Butter Knife

[Kepis]

Carved butter knife from locally sourced Birch, off the knife finish, carved octagonal handle.

20200213_095532 by https://www.flickr.com/photos/163167411@N07/, on Flickr

20200213_095517 by https://www.flickr.com/photos/163167411@N07/, on Flickr

 

[TLM]

Looks good, how do you finish them?

 

[Kepis]

Looks good, how do you finish them?

I assume you mean oils etc?, i don't, i just let time, tide and food acids do it for me

 

[TLM]

Yes I ment oils, here people often used flax oil if anything.

 

[zornt]

Very nice. Thanks for sharing.

 

[TLM]

For a reason I do not know, here wooden butter knives are mostly made of juniper. It might be the nice figure in the wood or the smell or maybe the non porous wood.

 

[Mesquite]

Very nice Mark

I do like the octagonal handle shape, it's pleasing to the eye as well as to use.

 

[Janne]

Juniper is used because the wood is ‘oily’ so does not absorb the fat from the butter.
The butter fat goes rank quickly.

I think oiling your birch knife using flax oil meant for cooking should be fine.
It is a nice design, your butter knife!

 

[Toddy]

....you do know that we use 'butter' knives to spread the jam, marmite, marmalade, etc. too ? and I don't fancy linseed oil in any of those.
Archeologically and historically we know that milk lipids seal and waterproof pottery and wood artefacts. They don't smell rancid either.

Nicely done Mark looks good and useful too.

M

 

[Janne]

Ah.
We do not mix. We use spoons or similar for jams.
I guess you are used to the added flavour on the butter knife, as Juniper is not as common?

Marmite. Will not that flavour really soak in? Marmite is an interesting preparation.

 

[crosslandkelly]

Nice simple design. I like it.

 

[Toddy]

Ah.
We do not mix. We use spoons or similar for jams.
I guess you are used to the added flavour on the butter knife, as Juniper is not as common?

Marmite. Will not that flavour really soak in? Marmite is an interesting preparation.

Out of the jam dish, yes, but you don't use that spoon to spread. It's like the sugar spoon that sits in the sugar bowl, you don't use it to stir your tea.

What other flavour ? the knives are washed, even the wooden ones.
Marmite doesn't soak in, it's salty and delicious, and none goes to waste
Juniper is fairly common around here, but it's not one we generally use for kitchenalia. It's more used for smoking meats.

M

 

[TLM]

Flax seed oil polymerizes and oxidises in a fairly short time especially if heated, after that one does not taste the oil in a wooden knife.

 

[TLM]

Oils in juniper do not last very long, they are of the evaporative kind but yes they give the newly made object a nice smell.

That slightly kiridashi like shape is what I like, it works well on a spreader knife.

 

[Robson Valley]

That butter knife is an inspired design. How elegant.
I can imagine a pair of salad servers of similar design.

I carved 70 spoons and 30 forks, all in birch, for sale.
Preheat the oven to no more than 325F.
Slather the wooden utensils with the vegetable oil of your choice.
On a cake rack, over a sheet pan, into the oven for 3 minutes and 30 seconds by the clock.
Yes, there is a risk of the wood cracking. Never happened with mine.

Out of the oven, you will see little bubbles in the oily surface.
This is evidence of Charles's Law, a fact of gas physics, nothing more.
The heat made the wood air expand. Upon cooling, the remaining wood air contracts and pulls the oil into the wood,
far further than a simple soak can do. Paint on more oil as it cools = cannot possibly do any harm.

Now you have an utensil, oil-finished, which cannot have the finish washed off even in boiling soup.
You must reheat to more than 325F to get the oil to move.

 

[Janne]

Different countries, different customs!
Wonderful!

Weirdly enough, I do enjoy Marmite. Must be only a handful of Scandihooligans that do that.. but my tastebuds are not refined enough to taste the difference, or have a preference between Vegemite and Marmite. Even Bovril is OK. ( yes, I am a philistine! )

What do you smoke with juniper? Salmon, other fish? Mackerel is fantastic when Juniper enhanced!

Our juniper butter knives last a couple of years. We wash them in luke warm water only, then dry straight away. Do not want any warping.

I also make pan frying utensils ( various) from juniper wood. It is strong.

The beech wood commercial stuff seems to absorb smell of the food, which juniper does not.
Maybe juniper grown in the sub arctic is different because it is slow grown?

 

[Toddy]

Last batch was venison and hare.
Vegemite lacks something, I think it's the salt. Bovril is beef based so not in my diet.

Flax seed oil polymerizes and oxidises in a fairly short time especially if heated, after that one does not taste the oil in a wooden knife.

Linseed oil is known as a slow drying oil, it's used in putty, to make linoleum and mixed with resins to make a drying oil (misnomer if ever there was one, blasted stuff stays sticky for ages) and boiled linseed oil has solvents added to it to help it dry more quickly....not food safe!

Basically we use it on wood that we don't mind being sticky for a while or for making up pigment paints.....and you have to be really, really careful of any rag you use it on. It's inclined to the spontaneous combustion as it oxidises. Basically you have to leave the rags opened up because otherwise exothermic reaction will cause fire.

 

[Robson Valley]

Sucked down inside the wood, there's very very little air (oxygen) for any oil to come in contact with.
The notion of oxidation and rancids flavor is a myth if Charles' Law was applied.
I buy Kalamata olive oil in 3 liter tins. That's also my wood finish. Not any whiff of any oxidation.

 

[TLM]

The one way to cure flax oil fast is to add some cobalt in it, three days and it is touch dry, MEK peroxide helps too as do several other peroxides. I think that after a heating and washing cycle it would be food safe as several polyster resins are.

Have to add that it is usually anything except juniper that would be treated. Some use liquid paraffin but that is not stable and slowly leaches out.

Boiled linseed oil is somewhat of a baddie by reputation, I once tried to get rags to combust with it with disappointing results, they did get slightly warm but were far away from fire. Still they are known to start one.

 

[Janne]

RV, try butter wood oiling and see what you think.

Mr Charles Law maybe had a cook and never ventured into the cook house?