Experience with single-beveled knives?

I was wonder who has experience with single-bevel knives, in particular yanagiba's. And what those experiences are.

Do you expect steering (rotation of the knife)? And at what side of the knife does the single bevel have to be? What happens when you have the bevel at the wrong side? Does the knife force itself out off the food then? And if the bevel is at the correct side, doesn't it force itself more deeply into the food? If not, do you have to use it from doing this and make straight cuts?

And what types of food/what types of cuts is a single-bevel knife most suited for? And why?

And any other interesting observations?

Single bevel knives have the wide bevel on the right hand side for right hand users. They do steer so they are knives you have to learn to control. A right handed yanagi will tend to steer towards your left hand. Part of the learning curve with these knives are about controling the steering. If a righty uses a lefty knife I suspect it to be impossible to control the cut. I´m unsure if this is part of what you are asking?
I use a kiritsuke as an usuba i.e. I use it for making really fine julienne of vegetables. I rarely uses this knive for meat as the blade is really tall and I find it harder to control the cut than with one of my yanagis. I use yanagi/sakimaru takobeki for cutting protein no taller than 4-5 cm. They really excell at cutting stake, poltry breast and of course any raw fish sushi or sashimi style If I am to cut thinner (uniform) slices of taller protein, I use a sujihiki. It annoy me if the slices are not uniform because of lack of skill, and cutting tall meats really thinly is challanging with a single bevel knife. But I think it is a matter of practice so one has to spend time learning to use these knives. Jon B. - and the Japanese knife society via Jon - has some good videos showing proper tecnique.
In all honesty I think I find the honesuki and deba to be the knives where the single bevel versions made the greatest difference in use. These knives I love to use for their looks as well as their performance. The yanagi and takobeki really only are best for their intended purposes of cutting raw fish IMO. But they look dead sexy and I like the challange of learning to use them.
I hope this was usefull.
- Kim

Thanks. I guess what I'd also like to know is: if they steer, why not use a knife that doesn't steer? Seems much easier to control to me. In other words: what is the advantage of steering (in the right direction)? And on what foods is this an advantage and on what foods not.

Other information very welcome, too!

The steering is not the advantage, the advantage is a super thin blade to make super thin cuts. The steering is something you have to learn to deal with in order to use the knife properly.

As to which foods, that is why these knives have specific uses--cut raw fish slices, portion raw fish, cut super thin pieces of veggies.

If you watch the nhk program on YouTube about Japanese knives they claim kataba knives do not damage on the flat ground side. Take a nice fillet of salmon and portion it with a double bevel knife, bothsides of the fish you just cut wiill be depressed by the downward force of the cut. Supposedly with a kataba the flat ground side of the knife leaves the product you are cutting virtually unmolested

For those who have a Santoku and a usuba, is there a big difference making thin slices of onion/peppers/carrots etc?

single bevel knives excel at the tasks they are designed for and suck at everything else. usuba is designed to do katsuramuki, sengiri, mukimono, etc. For general kitchen veggie tasks, double bevel knives will almost always be better.

JBroida said:

single bevel knives excel at the tasks they are designed for and suck at everything else. usuba is designed to do katsuramuki, sengiri, mukimono, etc. For general kitchen veggie tasks, double bevel knives will almost always be better.

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lus1:

If you have not used a single bevel for what it is designed to do, you should make it a priority to try. even very hefty yanagis fall through the food with ease, but if you miss treat it and try to dice onions with it it will either chip the edge or your dice will suck.

Now jon can tell you that I got a gesshin hide specifically designed and made for a task that does not regularly call for a kiritsuke. I had the knife made taller with a nice curve toward the front with a tall bevel, and i use this knife to cut a **** load of cooked and cooled protien. some people will say that the knife and the way I'm using it is wrong, but I have used a lot of knives (really nice knives) for this relatively simple and inaccurate task, and after 120# a day, i'll tell you that my hand feels much less fatigued and the cuts are crisper and more accurate using my custom kiritsuke, and the knife is in fine shape after all that work and doesn't need daily sharpening.

cheflivengood said:

lus1:

If you have not used a single bevel for what it is designed to do, you should make it a priority to try. even very hefty yanagis fall through the food with ease, but if you miss treat it and try to dice onions with it it will either chip the edge or your dice will suck.

Now jon can tell you that I got a gesshin hide specifically designed and made for a task that does not regularly call for a kiritsuke. I had the knife made taller with a nice curve toward the front with a tall bevel, and i use this knife to cut a **** load of cooked and cooled protien. some people will say that the knife and the way I'm using it is wrong, but I have used a lot of knives (really nice knives) for this relatively simple and inaccurate task, and after 120# a day, i'll tell you that my hand feels much less fatigued and the cuts are crisper and more accurate using my custom kiritsuke, and the knife is in fine shape after all that work and doesn't need daily sharpening.

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This i really like to hear. I want a yanagi but i don't cut fish at all so i want it a slicer so maybe i should just research what tweaks to make so it suits the task .

chinacats said:

The steering is not the advantage, the advantage is a super thin blade to make super thin cuts. The steering is something you have to learn to deal with in order to use the knife properly.

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I don't understand this, Jim (that's correct, isn't it?). The yanagiba's I've seen are not particularly then – definitely not lasers. Or do you mean thin in another way?

JBroida said:

single bevel knives excel at the tasks they are designed for and suck at everything else. usuba is designed to do katsuramuki, sengiri, mukimono, etc. For general kitchen veggie tasks, double bevel knives will almost always be better.

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After seeing videos of katsuramuki and sengiri (I didn't know what they were) I get the point. Those are very specialized tasks and I can imagine usuba's are proper knives for that.

Is my impression then wrong, Jon, that traditionally the Japanese only used single-bevel knives or at least very asymmetrical knives?

And why are there so many yanagiba's around? What is the task they are designed for?

i would not say it is correct that japanese people are using mostly single bevel knives, but most japanese knives are asymmetrical by nature, so that part is probably true.

Yanagiba is a fish slicing knife, and that is a big part of japanese cuisine. They are popular here because of how different they are from what we normally see, but i think deba is actually much more popular.

Thanks again, Jon. What is the advantage (or at least perceived by many Japanese) of using a sinle-beveled knife for slicing fish?

unless you work in a japanese kitchen or do a ton of fish work, single bevs are pretty useless.

One would assume maintenance is easier in the sense that maintaining a wide bevel gyuto is easier.

the way single bevel knives interact with foods is very different. There is a lot of control over where and how pressure is applied to food. Also, the overall inclusive angles tend to be on the more acute side. They tend to cause less damage and provide better food release and cut control when used properly.

Thanks again guys. As a former scientist I’m not only interested which knife works for which purpose, but also why. For katsuramuki and sengiri I understand it, since it’s pretty obvious.

But what I don’t understand yet is why a yanagiba or deba excels at slicing fish, but not other things. Why do they work better on fish than double-beveled knives?

Reading back I’ve read a couple of arguments:

spoiledbroth said:

One would assume maintenance is easier in the sense that maintaining a wide bevel gyuto is easier.

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I agree with this. But it also applies to double-beveled wide bevel knives. And it doesn’t explain why single bevel knives may cut better in fish.

spoiledbroth said:

If you watch the nhk program on YouTube about Japanese knives they claim kataba knives do not damage on the flat ground side. Take a nice fillet of salmon and portion it with a double bevel knife, both sides of the fish you just cut will be depressed by the downward force of the cut. Supposedly with a kataba the flat ground side of the knife leaves the product you are cutting virtually unmolested

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That sounds like a good argument for thicker knives! But does this also hold for laser-type blades that are already very thin?

JBroida said:

the way single bevel knives interact with foods is very different. There is a lot of control over where and how pressure is applied to food. Also, the overall inclusive angles tend to be on the more acute side. They tend to cause less damage and provide better food release and cut control when used properly.

Click to expand...

This argument seems partly similar to the one of Spoiledbroth. But does your second point really hold (that they have more acute inclusive angles)? I’ve seen many double-beveled knife that are ground 12 degrees or less and they work really fine.

In short: if anyone has more arguments why a single-beveled knife works better for slicing fish, I’d be really interested!

its not just fish... its most pliable food items without hard bits (crust, bones, etc). And in terms of inclusive angles, most double bevel knives you will see are sharpened somewhere around 20 degrees inclusive or higher. Some single bevel knives can be as low as 8 degrees inclusive.