Help with a honesuki/garasuki

Hi guys. I am looking around for a honesuki/garasuki for a pro very busy kitchen. main purpose for the knife wil be just for poultry and cleaning and trimming of lamb racks and beef tenderloins.

I understand garasuki is a thicker and longer knife which is what I prefer because most of the honesuki I found is 150mm I would prefer 160mm-170mm.

I will like the steel to be stainless or semi stainless and last resort is carbon. Just don't want my knife to rust that's all. Edge retention, ease of sharpening and asthetic are 3 most important factors for me.

My budget is 250-350 USD.

Thanks
Chris

I have a glastin honesuki which I using it and it works very well. The same company doing a bigger version which I think it s working well also, never try it I just base on the smaller version

Have you looked at this Aritsugu Garasuki from aframes? Steel should fit your criteria and aesthetic is fine by me.

schanop said:

Have you looked at this Aritsugu Garasuki from aframes? Steel should fit your criteria and aesthetic is fine by me.

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I totally forgot about this brand and i love their knives. However the biggest prob is that it comes without a bevel and it takes a lot of work to put an edge on. And I don't have the course stones for it. My most course stone is a 1200.

Kristoff said:

Hi guys. I am looking around for a honesuki/garasuki for a pro very busy kitchen. main purpose for the knife wil be just for poultry and cleaning and trimming of lamb racks and beef tenderloins.

I understand garasuki is a thicker and longer knife which is what I prefer because most of the honesuki I found is 150mm I would prefer 160mm-170mm.

I will like the steel to be stainless or semi stainless and last resort is carbon. Just don't want my knife to rust that's all. Edge retention, ease of sharpening and asthetic are 3 most important factors for me.

My budget is 250-350 USD.

Thanks
Chris

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I think the cleaning and trimming part is mutually exclusive to the chicken aspect if you're planning on going through bones. I've had the best luck frenching and cleaning silver skin by way of petty's. Honesuki/garasuki are not well suited to those tasks IMO.

The semi stainless from JCK for about $70 is an excellent knife. The steel is SLD, hold very good edge and is really tough (I did things with mine that honesuki is not intended for and it survived). The cutting edge has a little more belly than honesuki normally do and I find it very helpful - in particular if I do some quick dicing after deboning.

If you want a more traditional knife look at Gesshin Ginga - Jon has both carbon and stainless version. I personally would get a WA handled honesuki rather than western as the wesrn honesuki knives are rather butt-heavy (I had Fujiwara FKM in the past).

As already said - petty in 150 - 180 size will do better job on removing silver skin than a honesuki, but it can be done with a honesuki too (in particular if the edge has little more belly).

Would you go through bones with it? I abuse my tojiro dp honesuki like that and it survives

brainsausage said:

I think the cleaning and trimming part is mutually exclusive to the chicken aspect if you're planning on going through bones. I've had the best luck frenching and cleaning silver skin by way of petty's. Honesuki/garasuki are not well suited to those tasks IMO.

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Agreed 100%

Thanks a lot for the opinions. I agree with using a petty for trimming silver skin as that's what I use too but never used my petty with French trimming. I use a traditional western boning knife as it's cheap and I would feel pain abusing my Japanese knives lol. the reason I want a stainless 180mm rather than 150mm is because I prep a lot of marrons,quail and lamb racks Even tho I think 150mm is ideal length.

Now I am deciding between the gessin and aritsugu. As I have a couple of items already in cart at JKI so most likely the
Gessin.

Thanks a lot for all the replies!

Chris

Jon from JKI used to have semi-stainless honesuki and garasuki in both 150 and 180mm (similar to those from JCK). I do not seem to find these on his webpage, but he has a lot of stuff that is not directly available online - drop him an email, he usually answers quickly.

Toufas - I did go through thinner bones (chicken ribs) and the knife had quite some contact with bones when I was deboning whole deer (I am not too experienced there so I often cut in the wrong direction). Since the knife is relatively lightweight (115g) it does not really replace a cleaver well.

Matus said:

The semi stainless from JCK for about $70 is an excellent knife. The steel is SLD, hold very good edge and is really tough (I did things with mine that honesuki is not intended for and it survived). The cutting edge has a little more belly than honesuki normally do and I find it very helpful - in particular if I do some quick dicing after deboning.

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I guess, Matus, it's the Hiromoto you're referring to?

Benuser said:

I guess, Matus, it's the Hiromoto you're referring to?

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I had to check - and indeed, it is a Hiromoto, thanks The knives Jon used to have on his webpage looked very similar, but Jon had much larger selection of all possible deboning knives.

I think Mr Nagao did an excellent job here with SLD.

Thanks for the recommendation matus. I will check out the honesuki you mentioned. Appreciate the heads up. The price is very reasonable after finding out its from master nagao.

Chris

Just out of personal interest (since I'm considering a honesuki myself): does anyone have experience with the Carbonext honesuki, and possibly how it compares to the Hiromoto?

I really like my Carbonext gyuto, especially because of its ease of sharpening; waaaay better than VG-10 in that regard, so I've already ruled out the different VG-10 models. As a bonus it doesn't really chip either. But how does the Hiromoto / SLD steel compare?

SLD is a bit a special case. Technically no real stainless, but I haven't noticed any stain. Quite coarsely grained, which gives a rather aggressive edge at any angle. I like to keep it like that, sharpen up to 2k and use a 3k only for the very last deburring. Don't expect any of the difficulties you may encounter with VG-10.

Maybe I am missing something, but a honesuki is meant for breaking down and deboning poultry. To do trimming and frenching wouldn't a hankotsu be a better choice? The tip of the knife has the cutting edge, while the back is squared off, a natural scrapper.

If you like the western boning knife style. Tojorio makes one with their steel.

Jay

jaybett said:

Maybe I am missing something, but a honesuki is meant for breaking down and deboning poultry. To do trimming and frenching wouldn't a hankotsu be a better choice? The tip of the knife has the cutting edge, while the back is squared off, a natural scrapper.

If you like the western boning knife style. Tojorio makes one with their steel.

Jay

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You are right. A hankotsu is the most similar to a western boning knife in terms of use for trenching and trimming. Hope I am right with that lol. The reason i didn't mention a hankotsu is that I don't want to buy a specific knife for one job. That's why I am glad the other posters mentions about using a petty which is most likely what I will do in the future. Either that or just a traditional western boning and abuse it while not needing to care lol.


Chris

Hankotsu isn't really shaped both blade or handle for fine work. It's really designed for hanging butchery and doing powerful cuts. A thin, pointy petty is way more versatile for doing pecise work like cleaning, frenching and seam butchery. I prefer them over western boning knives by far.

brainsausage said:

Hankotsu isn't really shaped both blade or handle for fine work. It's really designed for hanging butchery and doing powerful cuts. A thin, pointy petty is way more versatile for doing pecise work like cleaning, frenching and seam butchery. I prefer them over western boning knives by far.

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My impression that a hankotsu is all about the tip of the knife, where it begins to sweep up, and getting that tip into tight places. The tip on my hankotsu has been as thin or thinner then some of my pettys. If a person wants more control, there are hankotsu with wa handles.

Jay

I have decided on the aritsugu goginko garasuki.

Thanks everyone for all the recommendations, insights and knowledge!

Kristoff said:

I have decided on the aritsugu goginko garasuki.

Thanks everyone for all the recommendations, insights and knowledge!

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Bringing this back from the dead. I ended up with one too. U like yours? How has gokinko performed?