have noticed a drastic improvement of the sharpness of the knives we have at home after switching over to wooden cutting boards. I used to have ask my husband to help sharpen the knives pretty regularly; but since switching to wood cutting boards, I don’t recall asking him even once! You can see throughout the photos in the Picture Walk that the marks on the board are barely noticeable and if you compare the post for the long grain cutting board and this end grain, you will see that the end grain is better at hiding marks of stains (though none of my boards has stains on them yet).
Though the dark walnut boards are good at hiding knife marks, I must say I actually don’t mind them so much! I think its shows the relationships the chef and the board has, the journey of when they first got their board to way it progresses; I think that is true beauty in using a wooden cutting board. The wooden board nurtures the knife and the knife is easy to slice with a sturdy board. The food placed on the board is respected more so, especially since it is being prepared on something all natural, food on wood.
The Picture Walk
Do you have wooden cutting boards at home? What are your experiences with them? If you haven’t gotten a cutting board yet, I highly recommend Brooklyn Butcher Blocks! The have a great selection of different woods to chose from and even share info on which one is best for your home! Kudos to their craftsmanship, service and care of sourcing USA sustainable trees and their company going one step further to even compost the scraps !
Stay tuned for my One Year Blog Anniversary Giveaway (cutting board valued at $200) for Hopscotch Mom, tomorrow, 3/20/19, live at EST 12:00pm (US Entrants only)
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