The manuscript is currently at 101, 152 words. It is still not over. Very tired now. Brain is also tired.
Coincidentally Kid 2 is finishing her project, so right now our mother-daughters interaction consists of whining to each other through text, “Why won’t it end?” and then staring at it blankly because there isn’t enough brain power left to make sentences.
Must finish…
I have a kind of off-the wall question for you today. I have an old wooden cutting board. I’ve had it for years, and I’m used to it. Long story short, someone squeezed some Heinz 57 steak sauce onto the board and then put it in the sink. Normally, I’d wash it right away, but somehow I didn’t notice it was there until this morning. It sat overnight.
Now the cutting board has a bright yellow stain on it. Like bright yellow. I can’t get it out. I tried Bar Keeper’s friend. I tried lemon. I tried baking soda, vinegar, and a combination of both. I can’t put it into the dishwasher as it might fall apart.
Any ideas? I know it’s just a cheap cutting board, but I like it and want to keep it.
peroxide then bleach is what I’d try
Why don’t you flip it and use the other side?
Or as the others suggested sand it and massage olive oil into the wood.
You might try a poultice; they are great for pulling red wine stains from marble. Just make a paste of baking soda and water and apply a nice thick blob to the stain. Cover with a damp paper towel. Let it sit for 24 hours; re-dampen the paper towel with a half spoonful or so of water as needed if it starts to dry out. Then remove everything and wash with soap.
I ????Innkeeper. Thank you for creating such amazing work. I don’t have a solution to fix the stain other than sanding/refinishing. Hope advice above works.
don’t fight the stain. my mom w p uld have said. gives it character. or use bleach
Hit it with boiling water, salt the board, and s rub with the cut side of half a lemon. Rinse with boiling water. Or, if it’s thick enough, a lumber yard might be able to run it through a mechanical plane. Or, look at the stain as a trophy for having wonderful meals with family and friends.
cover the entire thing in A-1, let it soak, and learn to love yellow 😉
Thanks for Ruby Fever, you made my vacation perfect!!!
You could try coke. Coca-cola is the best. It’s a mix of the bubbles, the pH and some of the contents. Also, if you can get it, just plain tomato ketchup (no spices or anything).
You’d want to be cautious with both because they might stain it but generally they’re good at cleaning stains.
Cover the whole thing in steak sauce for the night and celebrate having a bright yellow board? ????
acid alcohol is my go-to for getting rid of stains. It worked in the lab to remove extra dye in that cool red and blue double stain (H&E?) and it works great in the kitchen too. plain old ethanol, 70% ( hand sanitizer!) take a 1/4 c and then add a tablespoon of white vinegar. apply to stain, let it sit a bit, rub a bit, and rinse off. if it doesn’t come all the way clean, try full-strength peroxide with the same amount of vinegar, it is a stronger oxidizer with the vinegar. last ditch is the sand paper, for me.
Mine is not that old but I use bleach ( weakened with water) n let it stay. then will soak it in water n let it dry
Take all the rest you need, please. That’s more important than any self-imposed limits.
Best of luck with the cutting board; I’m clueless. (And would likely use it, anyways.)
Cover the rest of the board in sauce, let sit in the sink over night. Start a new trend with bright yellow wooden cutting board.
I would try putting it into the sun for a couple of hours. that is hoe I used to get rid of tomato stains in my childrens clothes.
I can suggest paint thinners as an option before sanding.
Well, you do sculpture a beautiful full-bodied Innkeeper this time – brilliant, charming and powerful. Similar to Lady Wexyn herself, isn’t it?
Please, allow her to come fully to life. And please, please don’t set her on a diet!
On a more serious note – I respect and appreciate you and your work, HA. Your abilities to cut and polish your writing to brilliance, and to persevere through challenging conditions. And I trust your decisions on what is best for you yourself, SotH, and future books. Hugs and support from me to you.
May work and it may not. When my family was building our log home, we bleached the logs. You just wet a cloth with bleach and scrub the wood surface. Let it sit and the wood (stain) should lighten over a few days. Or that is the theory.
Take the board outside, cover the stain with bleach, let dry then soak in hot soapy water for 15 vminutes, then rinse thoroughly then dry. (cooked professionally for 24 years)
My only possible solution is putting it outside in the sunshine for a few hours and see if that bleaches out the stain. Works with curry and tomato stains in plastic tupperware, no clue if it works on wood as well tho. At least if it doesn’t work, it won’t do any damage.
This feels like a naive question, but is there anything wrong with just continuing to use it, stained or not, if you like it that much? The stain doesn’t impair its function, right? I get that the stain isn’t pretty, but so long as it’s clean and there’s no risk of bacteria, why not just use it? It’s not like it’s a business suit jacket or a white guest bed bedspread. I’ve had stuff like white washcloths that got badly stained, and they gradually faded to their original color with repeated use and washings.
That said, I’m guessing the yellow stain is caused by turmeric. I would try an alcohol to pull the moisture/stain out of the wood the same way I do with my hands to pull red dance dye out of skin. Wood is kinda like skin and plant textiles since stains can sink below surface. Then scrub. Repeat a couple times as needed.
This sort of remind me of my first meeting with Kate and all the good advice for removing nasty smelly puke from her boots…
The boots was ruind, by the way.
Have you tried lemon and sea salt? Also, treat the cutting board with food grade mineral oil. if all else fails you can sand it out.
Try sanding the whole affected side of the board to keep it even and restain it a matching coloured stain.
This whole discussion has made me rethink my desire for butcher block counter tops. I’m too messy (and lazy) to have counter tops that need that much attention if (when) I spill something and it stains…
I don’t know if I said it, but thanks for the extra episode! And really for all of Innkeeper!
I watched Gordon Ramsay do this. Flip it over.???? Sorry couldn’t resist. My husband lightly sanded mine, stained and resealed. Looks beautiful. Its 37 years old. I use it almost every day. Good luck.
My wooden cutting board chances colour almost daily. Some time it’s green of herbs, sometimes yellow of tumeric or red of tomatoes.
Don’t worry. Just use it. The colour will fade by time.
Real Simple happened to tweet about this this morning. They said that lemon and salt may be able to remove stains.
If you don’t come up with a way to get the stain out, what about staining it with something darker so it’s not so eye-popping (or splotches of other bright colors so it’s artsy) and just have a different color cutting board?
Possible a light sanding with a fine grit sand paper? Then a scrub with salt and lemons? Followed by a coat of food grade oil sealer for cutting boards?
I’m late to this so if someone has already said this sorry. ????
Make sure it’s really rinsed well, and try some bleach on it. Comet, or liquid bleach.
Turn it over and use the other side.
The only things I’ve heard of with tomatoe based stains would be adding peroxide, putting it into the sun, a neutral oil or shaving cream. Not sure that will take it put of wood though.
Hang in there, good luck!
I was going to say if nothing else works, then sand the board – and reseal it.. should be good as new!
Chlorine bleach takes out most organic stains. The problem is, how far has it sunk into the wood? Good luck
Please try hydrogen peroxide. Read this hack and use it on all my cutting boards, cheaper than rubbing alcohol. An the nice bubbly fix is cool. LOL
Sand it off. Get several pieces of sand paper that range from coarse to fine and sand it off. Myself, I would ignore the stain and just use it. Good luck! Mary Kate
Kosher salt rubbed in with 1/2 lemon
This may not feel like it’s helping, but we’ve had a wooden cutting board for years, and stains (from mustard, strawberries, etc.) just seem to … fade away with time. If you’re not in a terrible hurry, you could maybe just wait it out!
You can always try staining over the stain. Minwax makes some nice stains.
Don’t overthink it. The stain will out as do many things over time.
Mm… if nothing else works, learn to love the yellow?
Try a light sanding with fine grit sandpaper. Be sure to oil with a little mineral oil after cleaning.
did anyone suggest that you cover the rest of the board in the sauce and leave it in the sink again overnight, so it will all be bright yellow? just a thought.
Many times over ????, I don’t want to start team #MellowYellow, but I could hehe.
It’s clean. It may be unsightly, but the stain is unlikely to taint your food. Why not just call it a battle scar and keep on chopping.
The dishwasher won’t help anyway. Forget that. If you’re really desperate, you could try planing it down.
I’d just sand off the top layer and through on some oil to recondition it.
Sand it or plane it (if it’s super deep), then re-treat it with a food-grade oil?
If it doesn’t work out, Etsy has some lovely ones. A friend of mine made a gorgeous one with purple heart wood and something else
The same thing happened to me. Your stain will fade with time. You just need to be patient.
You could also try sanding it, but it might not work because the stain is too deep.
If a cleaning solution doesn’t present itself, a cutting board could be sanded down and refinished. An orbital sander should make short work of removing the stain and then a food-grade mineral oil to refinish it.
I worked for a butcher and we cleaned the wooden butcher block tables with bleach all the time.