Question for all the deba using pros

This is basically about efficiency vs result, more so with smaller fish.

Generally, I prefer using a deba over a western knife, especially for large fish and while we do get some huge snappers in, I rarely break them down (see: Not my section chef!). Yesterday, one of the other chefs had 30kg of Flathead to fillet/scale/bone/portion etc.., all pretty small, maybe 750g at the most. I gave her a hand after my prep was finished, used my 25cm nogent flexible filleting knife.

But it got me thinking, as much as I would like to use a deba for this, it would probably take me three times as long. What with the extra cuts to be made and the changing of knives for skinning etc. But for the rest of you out there who bang out tonnes of fish prep, what do you use? And, if you use a deba for bulk fish butchery, do you feel it's worth the trade off or are you just as quick either way?

Cheers,
Josh

I am a pro yet use deba only at home . I think the arguement for using one is you can get better,cleaner cuts. I am not sure faster though (at least for novice single bevel user like me). If you watch this video , you may think twice about it
http://eatocracy.cnn.com/2011/02/25/the-fish-butcher/

Double bevel large deba from Takeda is badass.

Just like all single bevels, deba has a specific purpose. You wont use a deba for the entire process of breaking down a fish but cutting the head off and taking the filets out it is the best tool for the task. For portioning most people use a yanagiba. I am no pro either, these are just my thoughts :doublethumbsup:

On sushi bar, I always use deba. On hot line Salmon/Black Cod, only if I'm in the mood to dick off.

That being said, I have begun to think more about the cost of labor vs product. My extra 1-2 hours of over time to be more respectful of the fish and the house is probably worth it. But its holidays, we're all tired, and there's no room for another guy to work even if we had one.

i would use a deba for medium or large round fish. with flathead, i'd use a western style filleting knife or a petty.

the efficiency/result thing is really down to volume. if you've got under a 100kg a week, it's not that much. if you've got 500kg, you'd probably compromise on some result quite happily. what knife you use is whichever works.

i think the guy in the video is probably really fast and experienced but the quality of his work probably isn't like sushi-ya standard exactly. he makes compromises, like a "medium sharp" knife to avoid bones so he can just go all out speed without worrying that he'll nick into bone. the flesh somewhat suffers as a result cos it's probably not as cleanly cut as with a finer grit polished deba. but the obvious tradeoff is speed. he also keeps steeling in between, which i'm not a fan of.

not saying that i'm better (probably not even half as good)

Cost vs labour definitely plays on my mind when I consider using a deba for fish prep. Given that everyone else in the kitchen uses western filleting knives and are happy with the result, I can't imagine the boss being too impressed that I'm taking twice as long to get the job done, especially at this time of year.

If the fish delivery was always there, waiting for us in the morning, I would just come in a bit earlier and get it done before anyone else arrives. In reality, it normally shows up about an hour before lunch service.

Maybe when it quietens down, I'll come in on my days off to f**k about with a deba and take my time.

I processed some 36" stripers my son caught with my then 6" deba and it was too short. I since got an 210mm deba for the larger fish. It's really the way to go for fish.

JKerr, I think we have the same reservations. On the other hand our daily fish delivery is never under a grand, while my overtime pay Is under 20$/hr. Holding back the team is one thing, but I'm still worth less than our bluefin.

Sorry, my post was probably a bit ambiguous. I gathered that you feel it's worth the extra time to care for the product, and I completely agree. Especially seeing as you have a sushi bar where handling is paramount. By the sounds of it, seafood is a fairly large part of your menu too.

We only have about 4 or 5 fish dishes on the menu (of about 60 items I think) so it's not like we're known for our seafood. On top of that the fish is prepared and cooked in such a way you probably wouldn't be able to tell how well it had been handled; steamed, fried then steamed, poached then covered with hot oil/chillies (like a hotpot, work in a Chinese restaurant).

I use a deba/suji combo for all my fish butchering. Most weeks it's about seventy percent of what I do. The trick to doing it efficiently is to Henry Ford it. Do all the deba work you can in a given project, then do all your skinning and portioning. I've wondered if I can do it all with a 270 mioroshi with a sizable dull and double beveled spot at the heel, but what I do now works well. Practice and comfort makes you fast with a deba.

I use a 240 mioroshi for most of my fish breakdown, koba at the heel, head off, filet out, skin off, portion one knife. Also have a 210 mioroshi for smaller fish, and I recently purchased a 180 deba, plan to use on slow days with yanagiba.

I agree with dardeau, I typically take the heads off, and filet, then I belly bone, pin bone all of them, then I skin and portion them all. With a deba/yanagiba you would just change knife at the skinning portion, wouldn't change your time really, but you would need to maintain two knives.

on a day to day basis i have a 180 shig and a 210 shig deba that i use for the removal of the filets, and then a 270 shig mioroshi deba for the skinning, trimming and portioning. or i just use the 270 on fish like salmon or sablefish. althought the 210 is the go to for most fish, unless they are on the small side.

Sack of lemons said:

on a day to day basis i have a 180 shig and a 210 shig deba that i use for the removal of the filets, and then a 270 shig mioroshi deba for the skinning, trimming and portioning. or i just use the 270 on fish like salmon or sablefish. althought the 210 is the go to for most fish, unless they are on the small side.

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Pics of the 270 Shig Mioroshi please!

I work at a japanese restaurant, and to be honest majority of us use Gyuto for fish fabricating. I personally use a 240 gyuto for almost all fish fabrication up to 25# salmon. Some of us have debas, but it seems like most of us are too lazy to keep them sharp for any practical purpose.

i am honestly faster with a deba than a flat fillet knife (from whole uncleaned fish to finished, ready to use in the restaurant pieces)... faster by a noticeable degree with a better result at the end

I use debas in different sizes from 110mm-245mm for all fish butchery. I also am faster at using a deba as I have never used a fillet knife except for a year in culinary school until my professor saw my deba and realized I do better work with it than the boner. The only other utensils I need are tweezers(thanks Jon!), scaler, and sometimes a yanagi.

My filleting approach is to scale, then remove the fillet without entering the gut cavity, then slice either side of the pin bones. For this I have always used a western style fillet knife.

I purchased a 150mm wa deba and decided to trial it for 100 fish. I got to about 50 then received a fillet knife from Phil Wilson. The deba is now in retirement.

The only advantage I can see to using the deba is if you need to cut through the spine as part of your processing technique.

Our approach is basically the same for the flathead; fillet, skin, cut out the pin bones then we cut into smaller pieces again.

I'm all for the deba for larger fish with harder bones where a western knife isn't anymore efficient and will likely struggle with the bones, but for little guys I have to believe the advantage is with the western knife as far as speed goes anyway. Although, I'm more than happy to admit I'm still a novice with a deba and am more than likely ignorant of how to use one to it's fullest.

For Jon and Mametaro: if you were using a deba to fillet a smaller fish with soft or semi soft bones i.e. flathead, trout or salmon as common examples as I'm not too sure of more specific fish in the US, would you still fillet it; head off, back, belly, fillet off, belly, back, fillet off? Or is there a way to do the same job with a deba requiring fewer cuts. As I said, I'm happy to admit my ignorance on the subject, but compared to the western way of simply slicing to the spine then following it along, I can't imagine doing this faster with a deba. Doing it cleaner, for sure. Faster...I certainly couldn't.

Cheers,
Josh

I checked in at a local fish market this morning after thinking about the deba vs fillet knife. It got me wondering about speed vs cleanliness especially after watching some youtube videos of folks breaking down fish with fillet knives. I can certainly see how the fillet knife might be faster for people. I do the breakdown just like you said. Head off, back, belly, so on. The one problem I could see with the fillet knife is a bit of waste, but I think few people hit it on the nail with the labor cost thing. My place is tiny and I do all the fish butchery so I can take my time, but if I worked at the fish market? Thank you Josh for putting this in my head! There are certain fish which require less cuts like a smaller dorade and some mackerels which I believe the deba is best for speed and efficiency wise, but I'm going to give this fillet knife which a fish monger friend at the shop was nice enough to let me borrow a go for a few weeks and report back to you.

That's awesome, Mametaro! Look forward to hearing your thoughts.

Cheers,
Josh

JKerr said:

Our approach is basically the same for the flathead; fillet, skin, cut out the pin bones then we cut into smaller pieces again.

I'm all for the deba for larger fish with harder bones where a western knife isn't anymore efficient and will likely struggle with the bones, but for little guys I have to believe the advantage is with the western knife as far as speed goes anyway. Although, I'm more than happy to admit I'm still a novice with a deba and am more than likely ignorant of how to use one to it's fullest.

For Jon and Mametaro: if you were using a deba to fillet a smaller fish with soft or semi soft bones i.e. flathead, trout or salmon as common examples as I'm not too sure of more specific fish in the US, would you still fillet it; head off, back, belly, fillet off, belly, back, fillet off? Or is there a way to do the same job with a deba requiring fewer cuts. As I said, I'm happy to admit my ignorance on the subject, but compared to the western way of simply slicing to the spine then following it along, I can't imagine doing this faster with a deba. Doing it cleaner, for sure. Faster...I certainly couldn't.

Cheers,
Josh

Click to expand...

Its almost always the same (with the exception or salmon and trout, which are generally filleted with yanagiba excepting the removal of the head)...

-remove scales
-remove head and guts
-clean inside of fish
-with head facing right and tail facing left, start on the belly of the fish... score skin, cut to center bone, check cut
-flip fish over (with tail facing right) and repeat... score skin, cut to center bone, check cut
-Make a small pocket hole near the tail... enough to fit the tip of the deba
-Holding the tail on the right, run the deba to the left, removing the fillet in one stroke
-Begin on second side of fish, starting on the spine... score skin, cut to center bone, check cut
-flip fish over and repeat
-remove last fillet
-remove ribs
-remove pin bones
-cook
-eat

Why use yanagiba for trout and salmon rather than deba?

dmccurtis said:

Why use yanagiba for trout and salmon rather than deba?

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The filleting technique is different and yanagiba is easier... I'll try to take some pictures of a book I have on this when I have some free time

Thanks, I figured as such. I don't do a lot of either salmon or trout, but I can see how deba would be clumsier.

also, salmon and trout bones are softer by far

I used my new Butch Boning knife (which is like a stiff fillet knife) today to break down a 6kg Tassie Trumpeter. I have used a Deba for the last 5 years, I used a similar teqhnique, to usual, and I found it, quick and clean. I like that it just requires a quick touch up on my 8k DMT and its ready, I love my Deba, and enjoy sharpening and polishing it, but at the moment I'm too busy to give it the love it deserves, so the Butch will see me through the busy summer.

JBroida said:

The filleting technique is different and yanagiba is easier... I'll try to take some pictures of a book I have on this when I have some free time

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Personally, I believe that u can fillet most fish with any gyuto or deba, as long as the length of the knife matches the size of the fish. I believe that technique is the most important part, that once you have a technique that you are comfortable with, the types of knives are not the biggest factor. The technique that JBroida is refering to is called sanmai oroshi. Which is a very traditional japanese technique for mainly seabass, sea bream. You can apply the same technique on all fish with similar bone structure, such as salmon, trout, makerel and etc. I personally use a 240-270 gyuto for all fish fabrication at my sushi restaurant.

I've seen some old school sushi man using their yanagiba to fillet salmon, but I've also seen them chiping their tips on fish like sea bream due to the hard bone on them. So using yanagiba as ur go to filleting knife is not suggest.

I only use my yanagi as raw fish slicer, and I get mad everytime when I cut salmon sashimi and a pin bone is accidentally not tweezered out. I hate getting thay accidental click feeling on my yanagi when ever I cut thru a fish bone.

sanmai oroshi is not limited to seabass, seabream, etc. It is the main filleting technique for fish in japan, together with gomai oroshi and daimioroshi. Salmon are traditionally done with yanagiba.

JBroida said:

sanmai oroshi is not limited to seabass, seabream, etc. It is the main filleting technique for fish in japan, together with gomai oroshi and daimioroshi. Salmon are traditionally done with yanagiba.

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I am very familiar with Sanmai Oroshi (3 pc technique) which can be applied to all fish that contains 2 side fillets, so when the process is complete, you will get the 2 fillets and the bone hence 3pcs. and Gomai Oroshi (5 pc technique) which can be used on flat fish such as fluke, flounder, halibut and etc, so when the process is complete you will get 2 top fillet, and 2 bottom fillet and the bone hence 5 pcs.

Jbroida, please educate me on what daimi oroshi is. After 12 years working in sushi industry, I am completely ignorant to that technique u mentioned.

Also I like to differ with you when it comes to Yanagiba is "traditionally" used in filleting salmon. I have 2 reasons to dissagree regarding that.

1. There really was no salmon consumption in Japan till the mid 1980's. And they were not eaten raw there till the mid 1990's. The reason for that is because japan never really import any fish till the 80's, and they didn't believed in raw consumption of none pure salt water fish (salmon which spawns in fresh water) until fairly recent. My grandpa who is 85ish, still rather not eat any salmon raw, even tho almost all salmon used for sushi has gone thru a freezeing process which is intended to kill of all the parasites.

2. I really see absolutely no reason to use a yanagiba instead of a deba or gyuto. If you apply sanmai oroshi technique properly, i fail to see in any of the steps which a yanagi has an advantage over the other two.

However, if you use a yanagiba the same way as a western fillet knife, I can see a slight point. Which is instead of making 3 seperate inserts per fillet (top cut, bottom cut, breaking the bone), you do all 3 steps in one smooth motion/cut, however it's slightly more wasteful.