- 2 days ago
Stop sealing butcher block with beeswax and mineral oil if you want a kitchen counter that can handle real daily use. Elias Yoder explains why that finish works for a cutting board but not for a countertop, then shows the better choice for a butcher block counter: 100% pure tung oil, cut 50/50 with citrus solvent and worked in the right way.
The video walks through how to tell what is already on your wood, how to remove old mineral oil or wax, and how to sand properly so the surface stays open enough to absorb the finish. You’ll also hear why many products labeled tung oil finish are not actually pure tung oil, why wiping off excess matters, and why cure time is just as important as application. The result is a warmer, more water-resistant wood counter that still looks like wood, not plastic.
It also covers the limits: you still need trivets, cutting boards, and patience during the first 30 days of curing. For anyone researching butcher block countertop finishing, wood counter maintenance, food-safe wood finishes, or how to refinish a kitchen island, this is a practical guide to tung oil for butcher block and real-world countertop care.
The video walks through how to tell what is already on your wood, how to remove old mineral oil or wax, and how to sand properly so the surface stays open enough to absorb the finish. You’ll also hear why many products labeled tung oil finish are not actually pure tung oil, why wiping off excess matters, and why cure time is just as important as application. The result is a warmer, more water-resistant wood counter that still looks like wood, not plastic.
It also covers the limits: you still need trivets, cutting boards, and patience during the first 30 days of curing. For anyone researching butcher block countertop finishing, wood counter maintenance, food-safe wood finishes, or how to refinish a kitchen island, this is a practical guide to tung oil for butcher block and real-world countertop care.
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00Somebody set a cold glass of water down on your butcher block counter and walked away.
00:05And now there is a ring there, a pale, cloudy circle, or worse, a dark one, sitting in the middle
00:13of a counter you paid for and sanded and oiled yourself.
00:17And last month it was beet juice, and that went purple, and stayed purple, and no amount of scrubbing took
00:25it out.
00:25So you have got to the point where you flinch a little every time somebody cooks in your own kitchen.
00:33I am Elias Yoder, and I want to start this one by correcting myself, because I have made a video
00:39on this channel about beeswax and oil polish,
00:43and in it I told you that mixture was right for a cutting board, a bowl, a spoon, and a
00:51butcher block counter.
00:52Three of those four were correct. The counter was not, and I have been turning it over since.
00:59Beeswax and mineral oil is not a bad finish. It is a fine finish, and it is the right one
01:06for a board.
01:07It is simply the wrong finish for a counter.
01:11My grandmother taught me this, and I did not understand it for years.
01:15There were two wooden things in her kitchen that I was given the care of when I was about twelve.
01:21A breadboard she carried to the sink, and the long work tabletop that had never moved in anybody's memory.
01:29I did both with the same tin and the same rag, because I thought wood was wood.
01:36The board was still good when she died.
01:38The tabletop went gray through the middle, and held the mark of every cup anybody set on it.
01:45She said it to me once, and she said it like it was obvious.
01:49A board you can lift wants oil.
01:52A top you cannot lift wants ceiling.
01:56I gathered the whole of it into a book at EliasYoder.com.
02:01The book is the long version.
02:04If you want it, it is there.
02:06I will not mention it again.
02:08Here is the difference laid out, because it is the whole video.
02:12A board goes to the sink.
02:14You scrub it, you dry it, and when it looks pale and thirsty, you rub more oil into it,
02:21and that takes two minutes, and you do it every few weeks for thirty years.
02:26The finish being soft and renewable is not a weakness of it.
02:31That is the entire point of it.
02:33A counter cannot go to the sink.
02:35A counter stands there and takes a hot pan and a cold glass and a spill nobody noticed until morning.
02:44Asking a soft, renewable finish to do that is asking it to do a job it was never made for
02:51and then being disappointed in it.
02:53Now, before anything else, go and find out what is on your counter at present, because most people do not
03:02know.
03:02If you bought the house, you certainly do not know.
03:06Put one drop of water on it somewhere out of the way and watch it for a minute.
03:12If it beads up and sits there, something is sealing that wood, and you will need to know what.
03:18If it darkens the wood and sinks in, the finish is worn through, or there never was one.
03:25Then, look at the surface in low light across the grain.
03:30A film finish, a varnish or a polyurethane, has a slight plastic sheen and will show chips or a cloudy
03:39patch somewhere along an edge.
03:41An oil or wax finish has no film at all.
03:45The wood looks like wood, and where it is worn, it goes pale and chalky rather than chipping.
03:52And if there is wax on it, you will usually feel it.
03:56Run the back of a fingernail across a quiet corner, and wax gives you a faint drag and sometimes a
04:04thin smear of something that comes away.
04:06So here is what to put on a butcher block counter instead, and then the one thing about buying it
04:14that will decide whether this works for you or not.
04:17Tongue oil.
04:19Pressed from the nut of the tongue tree, used on wood and on boats in China for a very long
04:26time before anybody in this country had heard of it.
04:30And the reason it is different from mineral oil is not that it is better oil, it is that it
04:37is a different kind of thing altogether.
04:39Mineral oil never dries.
04:42It goes into the wood and stays liquid in there forever, which is why you can renew it in two
04:49minutes and why water goes straight past it.
04:52Tongue oil cures.
04:54It goes into the wood as a liquid, takes up oxygen out of the air, and hardens in there.
05:01It does not form a skin on top like a varnish does.
05:05It becomes part of the wood, down in the grain, and the wood itself turns water resistant.
05:12That is a different promise, and it is the one a counter needs.
05:16Now the part that will cost you the whole project if you get it wrong, and the source I took
05:22this from never mentions it.
05:24Walk into a hardware store, and you will find cans that say Tongue Oil Finish on the front in large
05:31letters.
05:32Most of those contain very little tongue oil, and some contain none at all.
05:37They are varnish and thinners and metallic dryers sold under the name because the name sells.
05:44Put that on a butcher block, and you get a thin plastic film on the surface that looks right for
05:50a year, and then chips, and under the chips the wood is raw.
05:55What you want says 100% pure tongue oil.
06:00Nothing else on the ingredients.
06:01If the can lists mineral spirits, dryers, resins, varnish, or a polyurethane of any kind, put it down and keep
06:12looking.
06:12The one we are talking about here is from Real Milk Paint Company, and they sell the pure oil, and
06:19they also sell it already cut 50-50 with citrus solvent, which they call the half and half.
06:27That cut is the second thing that matters.
06:29Pure tongue oil straight out of the bottle is thick.
06:33Too thick.
06:34It sits up on the surface of the wood and takes a very long time to go anywhere, and what
06:40does not soak in goes gummy.
06:43Cutting it with a solvent thins it enough to carry it down into the grain, and the solvent then evaporates
06:50away and leaves the oil in there where you wanted it.
06:5350-50 is the ratio they recommend for butcher block, and it is the one to use.
06:59On quantity, a quart of the half and half will do an ordinary kitchen's worth of counter with coats to
07:06spare, and a gallon will do a large kitchen with an island and leave you enough to refinish in two
07:13years.
07:13Buy more than you think, rather than less, because running out halfway through the second day means a join you
07:20will be able to see.
07:22The citrus solvent is orange peel oil, and I will say plainly that natural does not mean harmless.
07:30It is flammable, and it smells very strongly, and you want a window open and a fan running.
07:37Do not let anybody tell you different because it came off a fruit.
07:41Now, before the method, the thing that stops most people, and nobody warns them about.
07:47If your counter already has mineral oil and wax in it, tongue oil will not go in on top of
07:55it.
07:55Mineral oil does not cure, which means it is still sitting in that wood as a liquid, filling the very
08:02spaces the tongue oil needs to get into.
08:05Lay tongue oil over it, and it sits on the surface and stays tacky for weeks and never hardens properly,
08:12and you will think you bought a bad bottle.
08:15So you have to get it out, and that means sanding, not a light scuff, taking the surface back until
08:23you reach wood that is pale and dry and thirsty,
08:27and mineral oil goes deeper than you would like, so that can be a good deal of sanding on a
08:33counter that has been oiled for years.
08:35I will be straight with you that it may not come out completely in the worst spots,
08:40and those spots will take the tongue oil unevenly and look slightly different, and you live with that, or you
08:47replace the top.
08:49And plain mineral oil with no wax in it is the same problem.
08:53People think the wax is the obstacle, and it is not, it is the oil that never dries.
09:00Butcher block oil, food safe wood oil, whatever the bottle says, if it stays liquid in the wood, then it
09:08is occupying the ground.
09:10A varnish or polyurethane is a different obstacle with the same answer.
09:15That is a film sitting on top, and tongue oil cannot get through a film any more than it can
09:22get through a plastic bag.
09:23It has to come off. If your counter is new or raw, none of that applies, and you have the
09:30easy version.
09:31Here is the method. Start with sanding, and the surprising part is how coarse you stop.
09:39150 grit is as fine as you want to go. Not 220, not 320.
09:45People go fine because they want it smooth, and what they are actually doing is burnishing the surface closed so
09:52the oil cannot get in.
09:54150 leaves it smooth to the hand and still open to the oil.
09:59Vacuum the dust, then wipe it down and let it dry fully.
10:03Dust left in the grain gets sealed in and feels like grit forever after.
10:08Then you pour some oil straight onto the counter and work it in with a cloth.
10:13An old cotton rag or a sock, nothing with a nap on it that will shed.
10:18Work it with the grain, and then across the grain, because across the grain pushes it down into the pores
10:25rather than along them.
10:26And then finish with the grain to even it out.
10:29The first coat will vanish. Raw wood takes that first coat so fast you will wonder if you put any
10:36on.
10:36That is right, and it is what you want to see.
10:39Then you do it again, and again.
10:42Each coat goes in slower than the one before, because the wood is filling up.
10:47You are not counting coats, you are watching the wood.
10:51When you put oil on and it is still sitting there wet after half an hour instead of sinking,
10:57that stretch of wood has had enough.
10:59On a new counter that is somewhere around six to eight coats on the first day,
11:04then a rest overnight, then more the second day until it stops taking any.
11:09And here is the step people skip, and skipping it is why finishes go sticky.
11:14After each coat, give it 30 or 40 minutes, and then wipe off everything that has not soaked in.
11:21Dry cloth, firm pressure, until the surface is not wet to the touch.
11:26Oil left standing on the surface does not cure into the wood.
11:31It skins over and goes gummy, and you end up sanding it off.
11:34When you are done, it leaves a matte finish, not a gloss.
11:39The wood looks deeper and warmer and alive, and the grain comes up,
11:44and it does not look coated, because it is not coated.
11:47Then it cures, and you must be patient here, because this is the part that tries people.
11:53Tongue oil cures slowly.
11:55It is dry to the touch in a day or two, and it is not cured.
11:59Full cure takes up to 30 days.
12:02Use the counter lightly for that first month.
12:05Cut on a board, not on the counter.
12:08Do not leave anything standing wet on it.
12:10There will be a smell for a week or two, and it will go.
12:14After that, it is a food-safe surface, and pure tongue oil is food-safe once it is cured.
12:20The cure is what makes it so, which is another reason not to rush it.
12:25Refinishing is the same work, and much less of it.
12:28The whole case for this finish is how long you go between.
12:32Two years of hard daily use on a counter, and it still looks nearly new,
12:37where the beeswax and mineral oil wanted sanding and redoing every single year.
12:43When it does want attention, you sand the places that need it, rather than the whole top.
12:48The spot where the board always sits.
12:50The bit by the sink.
12:52Light sanding at 150, wipe it clean, then two or three coats of the half and half with a wipe
12:59down after each,
13:00and let it sit a few days before you go hard on it again.
13:04You can do one end of an island and not the other, and it will blend,
13:08which is something you cannot do with a film finish.
13:11That is worth more than it sounds.
13:13A chipped varnish means stripping the whole top.
13:16A worn patch of oil means ten minutes on that patch.
13:20And if you would rather not wait for it to want attention, there is a lighter habit that works better
13:25still.
13:26Once a year, no sanding at all, just a single thin coat worked in and wiped off properly after half
13:33an hour.
13:33That one coat takes 20 minutes on a whole kitchen, and it keeps the surface topped up so you never
13:40reach the point of needing to sand anything.
13:42Now the warnings, and the first one is the serious one.
13:46Tongue oil is a drying oil, and that means the rags are a fire risk.
13:51Not from a spark.
13:53On their own.
13:54As the oil cures, it gives off heat, and a rag balled up in a bin holds that heat in
14:00until it reaches the point of catching.
14:02And this happens hours after you have finished and gone to bed.
14:06Spread every rag out flat outside until it has gone stiff, or drop them in a metal can of water
14:12with a lid on it.
14:13Never leave them in a heap, and never put them in the kitchen bin.
14:18Second, tongue oil comes from a nut.
14:21There is argument about whether a fully cured finish presents any risk at all, and I am not the man
14:27to settle it.
14:28What I will say is that if there is a tree nut allergy in your house, I would not take
14:33the chance on a surface that food sits on.
14:36Use mineral oil and keep to boards you can renew, or find another answer.
14:42Third, this is not for furniture or tool handles.
14:46For those, raw linseed oil is the traditional choice and a good one, and I said so in that polish
14:53video, and it still holds.
14:55Note the word raw, because boiled linseed has metal dryers in it, and that is fine on an axe handle,
15:02and has no business on anything that touches food.
15:06And now the limits, because I am not going to sell you a magic bottle.
15:10This is not a plastic coating, and it does not behave like one.
15:14You still cannot leave a water bottle standing on that counter overnight and expect nothing in the morning.
15:21Wood absorbs.
15:23What you have bought is time and tolerance, not immunity.
15:27A spill wiped up inside the hour will leave nothing.
15:31A spill left all night will still leave something.
15:35It will not stop knife marks.
15:37If you cut on the counter, you will cut the counter.
15:41Use a board, which is what a board is for.
15:44And it does nothing at all about heat.
15:47A cured oil in the grain is not insulation.
15:50Set a pan straight off the stove down on that counter, and you will scorch the wood under it.
15:56And a scorch is not a stain, it is burnt wood.
16:00And the only thing that reaches it is sanding.
16:03Trivets, always.
16:05And that is true of every butcher block counter whatever is on it.
16:09It will not undo damage already in there.
16:12A black water stain that went past the old finish into the wood is in the wood.
16:17And sanding is the only thing that reaches it, and sometimes not even then.
16:22And it will not fix a top that was never flat or never sealed underneath.
16:28Butcher block moves with moisture, and it moves from the bottom as much as the top.
16:33So whatever you put on the top, put it on the underside and the edges too,
16:38especially around a sink cutout.
16:40A counter finished only where you can see it will cup on you inside two seasons.
16:45End grain is the place to be generous.
16:48The cut ends of the boards, and the raw inside edge of a sink cutout,
16:53drink oil the way a bundle of straws drinks water,
16:57and those are precisely the places water gets at a counter hardest.
17:01Give the sink cutout twice what you give the top,
17:04and do it before the sink goes in if you possibly can,
17:08because afterward you are working blind with your arm in a hole.
17:12There is no scheme in any of this,
17:14though the shelf is arranged in a way worth noticing.
17:17A tube of beeswax and mineral oil is a few dollars, and you buy it again every year.
17:23And a quart of pure tongue oil is a good deal more, and you buy it about twice a decade.
17:29One of those is a better business, and it is not the one that lasts.
17:33And the cans that say tongue oil finish in large letters and contain no tongue oil exist because the word
17:41does the selling,
17:42which is as plain a piece of commerce as you will find in a hardware store.
17:46My grandmother never owned a bottle of tongue oil in her life.
17:50What she owned was the sense to treat two pieces of wood differently because they lived two different lives,
17:57and that is the only part of this you really have to carry out of the room.
18:00Tell me in the comments what finish is on your counters right now, and whether you knew which one it
18:07was,
18:07because a great many people have no idea what the last owner put on there.
18:12And if you are new here, tell me what your kitchen counters are made of as well, wood or stone
18:18or laminate,
18:19because what I would do about yours depends entirely on that.
18:23Next time I want to go to the other end of the house and see to the handles.
18:27An axe, a scythe, a hammer that has gone loose in the head, because a handle is wood too,
18:33and it dies of the same thing, and I owe you that edge besides.
18:37A board you can lift wants oil, a top you cannot lift wants ceiling.
18:43The people who built this country with their hands knew that, and we are only just starting to remember it.