made: Wood Butter {DIY + Tutorial}

Wood Butter? What am I talking about?

This is what I made and gave as Christmas gifts this year:

Not too long ago, I came across an idea that I thought was pure genius. Of course, it was a pin on Pinterest sharing a recipe for something called Wood Butter...it's a mixture of mineral oil and beeswax that conditions any wood utensils or cutting boards you have.

After mixing up a batch, I was excited to try it out. I applied a layer using a napkin and couldn't believe how terrible my cutting boards looked before.

To make the wood butter, I ordered beeswax pellets from Amazon. Initially, I purchased beeswax from Hobby Lobby, but called the company and determined that it was not safe to be ingested, so I had to return it and found cosmetic grade beeswax on Amazon.

I found Mineral Oil both in Target + Walmart for about $1.50 per bottle, in the pharmacy area. I didn't know that it's a laxative....but it is significantly less expensive than the Mineral Oil made for wood that you buy at home stores, but is the same...

For one pound of beeswax I needed {I think} 4 bottles of Mineral Oil.

I made four batches, each made 24 ounces of wood butter. {In the end, I made 12 4 ounce jars, and 6 8 ounce jars.}

To make the wood butter, boil water in a large pan. Carefully place a glass measuring cup into the water. Add 4 ounces of beeswax pellets into a measuring cup + patiently wait until it melts. Stir occasionally. Once the beeswax pellets are all melted, add 16 ounces of warmed mineral oil into the melted beeswax. The mineral oil gets globby as it's added to the beeswax, in my experience, the warmer the mineral oil the easier it was to stir into the beeswax. Once the mineral oil is well combined into the beeswax, carefully {with a potholder} remove the liquid wood butter from the boiling water. Carefully pour into glass canning jars. Allow to cool before covering with the lid.

Here is the melted beeswax after about 10-15 minutes in the boiling water: