Wedging through giant carrots?

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stopbarking

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All my knives do it. I want it to stop. I cut a lot of mirepoix and my workhorses all glide through everything perfectly except through giant carrots. I can fine brunoise them just fine after the wedged cut but despite the fact that it might actually be beneficial to a stock to have more surface area on the cut, I want my knives to stop wedging. For discussion I'll offer up my favorite knives, a Yoshikane SKD 240 gyuto and a Martell 240 gyuto. Ive thinned the the SKD to where I'd consider it almost perfect. It's my favorite fish portioning knife and with one forward motion it will delicately cut big grouper or halibut filets so I can pick them up off of my board cleanly. The Martell typically requires a small push cut and then finishes clean with one easy pull cut.

You guys have a knife that will slice 2" carrots cleanly with one motion? If so what is it and how do you form the bevels?
 
For me when it comes to large carrots, sweet potato etc, the ol' cck1303 works best! And i have a few good knives....
 
I've been thinking about a cleaver, but I've got a nakiri that slices through sweet potato and butternut like butter and still wedges carrots. I can't get that thing to where it will handle carrots like this, though. I can cut thin slices from a carrot width ways and then lay them down into a stack to julienne, but if i"m cutting a 3" piece off of a long thick carrot, it still wedges. Not sure why I can slice them thin just fine but not thick cut them cleanly.
 
Yep, CCK 1303 for me too. You can thin the sides down like crazy on that thing.
 
I can't imagine a CCK1303 slicing through a 2 inch thick hard giant carrot in one smooth motion. Unless you slam it down. ^_^
I just accept wedging as part of life when it comes to a thick carrot. However, the thin flat geometry of the thin cleaver is probably best. There's a reason it's called wedging. Avoid the wedge shaped knife.


Stopbarking - it's easy to cut thin because the thinner slice of carrot is flexible and bends away fom your knife. There is no 'give' to the carrot on a thick cut. Thus the wedging.
 
my tanaka r2 damascus 240 western goes through carrots pretty great but its super super thin. its thinner then lasers like kono hd .
 
Thin is important. Water content is also important. If your carrots are super hydrated, almost any knife will crack them. If you let them lose just a little water, they crack a lot less.
 
Carrots are going to crack a little. It's no big deal. Also, they are cheap so you can just take a few mm off the end and go on. One of the problems is that while the tip and end are on the board, usually there is a gap where the middle is off, so that leads to cracking as well. Just don't worry about it.
 
Would using the front half of the blade help (thanks to distal taper)? Apologies if this is obvious.
 
I don't think it does to any large degree, but like I said, I figure carrots wedge, so I might not be the right guy.
 
Tanaka blue#2 petty works good for me. My 240mm FKH was also outrageously thin.
 
Sakai Yusuke thin white steel.A CCK 1303 wt forward push cut goes thu carrots nice too.
 

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