Walnut Chopping Board

Walnut wood is a natural and sustainable choice. There is a big demand for walnut wood, due to its beautiful colour, but the American black walnut and English walnut are not threatened. White walnut or butternut is listed as vulnerable in some States and in Canada. Cloumann only uses American walnut.
The other important choice is to look at whether the wood is Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified. All Cloumann wood is FSC certified, and this guarantees a sustainable approach to growing the wood.

When selecting a wood to use for a serving or cutting board, it is very important to choose a wood that is not toxic. A general rule is that if a tree has edible fruits or sap or similar, it is likely not toxic. However, walnut trees contain a toxin called Juglone (5-hydroxy-alphanapthoquinone). The largest quantity of juglone can be found in American or white walnut, while English walnut contains slightly less. Juglone is released by the walnut trees to limit the growth of a number of other plants near the tree and to protect its fruit husks from parasites, and it can be harmful to horses.A quality provider of cutting boards will make sure their walnut wood has been dried properly so that the Juglone will not be an issue. As long as you buy your product from a quality supplier, you should not worry about Juglone toxicity. Please note that a very few people are highly sensitive to Juglone, and they might break out in a rash when holding a walnut board, even if it has an extremely low level of Juglone..

To find the perfect type of wood for a cutting board, we can use a measure called the Janka Hardness scale. This looks at how much force it takes to press a 7/16 inch metal ball halfway into a piece of wood. The wood should have 12% moisture content and be free of knots. It is measured in pounds-force (lbf). In general, a wood with a low Janka Hardness number (e.g. balsa wood) is not very dense. It will be very soft on your knives, but knives will rapidly damage the surface of a cutting board made from such soft wood. If a wood species has a high Janka Hardness score, like bamboo, the surface will be very dense and resist knife damage. However, your knives are likely to blunt much faster. So the perfect Janka Hardness score for a cutting board is around 1000 pounds-force, just in the middle. American Walnut, which we use, is 1010 lbf. Solid walnut is the perfect hardness for chopping boards.

Walnut wood comes in a large variety of colors, from almost black to almost white. The American walnut is the darkest, typically ranging from brown to black. It can sometimes have a bit of a purple tinge to it, too. English walnut has dark heartwood (the wood in the middle of the tree), but lighter brown sapwood (the wood on the outside of the tree). White walnut/butternut and Japanese walnut is usually light brown, but can be almost white to a deeper brown in color.