I did a search and didn't find anything about this. Maybe I don't know what I'm doing with the "Find" button, but here goes. I have some poplar, red oak, pecan, and cherry. I want to make a stirring paddle for big pots of food. Which one or more will make a good paddle that won't ruin the food? Thanks in advance for your help.
No direct experience with pecan - suspect it might be fine considering woods it's similar to. Poplar - cottonwood/popple or yellow/tulip? Popple at least should be fine, albeit weak and prone to rotting. Cherry should be fine, might leach a tiny bit, but not be obnoxious.
I would avoid the red oak - it stinks, I suspect that would get into the food. White oak should be fine - closed pores, and barrels are made from it.
Traditional spoon wood in these parts is maple and birch - nice bland tasteless woods. Also fine-grained, not prone to splintering and splitting, good if you eat from the spoon, or lick the paddle.
Most wood toxicity lists are concerned with reactions to the dust, etc when turning, but that may be at least a pointer to woods to avoid for food. Here's a couple of links on that front.
I have made and use a lot of homemade "treenware". Any really closed grain moderately hard wood is up for grabs. I stay away from most nutwoods and most ash as they have those damn tubes. We have a lot of pecan around here, so it gets used for other things. I have a yellow pine spatula that I made years ago that is almost indestructible.
That being said, one of my best spatulas is made from an exceptionally tight grained piece of white oak. Most will tell you to stay away from oak, but this little piece I had was too good to burn in my smoker. I don't know where it came from, but the growth rings in the piece I got were just about a pencil lead in thickness apart. Hard and tight, the spatula I made from it has been exceptionally hard working and has seen an awful lot of meals in the last few years.
Just make sure the grain is tight on your subject and you should do fine with about any wood except the heavily grained woods.
Robert
Cherry. Open grain woods might sequester some bacteria in their pores. Yellow poplar, which is what a guy with pecan probably means by "poplar," might do fine.
Any close-grain wood should do. I've made thousands of cherry utensils over the years, a few yellow birch or beech, as well as the odd apple. Maple looks ugly if you let it soak, so I don't use it often. I made, years back, a bunch out of a fallen tamarack, sap and all. Microwaved them over paper to clear them, and still have one. Date on the handle is '98, and still surviving.
Have fun by turning a big spurtle, or carve something more whimsical.
You want to use a tight grain wood.
Beech is a very good choice for kitchen woodenware. Supposedly, beech will not impart any taste to the food.
I knew they made airplanes -- are they making kitchenware too?
InspirePoint website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.