Cleaning a chopping board in the woods

[FGYT]

That is as good as you can do but its probably good practice to keep one board or one side of the board for raw meat and the other side for veg etc.

Interesting research on wood boards and bacteria here http://faculty.vetmed.ucdavis.edu/faculty/docliver/Research/cuttingboard.htm

you shouldnt need to separate veg etc if your going to cook it espesially in the pan with the chicken its just stuff that you may cut up like a nice salad ........... you may notice most bushcrafters done seem to eat a lot of salad .

plus more imporantly you need ot clean the knife before you spread the drippin on hte bread with it and before you stick it into a leather sheath etc

i usually use a plastic board and wash it after he meal with the other stuff everything gets cut up on it and cooked toether usually

ATB

Duncan

 

[Adze]

you shouldnt need to separate veg etc if your going to cook it espesially in the pan with the chicken its just stuff that you may cut up like a nice salad ........... you may notice most bushcrafters done seem to eat a lot of salad .

plus more imporantly you need ot clean the knife before you spread the drippin on hte bread with it and before you stick it into a leather sheath etc

i usually use a plastic board and wash it after he meal with the other stuff everything gets cut up on it and cooked toether usually

ATB

Duncan

Hurrah! I'm not the only one! Cooked is cooked, veg or meat, that's what cooked is for and what it means!

You don't need a 'meat side' and a 'veg side' you need a cooked side and a raw side - lets face it, do the carrots and potatoes in the stew taste more or less of chicken because they were cooked with it or because they were cut on the same board as it? Fair enough, fresh rabbit 'juice' on your dandelion and wood sorrel salad might not be to everyone's taste.

More realistically, as Duncan says, it's the knife which needs cleaning, not the thing you're chopping - boiling water is a pretty good sterilizer. Failing that, if you really have to sterilize something in the back of beyond then salt and heat are as good or better than most of the commercial sprays, wipes or disinfectants - beech butchers blocks were salted nightly for generations before stainless steel became the norm.

Cheers,

 

[robin wood]

Hurrah! I'm not the only one! Cooked is cooked, veg or meat, that's what cooked is for and what it means!

You don't need a 'meat side' and a 'veg side' you need a cooked side and a raw side - lets face it, do the carrots and potatoes in the stew taste more or less of chicken because they were cooked with it or because they were cut on the same board as it? Fair enough, fresh rabbit 'juice' on your dandelion and wood sorrel salad might not be to everyone's taste.

More realistically, as Duncan says, it's the knife which needs cleaning, not the thing you're chopping - boiling water is a pretty good sterilizer. Failing that, if you really have to sterilize something in the back of beyond then salt and heat are as good or better than most of the commercial sprays, wipes or disinfectants - beech butchers blocks were salted nightly for generations before stainless steel became the norm.

Cheers,

Well fair enough I suppose. The thing that those who know are saying is avoid cross contamination which is the cause of most dodgy guts.

At BBQ time everyone thinks they get bad guts because they didn't cook the chicken enough but actually they cut up the chicken, then cut the salad with the same knife or cutting board and let it sit in a nice warm environment for an hour. The chicken was fine but watch the lettuce.

You don't have to worry about raw veg or cooked meat (so long as it isn't hanging around for long) what you need worry about is the raw meat and not let anything that has touched it come into contact with anything you are going to eat without further cooking eg bread. Work out whatever system works for you to do that.

 

[forestwalker]

Why don't you just chop meat up on leaves or grass etc? Can't say I've ever needed to take a chopping board into the field, and the amount of game I've dressed outdoors is immense.

I sometimes carry a small "sandwitch" board (about 15x10 cm). It is nice for chipping onions, etc on. Not essential by any means, on that I agree.

 

[forestwalker]

Please tell me you didn't try

I've always wanted to bring one of those electric BBQ starters out, and wander around camp looking for the electric outlet with a confused look on my face. The plan of course falls down on three points; I don't have one, they are a bit of a bother to lug around, and I don't camp with anyone who'd believe me for even 1/10 of a second.

 

[rik_uk3]

As another member said, just take your meat ready prepped. I've even started taking ready chopped (at home) veg with me and pack it in zip lock bags (apart from spuds); saves a lot of time especially for the first nights stew No great need for a chopping board most trips.

 

[Tadpole]

How can I sterilise a chopping board in the woods? Would pouring boiling water on it and giving it a good scrub with a cloth be good enough to remove bacteria such as that left by raw chicken etc?

I’m surprised no one has mentioned something that our grandparents did as a matter of course. Wash the wooden board, in hot water no soap (to get off the meat the blood and guts, then half a hand full of salt (as coarse as you can find) and a scrubbing brush. Wipe off most of the water, sprinkle thickly with salt and scrub away until the salt is worked into any exposed grain and deep into the knife cuts (only takes a few hard working minutes) Brush off the loose salt and leave to dry near the fire.
Bacteria don’t grow well in extremes, which is why salt or sugar or vinegar is used for preserving.
I do it at home with all my wooden board, and have never had any porblems

 

[FGYT]

I’m surprised no one has mentioned something that our grandparents did as a matter of course. Wash the wooden board, in hot water no soap (to get off the meat the blood and guts, then half a hand full of salt (as coarse as you can find) and a scrubbing brush. Wipe off most of the water, sprinkle thickly with salt and scrub away until the salt is worked into any exposed grain and deep into the knife cuts (only takes a few hard working minutes) Brush off the loose salt and leave to dry near the fire.
Bacteria don’t grow well in extremes, which is why salt or sugar or vinegar is used for preserving.
I do it at home with all my wooden board, and have never had any porblems

I dont carry several pounds of course salt in the bush
just wash with hot water and fairy with everything else
dont forget that butchers blocks are also scraped which removed the top layer of wood as well as the worst contamination and why they arent flat or the original thickness after a while.

if light weight camping etc then its not a problem as food and cooking methods are diffent from base camp stuff, but still dont use a heavy wood board and carry a lot of special cleaning stuff for it

plastic board washing up liquid and warm water ............ simples

first thing i usually do after serving up is rince the worst out of the cooking pot an fill it up with water with a dash of fairy to heat up for washing up ready whne ive finished eating
teh board and meat knife is rinced and washed after use with spare brew water then washed again with the rest ofhte stuff at the end of the meal

salad is put to one side as it can be used to garnish the next meal

 

[Tadpole]

I dont carry several pounds of course salt in the bush

Maybe you should…
Anyway who needs several pounds of salt, you're willing to waste time and effort carrying washing up liquid, which only has just the one use, and use something that will contaminate the board (unless you want to spend yet more time and effort heating up more water to rinse off the washing up liquid, and if you don't boil it you're just adding to the germs and bacteria on the board) and at the same time contaminate the ground, all that without doing what the OP wanted to do, “sterilise a chopping board” (salt will, but washing up liquid won’t.)
Salt does a better job in cleaning/scrubbing, and has more than just the one use, it can be cooked with, it can be used to store/protect food, and a pinch goes really nicely with boiled eggs.

 

[verloc]

I just split a piece of wood, use the newly exposed side and then lob it in the fire when done. Don't see the point in carrying something in to only have to clean it and then carry the bloody thing back out again, but then I am a lazy sod

 

[Adze]

I’m surprised no one has mentioned something that our grandparents did as a matter of course.

I did, only I used subtly different wording

 

[Tadpole]

I did, only I used subtly different wording

I do apologise, you’re right.

 

[Andy BB]

Use a metal plate or pan or pot instead?

 

[Paganwolf]

Why carry a chopping board while Bushcrafting, just chop your raw stuff directly in to your pot, if you have a chopping board firstly you have to carry it secondly you have to clean it, any small chopping you can use the inside of a strip of living bark (no not yew) then burn it, its much more fun to get what you need from the woods if you are in a wooded area, if your in a Desert then disregard the bark bit and carry a chopping board as u will be in a 4x4 any hoo

 

[FGYT]

, all that without doing what the OP wanted to do, “sterilise a chopping board” (salt will, but washing up liquid won’t.)

and my point was Why all this 'Steralise' thing i nthe first place we dont do it at home

well i have but only baby bottles for the first 6mths in a microwave steralizer then soap and hot water will do the job same as every thing else.

we use washing up liquid or soap in the field for the rest of the stuff Pots pans plates KFS etc definatly dont rub salt in that lot so we have do have a product to do that and it will do the same job on a chopping board specially as mines plastic tho i would be happy to split out a bit of board i rarely bother for the size needed its a lot of work espesially to burn it afterwards


ATB

Duncan

 

[jimbob]

You could use scissors and cut directly into the pot or pan.

 

[Zingmo]

specially as mines plastic

Just to summarise Robins link above ..

"... wooden cutting boards are not a hazard to human health, but plastic cutting boards may be."

Z

 

[caliban]

Really interesting about wooden boards. My brother used to be a chef and I've been in and out of restaurant kitchens for years. I remember seeing beautiful big three foot by two foot meat prep boards in a kitchen one week and coloured plastic tat the next. All of the old wood boards had been skipped, along with a bunch of wood handled old butcher knives...I could have cried.

I'd get a few used wine cases, (the woods is clean and smooth until they've been left outside for weeks) and cut the boards, which are about 1cm thick and about five inches wide, down into eight inch sections for meat prep boards. Three boards would weigh next to nowt, and if you scorched the used side off you could get six uses out of three boards.

 

[Toddy]

These days I'm pretty much vegan, but when I cook at camp I cook for everybody so I do have to deal with the meat/ veg issue.
I don't ever cross contaminate veggie foods for myself with meat boards or tools. It means that if I break out (or someone else kindly does it for me ) a clean bit of timber for a chopping board, then veggies get done first. Then the meat.

If I'm not having to lug in kit far to a site I take a couple of the plastic chopping boards along.
Baby wipes get rid of the gunk then a good scour under boiling water. Just make sure they're really well dried.
I do take the point about salting wooden boards, but if I'm going to use wood when I'm out I might as well just split a bit for it.
Even a bag of firewood will provide a bit of suitable timber.

You can field dress without ever laying the meat down though, well, so long as you're skinning it you can, just use the inside of the skin to lay the pieces on.
Failing that, just make tension trays and burn them when you're finished.

cheers,
M

 

[Dave Budd]

just let the dog lick it clean

that's exactly what I was thinking!