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the littlest prince posted:It's one thing if you're a pro chef and/or you do this every day and what not, but my experience as a fairly new, and somewhat infrequent (like, 3 times a week on average), cook matches this: This was my initial experience as a home cook when I first experienced halfway decent knives, but I'm pretty sure it's due to terrible habits I picked up while using dull, lovely knives that I could basically juggle with without so much as a papercut. e: I'm not saying that dull knives are safer, they aren't.
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Feb 25, 2015 02:50
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Yeah I think we're all on the same page. The question was "I'm an occasional home cool going from lovely beater knives to a sharp one, am I going to cut my hand off?" and we home cooks who've made that same upgrade are saying "you'll need to be more thoughtful to avoid nicks now." The effect did go away as I got used to my new knives, and I agree you'd have to be loving up pretty badly to do any real damage.
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Feb 25, 2015 02:58
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i like nice words
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Anne Whateley posted:Yeah I think we're all on the same page. The question was "I'm an occasional home cool going from lovely beater knives to a sharp one, am I going to cut my hand off?" and we home cooks who've made that same upgrade are saying "you'll need to be more thoughtful to avoid nicks now." yeah, you learn just how shittily you handle knives when you make the upgrade. It doesn't take long to learn. blood for the knife god and all that
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Feb 25, 2015 03:17
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This is weird to me because I cook four, maybe five nights a week and I never had problems with cutting myself whether using lovely dull knives or ethereally sharp j-knives. 
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Feb 25, 2015 04:17
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AVeryLargeRadish posted:This is weird to me because I cook four, maybe five nights a week and I never had problems with cutting myself whether using lovely dull knives or ethereally sharp j-knives. Hey man some of us just picked up some dumb habit somewhere and only learned the error of our ways with a sacrifice to the knife gods (peace be upon them). I had to retrain myself when my parents got themselves some Wusthofs and took them regularly to a guy who sharpened knives out of a trailer in the parking lot of a hardware store. I think I got complacent as a dumb kid with a collection of unmaintained pocket knives and a penchant for whittling on the first piece of lovely waterlogged wood I came across on a camping trip.
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Feb 25, 2015 04:41
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The only knives in my parents' house were an ancient set of Henckels that hadn't been sharpened or even straightened for literally my entire life, with half the tips missing from prying apart frozen hot dogs. When I moved out, I got a couple of steak knives and a $5 paring knife. Later I got a chef's knife for Christmas, but it was a no-name brand, ballpark $20, and I didn't straighten it for ~5 years because I had no rod. I wasn't doing anything unsafe when I was actively using a knife, but I wasn't like aware of it lying in wait on the counter 24/7. When I got my Wusthofs, I learned pretty quickly (I also cook 5+ nights a week), just wish I had skipped that learning process.
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Feb 25, 2015 07:58
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I probably should have mentioned in my earlier post that I'm absolutely a home cook who struggles with dicing onions and owns and sometimes uses a slap-chop. I had just posted it to say that it's not a given that an amateur's going to end up with a bunch of cuts if the knife is handled with a certain amount of care and an understanding that they will handle a bit differently and don't need the same sort of effort to use. So yeah, all on the same page. Get a fancy knife, love a fancy knife, be careful with all your knives but especially a fancy knife if you're switching from dull ones. 
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Feb 25, 2015 16:46
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bombhand posted:I probably should have mentioned in my earlier post that I'm absolutely a home cook who struggles with dicing onions and owns and sometimes uses a slap-chop. Nothing wrong with a slap chop if you want to make quick work of garlic or nuts. ColHannibal fucked around with this message at 02:50 on Feb 26, 2015 |
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Feb 26, 2015 02:44
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ColHannibal posted:Nothing wrong with a slap chop if you want to make quick work of an escort
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Feb 26, 2015 02:54
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ColHannibal posted:Nothing wrong with a slap chop if you want to make quick work of garlic or nuts. Use the side of your knife, plebe.
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Feb 26, 2015 02:57
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ColHannibal posted:Nothing wrong with a slap chop if you want to make quick work of garlic or nuts. 
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Feb 28, 2015 00:51
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I'm looking to buy a knife set. My roommate has this set: http://www.amazon.com/Zwilling-Cronidur-Block-Set-8-Piece/dp/B005TLKSWA and I love them but he is moving out soon and is taking his rockin' knives with him. Most of the German knives I've used are way too bulky but these knives are pretty light and fit my hand really well. I'm not really trying to spend $800, any recommendations for something similar and easier on the wallet?
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Feb 28, 2015 14:48
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This should really be the fist line of the op with "BUY ME IF YOU JUST NEED GOOD KNIVES" in neon around it. Get this: http://www.chefknivestogo.com/tojiro3pcset.html
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Feb 28, 2015 15:01
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Gangerous posted:I'm looking to buy a knife set. My roommate has this set: http://www.amazon.com/Zwilling-Cronidur-Block-Set-8-Piece/dp/B005TLKSWA and I love them but he is moving out soon and is taking his rockin' knives with him. Most of the German knives I've used are way too bulky but these knives are pretty light and fit my hand really well. I'm not really trying to spend $800, any recommendations for something similar and easier on the wallet? Get either the Tojiro set linked above plus a Victorinox Fibrox chef's knife for heavy work or a Victorinox Fibrox chef's knife, paring knife and a ceramic rod plus other Victorinox Fibrox knives based on your needs. The Tojiros will be crazy sharp but require more care to keep sharp, the Victorinox ones are good, cheap knives made of soft german steel and are more forgiving of rough or careless use.
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Feb 28, 2015 15:19
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Thanks for both recommendations. I think the Tojiro's look perfect for my needs. I already have a nice steel and ceramic knife sharpening kit.
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Mar 1, 2015 20:37
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Gangerous posted:Thanks for both recommendations. I think the Tojiro's look perfect for my needs. I already have a nice steel and ceramic knife sharpening kit. You don't want to steel the Tojiros, and be very gentle with the ceramic rod, just barely touch the bevel of the blade as you run it along the rod. The Tojiros use hard enough steel that if you steel them like most western style knives you will just chip up the edge instead of straightening it. To really sharpen knives like these you either want to learn to sharpen them by hand with waterstones or use a system like this which is fairly newbie friendly. You'll probably want to replace the stones that come with it eventually because the ones it comes with are pretty slow to remove metal and pretty low quality in general, I recommend these, they do a great job really quickly and don't need any soaking like many other stones, you only need like three of them for a good progression, I like 320-1k-4k but you could also go with 500-1k-2k-4k or whatever. Feel free to ask any more questions if you have them.
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Mar 1, 2015 21:00
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Don't ceramic rods work by sharpening rather than straightening the edge anyway?
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Mar 2, 2015 01:16
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fart simpson posted:Don't ceramic rods work by sharpening rather than straightening the edge anyway? Yes, which is why they can work at all on very hard steel knives. Japanese knives at the softer end of the range(58-59 HRC) can be straightened to some extent but the Tojiros are 60-61 so they need to be sharpened instead.
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Mar 2, 2015 01:27
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So a steel is good for European knives made of soft steel, which curls up on account of the softness? But Japanese knives are made of steel that doesn't curl as easy so you need a ceramic sharpener for it? Is that the gist of it?
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Mar 2, 2015 02:18
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Present posted:So a steel is good for European knives made of soft steel, which curls up on account of the softness? Japanese knives generally don't curl at all, they just wear.
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Mar 2, 2015 02:40
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Present posted:So a steel is good for European knives made of soft steel, which curls up on account of the softness? Yes, German steel knives are soft enough that the steel mostly deforms under pressure, so if you rub the bevel of the knife against something harder than it like the harder steel used in a honing steel it will slowly bend back to true. Japanese knives are made of much harder and therefore more brittle steel. Under strain the steel will chip and crack to some extent and while there is also deformation it is almost always accompanied by chipping and cracking. Over time the edge will chip away and you will be left with a rough, blunt, hard edge. The only way to repair this is to remove the stressed, cracked and chipped steel via abrasion. A ceramic rod is hard enough to abrade away the harder steel to some extent. A steel honing rod is sometimes softer than the steel of a japanese knife so the knife can end up abrading the steel instead of the other way around. Another thing to note is that most honing rods are textured in some way and actually do remove some material from knives, they still hone but they also sharpen. I have also found that a ceramic rod sharpens my softer steel knives much better than a steel rod, so it's a good investment for anyone who wants sharp knives. An edgepro knockoff or waterstones do a significantly better job though, so I recommend one of those, probably the edgepro knockoff since it's easy to use and there is much less of a learning curve.
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Mar 2, 2015 02:49
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I can bring my Victorinox chef's knife back to reasonably sharp with just a few minutes on my ceramic rod. I don't have any other method of sharpening right now but it works ok.
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Mar 2, 2015 03:01
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Present posted:So a steel is good for European knives made of soft steel, which curls up on account of the softness? The issue afaik is the grooves on most steels; they create microserrations in the edge(can't really see them with the naked eye). That's fine for a softer steel but it will cause a harder steel to chip.
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Mar 2, 2015 03:21
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Moridin920 posted:The issue afaik is the grooves on most steels; they create microserrations in the edge(can't really see them with the naked eye). That's fine for a softer steel but it will cause a harder steel to chip. I've seen my aogami super moritaka (hrc 64-65) shave those grooves clear off of a honing rod. Lol
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Mar 2, 2015 03:30
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AVeryLargeRadish posted:You don't want to steel the Tojiros, and be very gentle with the ceramic rod, just barely touch the bevel of the blade as you run it along the rod. The Tojiros use hard enough steel that if you steel them like most western style knives you will just chip up the edge instead of straightening it. To really sharpen knives like these you either want to learn to sharpen them by hand with waterstones or use a system like this which is fairly newbie friendly. You'll probably want to replace the stones that come with it eventually because the ones it comes with are pretty slow to remove metal and pretty low quality in general, I recommend these, they do a great job really quickly and don't need any soaking like many other stones, you only need like three of them for a good progression, I like 320-1k-4k but you could also go with 500-1k-2k-4k or whatever. Thanks so much! I really appreciate the help. Before I buy the Tojiros, I thought I might mention that I butcher a lot of my own meat, I probably butcher and de-bone 3-5 deer/year and possible a pig or two. How well do you think they would stand up to serious abuse? Would the harder Japanese steel be better or worse than the softer German steel for tasks like butchering. When the Zwilling's I linked above started to loose their edge I could quickly hone them while I was working, will the Japanese steel dull and require me to stop and sharpen them with the wet stones? I'm willing to spend $400-500, so if you know of something that might better suit my needs, link away!
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Mar 3, 2015 03:35
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Gangerous posted:Thanks so much! I really appreciate the help. Before I buy the Tojiros, I thought I might mention that I butcher a lot of my own meat, I probably butcher and de-bone 3-5 deer/year and possible a pig or two. How well do you think they would stand up to serious abuse? Would the harder Japanese steel be better or worse than the softer German steel for tasks like butchering. When the Zwilling's I linked above started to loose their edge I could quickly hone them while I was working, will the Japanese steel dull and require me to stop and sharpen them with the wet stones? I'm willing to spend $400-500, so if you know of something that might better suit my needs, link away!
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Mar 3, 2015 04:18
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Gangerous posted:Thanks so much! I really appreciate the help. Before I buy the Tojiros, I thought I might mention that I butcher a lot of my own meat, I probably butcher and de-bone 3-5 deer/year and possible a pig or two. How well do you think they would stand up to serious abuse? Would the harder Japanese steel be better or worse than the softer German steel for tasks like butchering. When the Zwilling's I linked above started to loose their edge I could quickly hone them while I was working, will the Japanese steel dull and require me to stop and sharpen them with the wet stones? I'm willing to spend $400-500, so if you know of something that might better suit my needs, link away! The knives in that Tojiro set are really meant for vegetables and boneless meat, so yes they will chip against bone. For butchering tasks a softer, more resilient steel is better. The benefits of harder steel are that it can take a much sharper edge than softer steel and that it can hold that edge for much longer especially through soft product like vegetables and boneless meat. I would recommend a dedicated butchering knife like this or this, those are both carbon steel knives so you will need to clean and dry them throughly to prevent rusting. If you prefer stainless steel this Tojiro Western Deba might work, though debas are really meant for large fish or other things with soft or small bones, I know it blows through stuff like poultry but I would probably go with something like a Dexter-Russell Heavy Cleaver or the CCK Bone Chopper linked above for big bones.
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Mar 3, 2015 04:27
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AVeryLargeRadish posted:The knives in that Tojiro set are really meant for vegetables and boneless meat, so yes they will chip against bone. For butchering tasks a softer, more resilient steel is better. The benefits of harder steel are that it can take a much sharper edge than softer steel and that it can hold that edge for much longer especially through soft product like vegetables and boneless meat. No, the Tojiro set I linked will not chip on bone. Don't try and tell someone something about knive you do not own, seriously. I use my Tojiro DP gyuto every day at work, it's gotten a few dents from whacking away at some frozen stuff, but never any chips. It is literally the best set of knives anyone can start out buying.
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Mar 3, 2015 04:33
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Chef De Cuisinart posted:No, the Tojiro set I linked will not chip on bone. Don't try and tell someone something about knive you do not own, seriously. So you whack through stuff like beef, pig and deer bones with the Tojiros and you don't see any chips, even very small ones? Because I've talked to plenty of people who do own the Tojiros and have had them chip on bones, even on chicken bones. Someone can debone stuff just fine with them assuming they use proper technique and don't get the edge sunk into a bone and then twist the knife but I don't assume that level of skill in every random person on the internet.
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Mar 3, 2015 05:03
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AVeryLargeRadish posted:So you whack through stuff like beef, pig and deer bones with the Tojiros and you don't see any chips, even very small ones? I actually broke down an entire buck last month with my 240mm Tojiro DP, and absolutely no chips/dents. Know how to use your knife, just don't go whacking away. I also regularly break down whole chickens and salmon with my DP, like 2-3 times a week, and have never had a chip/dent due to that.
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Mar 3, 2015 05:10
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AVeryLargeRadish posted:don't get the edge sunk into a bone and then twist the knife but I don't assume that level of skill in every random person on the internet. this isn't knife specific
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Mar 3, 2015 05:12
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A Tojiro is at 60 on the hardness scale (iirc) so assuming you don't take the edge down to some super thin single digit degrees it should be fine on most bones.
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Mar 3, 2015 06:26
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Chef De Cuisinart posted:I actually broke down an entire buck last month with my 240mm Tojiro DP, and absolutely no chips/dents. Know how to use your knife, just don't go whacking away. Excellent, thanks. I'm not trying to hack through bones with my knives or use them as a pry bar. But I've found cutting through sinew and and thick muscle for a few hours quickly dulls knives. I don't want to have to stop and take out my wet stones halfway through breaking down a deer. I know I'm not going to chip them or dent them, I simply don't want to be slowed down by dulled knives. I only use a chef knife and a boning knife while I'm butchering so if you think I would be better off buying separate butchering knives I'll do that.
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Mar 3, 2015 15:52
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Next time my mom visits I am going to hide my knives and getting the cheapest most disposable chef + paring knife I can find, caught her chopping into bone with my Tojiro Gyuto  , and she nicked it last time she visited too and said "me abuse the knife... never I don't know what you're talking about".I swear to god, the goddamn Kiwi meat cleaver IS RIGHT THERE ON THE drat MAGNETIC STRIP. deimos fucked around with this message at 16:18 on Mar 3, 2015 |
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Mar 3, 2015 16:16
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deimos posted:the cheapest most disposable chef + paring knife I can find Victorinox fibrox
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Mar 3, 2015 22:28
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CrazyLittle posted:Victorinox fibrox Nono, cheaper, found a $15 set of chef + paring.
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Mar 3, 2015 23:13
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GrAviTy84 posted:I've seen my aogami super moritaka (hrc 64-65) shave those grooves clear off of a honing rod. Lol I just bought a 240mm Moritaka gyuto to try out a carbon steel knife. If it's bad I'll hold you personally responsible by being snarky on the internet.
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Mar 12, 2015 03:57
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I'm assuming I don't need the global branded ceramic rod for our global 10" chef's knife, or the 8" and pairing knife we put on our wedding registry. Is there anything that I should be looking for in a ceramic rod? I'm seeing one for like $25 on amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Messermeister-12-Inch-Ceramic-Knife-Sharpener/dp/B002YK1RAQ/ref=sr_1_1 Compared to like $80 for the global branded one, seems like a no brainer, but wanted to sanity check that there aren't other factors to take into account.
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Mar 13, 2015 16:40
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Chemmy posted:I just bought a 240mm Moritaka gyuto to try out a carbon steel knife. If it's bad I'll hold you personally responsible by being snarky on the internet. Awesome! Let me know how it is. I remember the factory edge being good but I know now I can get a way better edge myself with some work. The cladding steel can be a bit stinky at first, but it should subside with time.
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Mar 13, 2015 18:00
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I'll stay on factory for a while, but I have an Apex Edgepro so I'll get to work on it eventually.
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Mar 13, 2015 18:01
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