Oak Tree Cross-Section Cutting Board, Concerned About Drying Ingredients/Bacterial Growth

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UnFocused
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Oak Tree Cross-Section Cutting Board, Concerned About Drying Ingredients/Bacterial Growth

#1 Post by UnFocused » Fri Mar 17, 2023 7:47 pm

I thought maybe someone with some working knowledge could give me some advise on this topic. A few days ago, I sawed up a very large red oak tree and down towards the bottom of the trunk, I was seeing beautiful patterns in the grain between sap and heartwood. So I cut off 3 'cookies' about 3 inches thick, with the idea to dry these and turn them into cutting boards since they were already end-grain from the cut.

Knowing that cracking/splitting would be a major problem with this wood I searched online and found multiple options on how to dry these without cracking, but wanted something sans chemicals because of the use case. My chosen method came from this article https://eri.nau.edu/wp-content/uploads/ ... -trees.pdf, titled Drying Cross Sections of Trees from the the USDA-FS Forest Production Laboratory. The method discussed here is what I followed in which I used/did:

A solution of 170g salt diluted into 16oz of water and then applying to faces, three times each, allowing the wood to dry in between.
Then, a solution of 170g salt diluted in 16oz water with 3 raw egg whites for a binder, and 454 grams cornstarch for thickener applied to faces once, which will remain on the wood for about 45 days.

At that point, I would mill down the wood with a router, exposing new wood. However, there was when cut, a tiny crack in each piece that the solution undoubtably went into and that is not fixable.

My question is, do you think I just created a bacterial time bomb for culinary use, or that the salt amounts would prevent any kind of growth in the mixture?

Also, would it be feasible to use a microscope to check for any growth on the paste itself after it sat for 45 days?

I will say this, the paste dried very quickly and became hard (able to be broken into dry powder in the hand) and maybe nothing would like that environment, especially coupled with that amount of salt? At least that's my thinking from fermenting vegetables for the past few decades.

What say you, am I a worry-wort about the raw eggs and the cracks?

Thank You!

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