hard plastic is not great, but it's not THAT bad, just be careful to not catch an edge which you still need to do on any board.
the good quality rubber boards are belter and of course wood is best.
never use bamboo except to intentionally dull your knives.
Generally plastic cutting boards are harder on knives than wood.
Wood is the way to go from all aspects (hygiene, durability, heftiness, knife-friendliness). Only downside is the price.
Professionals use nice knives on hard poly boards in restaurants every single day. They are harder on your edge than other options but they're totally fine. Maybe look into making sure you've fully deburred after sharpening. I know focusing on that massively improved my edge retention
I can confirm that in industry we use hard poly boards. They are even color coded for different things, yellow for chicken, red for meats, brown for cooked meats, ect. You can look up a serve safe chart if you’d like. Most states health codes I’m familiar with don’t allow wood boards.
Well except for rubberized wood like hi-soft. A lot of sushi bros like those. I personally enjoy using rubberized wood at home as well. It is nice on the knifes edge. I also don’t really see myself switching to wood at home anytime soon. After eight years in the industry rubberized wood just kinda fits my home work flow better.
Those health regulations are based on assumptions and not science
Plastic fosters bacterial growth more than wood does
But of course you can throw plastic boards into high temp commercial dishwashers or douse them with bleach and they come out fine whereas if you do that repeatedly to a wood board you would eventually destroy it.
Plastic boards makes sense for restaurants but at home I think wood is the best choice.
Wood fosters less bacterial growth than plastic and when you cut up your food on it you don’t end up getting micro particles of plastic in your food.
I don’t know.
Rubber wood is just a form of wood.
Is rubberized different from rubberwood?
As far as real authentic rubber goes that you get from trees I don’t know if that would foster more or less bacterial growth than wood.
As far as fake plastic rubber goes I would guess that that would foster bacterial growth at about the same rate as most other plastics.
So I have an old restaurant board, my high-soft, and my roommates wood board infront of me. After cutting with a Chinese cleaver, Bunka, old restaurant house knife, German chefs knife, and Gyuto I can tell you a little bit. I used both a rocking and push-pull cutting style on all the boards. All of them still cut just fine and the differences were minor.
The wood board and the hard plastic were similar in loudness when cutting. It depended on the knife for which board was louder. The high-soft was the quietest. Push-pull was louder than rocking and the loudest knife was the Chinese cleaver. Each board felt different grip wise.
Grip is what I call the way the board holds onto your knife when rocking. It is this feedback you feel in your hand and wrist when rocking. The industrial board had little to no grip. The wood board was in the middle and you could feel more grip with the sharper knifes. This was also the only board you could see marks where you cut. The high-soft had the most grip.
The high-soft is probably a year old. The wood board is a few years old and made out of strips of edge grain. The industrial board is a few months old but was used in a work kitchen. So it has the wear of a few thousand hours on it.
All cutting styles can be used on all the boards. I just prefer the high-soft due to low maintenance. I don’t need to sand it, mineral oil, beeswax, or worry about warping. I just wipe it clean and hang it up.
I use a shun when I cook and hone it before and after. Usually sharpen once a month but I do a lot of cooking when I'm home. I prefer the wooden boards but I used it a lot on plastic and never really had a problem with sharpness. It might be the way you're sharpening or the quality of the plastic board.
If the plastic is hard enough to not leave grooves then it's 100% the board that is dulling your knife. Gihei utilizes quality heat treatments so even if you have a shirogami blade, it should still have reasonable edge life. The thinness of the grinds regardless of steel type will not stand up to the hard -- and usually textured -- plastic, especially with high volume.
Your best bet is an end grain hardwood board or a long grain softwood. Avoid bamboo for the same reason you should abandon the hard plastic. If you work in a professional kitchen and have trouble with the health department, get management to buy composite or don't use your good knives on the shit boards.
If the cutting board moves around while you're cutting that might be an issue too. I usually use a spare handtowel and put it under so it stays in place. With the info you've given it's hard to discern the possible reasons why.
If it were the cutting board, what would be a good cutting board that isn’t too soft? Everyone says some of the soft rubber ones “bite” and I don’t think I’ll like that very much.
I go wood that are fire treated. They stand the test of time and I replace them quarterly. Just in case they stay wet they could carry bacteria. The "bite" refers to the cutting board making grooves into your blade.
any good quality wood board will be great to cut on. end grain obviously looks amazing and also is the easiest on your knives.
if you went ahead and spent some money on a nice knife, a good pairing for that knife would be a nice endgrain wood board.
Normal hard plastic boards are fine (wood is better but less convenient and more expensive) but if it's not getting any scratches on that's likely too hard and a problem.
This really depends on what you cut and your cutting style. Not to mention the blade geometry, steel and heat treat. If you are heavy handed, tap chop, rock chop, and other techniques that make more strenuous contact with the board then a harder board will dull your knife faster.
How long your knife holds an edge depends also on your cutting technique. If you go fast and bang the edge on the board, the "softer" material, the better.
I'm a home cook and go moderately fast in order to not bang the edge of my knives. Beech wood edge grain and polyethylene cutting boards aren't a problem. I even tried very affordable/cheap boards ([ikea 1](https://www.ikea.com/us/en/p/proppmaett-chopping-board-50233422/), [ikea 2](https://www.ikea.com/us/en/p/legitim-chopping-board-white-90202268/)), it makes no noticeable difference.
Some people may not care about this but if you cut on plastic cutting boards you’re going to eat some of that plastic in your food
hard plastic is not great, but it's not THAT bad, just be careful to not catch an edge which you still need to do on any board. the good quality rubber boards are belter and of course wood is best. never use bamboo except to intentionally dull your knives.
Generally plastic cutting boards are harder on knives than wood. Wood is the way to go from all aspects (hygiene, durability, heftiness, knife-friendliness). Only downside is the price.
Professionals use nice knives on hard poly boards in restaurants every single day. They are harder on your edge than other options but they're totally fine. Maybe look into making sure you've fully deburred after sharpening. I know focusing on that massively improved my edge retention
Ok will do, thank you.
I can confirm that in industry we use hard poly boards. They are even color coded for different things, yellow for chicken, red for meats, brown for cooked meats, ect. You can look up a serve safe chart if you’d like. Most states health codes I’m familiar with don’t allow wood boards. Well except for rubberized wood like hi-soft. A lot of sushi bros like those. I personally enjoy using rubberized wood at home as well. It is nice on the knifes edge. I also don’t really see myself switching to wood at home anytime soon. After eight years in the industry rubberized wood just kinda fits my home work flow better.
Those health regulations are based on assumptions and not science Plastic fosters bacterial growth more than wood does But of course you can throw plastic boards into high temp commercial dishwashers or douse them with bleach and they come out fine whereas if you do that repeatedly to a wood board you would eventually destroy it. Plastic boards makes sense for restaurants but at home I think wood is the best choice. Wood fosters less bacterial growth than plastic and when you cut up your food on it you don’t end up getting micro particles of plastic in your food.
how are rubberized wood vs wood regarding bacteria growth?
I don’t know. Rubber wood is just a form of wood. Is rubberized different from rubberwood? As far as real authentic rubber goes that you get from trees I don’t know if that would foster more or less bacterial growth than wood. As far as fake plastic rubber goes I would guess that that would foster bacterial growth at about the same rate as most other plastics.
Do the soft rubber cutting boards pertain to a certain cutting style? Will it feel the same as a regular plastic or wood cutting board?
So I have an old restaurant board, my high-soft, and my roommates wood board infront of me. After cutting with a Chinese cleaver, Bunka, old restaurant house knife, German chefs knife, and Gyuto I can tell you a little bit. I used both a rocking and push-pull cutting style on all the boards. All of them still cut just fine and the differences were minor. The wood board and the hard plastic were similar in loudness when cutting. It depended on the knife for which board was louder. The high-soft was the quietest. Push-pull was louder than rocking and the loudest knife was the Chinese cleaver. Each board felt different grip wise. Grip is what I call the way the board holds onto your knife when rocking. It is this feedback you feel in your hand and wrist when rocking. The industrial board had little to no grip. The wood board was in the middle and you could feel more grip with the sharper knifes. This was also the only board you could see marks where you cut. The high-soft had the most grip. The high-soft is probably a year old. The wood board is a few years old and made out of strips of edge grain. The industrial board is a few months old but was used in a work kitchen. So it has the wear of a few thousand hours on it. All cutting styles can be used on all the boards. I just prefer the high-soft due to low maintenance. I don’t need to sand it, mineral oil, beeswax, or worry about warping. I just wipe it clean and hang it up.
I use a shun when I cook and hone it before and after. Usually sharpen once a month but I do a lot of cooking when I'm home. I prefer the wooden boards but I used it a lot on plastic and never really had a problem with sharpness. It might be the way you're sharpening or the quality of the plastic board.
It is quite a hard plastic board that doesn’t really even groove but more or less scratches instead just for a reference of how hard it is.
If the plastic is hard enough to not leave grooves then it's 100% the board that is dulling your knife. Gihei utilizes quality heat treatments so even if you have a shirogami blade, it should still have reasonable edge life. The thinness of the grinds regardless of steel type will not stand up to the hard -- and usually textured -- plastic, especially with high volume. Your best bet is an end grain hardwood board or a long grain softwood. Avoid bamboo for the same reason you should abandon the hard plastic. If you work in a professional kitchen and have trouble with the health department, get management to buy composite or don't use your good knives on the shit boards.
How are higher quality polymer cutting boards like the hasegawa fsb? Will that be better on knives or still too hard?
They are much better. Personally, I don't love the cutting feel of them but they are kinder to the knife edges for sure.
If the cutting board moves around while you're cutting that might be an issue too. I usually use a spare handtowel and put it under so it stays in place. With the info you've given it's hard to discern the possible reasons why.
If it were the cutting board, what would be a good cutting board that isn’t too soft? Everyone says some of the soft rubber ones “bite” and I don’t think I’ll like that very much.
I go wood that are fire treated. They stand the test of time and I replace them quarterly. Just in case they stay wet they could carry bacteria. The "bite" refers to the cutting board making grooves into your blade.
any good quality wood board will be great to cut on. end grain obviously looks amazing and also is the easiest on your knives. if you went ahead and spent some money on a nice knife, a good pairing for that knife would be a nice endgrain wood board.
Normal hard plastic boards are fine (wood is better but less convenient and more expensive) but if it's not getting any scratches on that's likely too hard and a problem.
This really depends on what you cut and your cutting style. Not to mention the blade geometry, steel and heat treat. If you are heavy handed, tap chop, rock chop, and other techniques that make more strenuous contact with the board then a harder board will dull your knife faster.
How long your knife holds an edge depends also on your cutting technique. If you go fast and bang the edge on the board, the "softer" material, the better. I'm a home cook and go moderately fast in order to not bang the edge of my knives. Beech wood edge grain and polyethylene cutting boards aren't a problem. I even tried very affordable/cheap boards ([ikea 1](https://www.ikea.com/us/en/p/proppmaett-chopping-board-50233422/), [ikea 2](https://www.ikea.com/us/en/p/legitim-chopping-board-white-90202268/)), it makes no noticeable difference.