You need this DIY food safe wood finish and wood conditioner for your wooden kitchen tools to keep them smooth, supple, and long lasting.
Dry indoor air can create problems with wooden kitchen tools like kraut pounders, wooden spoons, cutting boards, spurtles, and other wooden tools. Those that get heavy use go from the sink to the cupboard several times in a month. The rapid change in humidity can dry out wood, weakening wood tissues and causing cracking and checking. This wood conditioner, made with ingredients you can find at the grocery store, is an easy to apply remedy that will clean your tools, while it preserves them and helps them stay beautiful and strong.
Food safe wood finish
This food safe wood finish will keep your wooden tools and cutting boards in top condition to help them last many years.
In less than 20 minutes it will be ready to use. I use this food safe wood finish to condition wooden spoons, wooden cutting boards, kraut pounders, spurtles, and even my granddaughters’ captive ring baby rattles. It’s nontoxic and real-food based rather than petroleum based like mineral oil.
Apply the finish to your kraut pounder each time you wash it in soapy water, at first. After a few applications the wood won’t require it as often. It will reach saturation. You’ll notice when you reach this point because the wooden tool feels smooth rather than dry and coarse grained. It darkens the wood, bringing out the wood grain pattern, too. With its refreshing orange fragrance, it cleans as well as conditions.
This food safe wood finish makes a nice gift for the woodturner in your life, too. A little dab goes a long way. So follow this recipe and make three 2 oz. jars – one for you and two for gifts.
Note: If you or your friend are allergic to nuts –sesame oil can be substituted in equal portions for the walnut oil. Sesame oil doesn’t go rancid at room temperature. Get the untoasted kind. The toasted sesame oil has a strong characteristic scent. The untoasted has little scent.
DIY food safe wood finish and conditioner
Yield: 3 x 2 ounce jars
Ingredients:
- 5 tablespoons beeswax melted
- 2 tablespoons organic coconut oil
- 6 tablespoons walnut oil
- 3 capsules of vitamin E, natural source, contents only
- ½ teaspoon orange essential oil
Directions:
- Make a double boiler using a glass measuring cup and a sauce pan.
- Add the beeswax, coconut oil, and walnut oil to the glass measuring cup. Simmer the water in the saucepan over medium heat until the beeswax melts completely. Remove the saucepan from the heat and glass measuring cup from the saucepan.
- Add the contents of the vitamin E capsules to the mixture in the measuring cup. Stir to combine.
- Add the orange essential oil. And stir well to combine.
- Orange essential oil is antibacterial and very good for wood finishes. You can substitute lemon or grapefruit essential oil, if you like. Citrus oils go well with wood and deeply cleanse the wood, removing surface stains, and grime.
- Pour the contents into 3 2oz. glass jars. Cap tightly and label.
Makes 3 — 2 oz. jars – one to keep and two to give as gifts.
How to use it:
To use this food safe wood finish, apply it with a cotton rag. I used a piece of cloth from a thread bare flannel night gown. The rag will become saturated with the polish, but that’s ok. Save it with the furniture polish to reuse again and again. (As a bonus, a rag saturated in this polish has no petroleum distillates and is NOT a hazard for spontaneous combustion!)
Dip the rag in the jar of polish and wipe the polish on the surface of the wooden tool or cutting board. Completely cover all surfaces, even the underside. Allow it to sit on the wooden surface for at least 15 minutes. Get a fresh cloth and wipe off any excess paste. Buff until it glows.
The orange oil in this wood finish cleans as well as conditions. It is antibacterial. The walnut oil penetrates deeply into the wood grain, preventing the wood from drying out and warping or cracking. The coconut oil and the wax make the finish harder and protect the wood from damage.
Use this food safe wood polish at least twice a year in spring and fall cleaning or once a month on brand new tools that are becoming acclimatized to your local environment.
Gift it:
Consider including a jar of this food safe wood finish in a gift of wooden spoons or other wooden kitchen tools, wrap it all up in a kitchen towel Furoshiki style. Consider this for a bridal shower, a hostess gift, or a gift for your MIL. With its fresh orange scent, it’s sure to be appreciated.
Get the Beeswax Workshop
For more DIY recipes like this one check out my book, The Beeswax Workshop. The Beeswax Workshop contains over 100 easy to follow recipe for DIY products, household cleaners, garden, and personal care products that will help you get the toxins out of your home, save money, and enjoy the experience of DIY self sufficiency and simplicity.
We have a coconut allergy in the family. Is there another oil that might work the same way as coconut in this recipe? Thanks so much
My wax turned out harder than I believe it should have, know of any remedies to fix it?
You can remelt and add more liquid oils about a tablespoon at a time.
Hey there! I made this today for my bamboo cutting boards and it smells heavenly. What a wonderful recipe. Mine did turn out quite solid though. I had to spoon it out and then spread it around on the boards. Did I maybe use too much beeswax? It’s hard to measure when it’s in pellets given the extra air space between them.
Also, would this work as a furniture polish as well? Thanks in advance!
Yes you could use this as a furniture polish. It should be the consistency of “paste wax”.
I’m so glad I came across this no chemical way of preserving wood. My question is this, do you think this would work on keeping wood slices from cracking after they have been cut and are drying out? I’ve tried making these before but they always end up with big cracks. I’ve read you must preserve and condition the wood to keep that from happening but didn’t want to use chemicals at all in doing that. Thank you so much! Have a blessed day!
paint the cut ends of any board with heavy paint to slow down the drying process thus preventing cracking.
Why do you use vitamin E in your cutting board conditioner recipe? Does this come out as a wax or a paste?
Vitamin E helps the oils remain stable. It is a paste.
I love this! Thank you for adding the nut free alternative for all of us who can’t handle nuts! We live in such I dry climate I really do need to get better about conditioning my wooden utensils.
Thank you so much for this! My girls are always asking me what to do about their dried out cutting boards, and with Christmas coming up, I’m ready to make this. What a perfect gift! I know they’ll be as excited to receive it as I am to make it.
Oh My Gosh! I came across a link to this post from Turning for Profit on Sandy Moss’ fb timeline and recognized “that kraut pounder” in the photo. I have not be blogging much in the last (shoot, almost TWO years now) but I knew I had seen it before and out of curiosity, I followed the link & read this post. WOW! I was SO angry with myself for not knowing about this back in July! And now I know where all those orders came from out of the clear blue! (We were mystified!) Please let your readers know that Eddie is still working on those some of those orders and that because he is working double time at the office for the last umpteen weeks, he is doing his best and will get those orders filled as fast as he can. I had to suspend orders on his page, because he just could not keep up with them all. THANK YOU SO MUCH for sharing and I AM SOOOOOO sorry it took me so long to notice and to thank you! You are so very kind! LOVE & HUGS, Jo & Eddie
Oh, Jo, no problem. I’m so glad to help. Sorry that Eddie is overwhelmed, though. Hope he gets some catch up time over the holidays.
Me & you both! He gets a bit grumpy when he is overwhelmed!
I live in East Texas, where it is extremely warm and humid during much of the year. Do you think the walnut oil would work well for me? Also, where do you get walnut oil? Thanks.
Yes, I think it will work for you. I buy mine at the grocery store, in the cooking oil section. If you don’t have it locally, Amazon carries it as well.
This is GREAT! I’m emailing it to myself and tweeting it right this minute!
Good information – Thanks
Do you still have workshops at your farm?
Would this work on my bamboo cutting board? Thanks!
Yes
I think fractionated coconut oil would be better suited in this recipe
I make something similar for my toys; beeswax, olive oil and a drop of lavender oil but I will try the orange as well, should smell nice
Hi Chris, I have LOTS I would love to discuss with you. But for now, this is my start to it. One, do you have A YouTube Channel? and Two, about the walnut oil here in your blog, you mentioned that the sesame seed oil will not go rancid, well what about the walnut oil? YOUR oil sounds really good. Please contact me back. I think you are a truly wonderful woman and now that I found you, I plan to stick around 🙂 Who knows, maybe YOU and I could work together somehow…Thanks so much and I hope you have the very BEST Week EVER!!!
Shelly Cole~Video Content Creator~Know What Mom Knows
Hi, Shelly
The walnut oil can go rancid if it is in a warm, humid environment. That said, when combined with the ingredients in this recipe it seems to have a long shelf life and I haven’t noticed any rancidity. Some folks are allergic to nuts though, and for them sesame is a good substitute.
Yes I have a You-Tube channel. Thanks for asking.
I happen to be allergic to walnuts. Is there a substitution that can take the place of the walnut oil?
Melissa, try sesame oil. It is antioxidant as well and shouldn’t go rancid on the wood.