Australia pass around for workhorse gyuto

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chefcomesback

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Hi everyone,
I have decided to do a small pass around of the workhorse gyuto I made for myself within Australia,
It is forged from 52100, 62hrc , 280mm at the edge . I had this knife at the Sydney show with me as a tester and I have received few customs in same grind after people cutting with it , I am quite pleased with its performance and i will not sell it I have to say it upfront
ImageUploadedByKitchen Knife Forum1484226356.969459.jpg

It is a big knife ,57mm tall , weighs 300grams , if you don't have the board space or if you are intimidated by knives 250+ this may not be for you . I am not going to limit this to pro or home chefs , my only condition is to be that you are an active member of the forum residing in down under and I would like to keep the number less than 10 people
Use the knife for a week , pass it onto next person .
I have been using the knife in pro environment for 6 months and I haven't had to put it to anything coarser than 1000,sharpened few times , I doubt it will need sharpening maybe a strop , only sharpen if you know what you are doing . It will come freshly sharpened from me anyway , I has good feedback from a senior kkf member that it sharpened just like white 2 if you are wondering
Let me know who is interested
 
Great offer Mert! I'm only a home cook - wouldn't use the word chef at all. Would love to give it a try but only if you don't get the numbers. There are many more Aussies that could benefit from having it in their kitchens ahead of me.
Must say, it looks as though it has an impressively flat profile - sweet.
 
I am not interested! Just make me mine [emoji23]
 
It is a monster :shocked3: Mert, from recollection at the Sydney knife show. Too big for my little home :wink:
 
You know I'm in Mert 😀😀😀😀😀
 
Generous offer, Mert. I'm no chef- a keen home cook only. But I have become very interested in workhorse grinds and food release, so I'd love to have a look at it. Great size, too. I love my Shiro Kamo 270 which is a similar size and profile (but a little lighter).
Having said that, like Marek, I wonder if you may get more benficial feedback from a more experienced chef.
So I'd be very happy to participate but won't be disappointed if more serious chefs take priority.
 
Knife is with ynot1985 , feel free to reply on this thread with your comments and pics who ever is involved in this passaround, Next up will be nemo
 
Firstly, thanks Mert for the opportunity to look at this knife. In reading this, one should note that I am not a professional chef. I have also not had significant experience with a workhorse grind.

I've unfortunately lost the measurements that I made but the knife is long (maybe a touch over 280mm?), tall (maybe 60mm) and heavy. It feels robust in hand. Balance is well forward of my pinch grip. The grind appears very asymmetrical, with mild left sided convexity and very generous right sided convexity (seen from the choil). The spine is thick at the handle but tapers to a very thin tip (as thin or thinner even than many of my thinner knives). The profile is interesting. It's almost (but not completely) flat for the first 70% or so, then curves upward with gradually increasing steepness to form quite a high tip. This results in a profile which makes rock chopping quite easy but without the long almost useless belly that is seen in many mass produced German knives. The blade remains tall throughout most of its length. It is not as thin behind the edge as many knives that I am used to.

The blade is obviously a monosteel 52100 and is finished to somewhere between shiny and mirror. Spine and choil are beautifully rounded. There was an indentation higher up the blade which I thought could have been a result of HRC testing. The handle is octagonal and quite pretty. The ferrule is some sort of black wood and the handle has a beautiful grain which almost seems to move. There are a few tiny crevices in the wood of the handle (Mert did say that he'd made it out of 'whatever was lying around') but the finish on the handle was very smooth. From the Tansu knives that I own, I'm sure that any customs that Mert made with this profile and grind would have perfectly finished handles (my Tansu honyaki deba has my favourite handle of all my knives)

I compared the knife side by side with several of my existing knives over several days (Sakai Jikko Akebono, Shiro Kamo Syousin Suminagashi, Mizuno Hontanren wide bevel, Yoshikane SLD Tsuchime, Tansu Honyaki and Hiromoto Honyaki).

In tall hard foods (e.g.: sweet potato), the passaround knife performs similarly to the other Tansu and the Hiromoto, and maybe the Yoshikane. All of the other knives used to compare felt (and were) thinner behind the edge. Mert suggested using the heel for this sort of produce and this was really useful. The knife goes through the tall hard stuff much easier at the heel. Mert said that this is a combination of the mechanical advantage of using the heel and grind feature in the heel. Having now tried it on several other knives, this seems to work but to a lesser extent, so I guess the grind feature helps. The Tansu honyaki also seems to have improved heel function, but for a shorter length of heel, so maybe this is something that Mert does in other knives too.

The combination of the clever heel and the high tip mean that it's possible to use the knife in a sort of stationary rock chop (like a paper guillotine) using the heel for hard food.

As expected, in shorter hard foods I found that the knife struggled with push cutting but push slicing (and to a lesser extent draw slicing) worked really well.

Food release is better than any knife I have used and the knife performs very well in soft and watery foods like eggplant, zucchini and potato. The Tansu honyaki and Yoshikane come close but even my Mizuno (which I dubbed "zucchini slayer" because of it's good food release) paled in comparison.

It does feel like a monosteel. To me, it almost feels "louder" in it's tactile feedback in food and on the board than a san mai knife.

Onion was interesting. I found horizontal cuts with the mid blade a bit difficult but the tip and even the heel were much easier. Vertical cuts were super easy with the thin tip. the final dice was also very easy.

This knife excels in getting through a lot of produce fast. I shredded whole cabbages and celeries in just a couple of minutes- much faster than usual for me. I think this is allowed by a combination of the height, length and heft of the knife along with the excellent food release.

Reactivity was mild. A mild light grey or off white patina formed over the mid blade (I think after onion).

Edge retention was obviously not an issue in a week and a bit of home use.

I found this knife really interesting. Different areas of the knife are required for different tasks, more so than most knives. But once you learn how to use it properly, it plows through produce very quickly. I thought that it required more careful technique selection (e.g.: push cut vs slice vs rock chop, etc) than I was used to but less finesse when using the technique.

What's are its strengths? I liked the thought that's obviously gone into the design of the knife. It's great at going through a lot of food quickly and has great food release. It's quite versatile. Once you learn how to use it properly, it can be used for most tasks by varying your technique and varying the part of the blade used. It's not very reactive.

What are its weaknesses? It's not a crazy thin behind the edge push cutter.

Who should buy one (assuming you could get get Mert to make you one) ? It's obvious role for me is in a professional environment where it's speed in processing food and its versatility are useful. Anyone who likes great food release will also appreciate this knife.

Who shouldn't buy one? People who want a laser.

I learned a lot from this knife and it made me look at knives, profiles and grinds from a different perspective. And made me realise how much I still have to learn. thanks again for the opportunity, Mert.
 
That's an awesome knife and a great review! Thank you both Mert and Nemo for sharing! Looking forward to reading more about it!
 
Firstly, thanks Mert for the opportunity to look at this knife. In reading this, one should note that I am not a professional chef. I have also not had significant experience with a workhorse grind.

I've unfortunately lost the measurements that I made but the knife is long (maybe a touch over 280mm?), tall (maybe 60mm) and heavy. It feels robust in hand. Balance is well forward of my pinch grip. The grind appears very asymmetrical, with mild left sided convexity and very generous right sided convexity (seen from the choil). The spine is thick at the handle but tapers to a very thin tip (as thin or thinner even than many of my thinner knives). The profile is interesting. It's almost (but not completely) flat for the first 70% or so, then curves upward with gradually increasing steepness to form quite a high tip. This results in a profile which makes rock chopping quite easy but without the long almost useless belly that is seen in many mass produced German knives. The blade remains tall throughout most of its length. It is not as thin behind the edge as many knives that I am used to.

The blade is obviously a monosteel 52100 and is finished to somewhere between shiny and mirror. Spine and choil are beautifully rounded. There was an indentation higher up the blade which I thought could have been a result of HRC testing. The handle is octagonal and quite pretty. The ferrule is some sort of black wood and the handle has a beautiful grain which almost seems to move. There are a few tiny crevices in the wood of the handle (Mert did say that he'd made it out of 'whatever was lying around') but the finish on the handle was very smooth. From the Tansu knives that I own, I'm sure that any customs that Mert made with this profile and grind would have perfectly finished handles (my Tansu honyaki deba has my favourite handle of all my knives)

I compared the knife side by side with several of my existing knives over several days (Sakai Jikko Akebono, Shiro Kamo Syousin Suminagashi, Mizuno Hontanren wide bevel, Yoshikane SLD Tsuchime, Tansu Honyaki and Hiromoto Honyaki).

In tall hard foods (e.g.: sweet potato), the passaround knife performs similarly to the other Tansu and the Hiromoto, and maybe the Yoshikane. All of the other knives used to compare felt (and were) thinner behind the edge. Mert suggested using the heel for this sort of produce and this was really useful. The knife goes through the tall hard stuff much easier at the heel. Mert said that this is a combination of the mechanical advantage of using the heel and grind feature in the heel. Having now tried it on several other knives, this seems to work but to a lesser extent, so I guess the grind feature helps. The Tansu honyaki also seems to have improved heel function, but for a shorter length of heel, so maybe this is something that Mert does in other knives too.

The combination of the clever heel and the high tip mean that it's possible to use the knife in a sort of stationary rock chop (like a paper guillotine) using the heel for hard food.

As expected, in shorter hard foods I found that the knife struggled with push cutting but push slicing (and to a lesser extent draw slicing) worked really well.

Food release is better than any knife I have used and the knife performs very well in soft and watery foods like eggplant, zucchini and potato. The Tansu honyaki and Yoshikane come close but even my Mizuno (which I dubbed "zucchini slayer" because of it's good food release) paled in comparison.

It does feel like a monosteel. To me, it almost feels "louder" in it's tactile feedback in food and on the board than a san mai knife.

Onion was interesting. I found horizontal cuts with the mid blade a bit difficult but the tip and even the heel were much easier. Vertical cuts were super easy with the thin tip. the final dice was also very easy.

This knife excels in getting through a lot of produce fast. I shredded whole cabbages and celeries in just a couple of minutes- much faster than usual for me. I think this is allowed by a combination of the height, length and heft of the knife along with the excellent food release.

Reactivity was mild. A mild light grey or off white patina formed over the mid blade (I think after onion).

Edge retention was obviously not an issue in a week and a bit of home use.

I found this knife really interesting. Different areas of the knife are required for different tasks, more so than most knives. But once you learn how to use it properly, it plows through produce very quickly. I thought that it required more careful technique selection (e.g.: push cut vs slice vs rock chop, etc) than I was used to but less finesse when using the technique.

What's are its strengths? I liked the thought that's obviously gone into the design of the knife. It's great at going through a lot of food quickly and has great food release. It's quite versatile. Once you learn how to use it properly, it can be used for most tasks by varying your technique and varying the part of the blade used. It's not very reactive.

What are its weaknesses? It's not a crazy thin behind the edge push cutter.

Who should buy one (assuming you could get get Mert to make you one) ? It's obvious role for me is in a professional environment where it's speed in processing food and its versatility are useful. Anyone who likes great food release will also appreciate this knife.

Who shouldn't buy one? People who want a laser.

I learned a lot from this knife and it made me look at knives, profiles and grinds from a different perspective. And made me realise how much I still have to learn. thanks again for the opportunity, Mert.

Thanks for your detailed review Phil ,
Again as you noticed the knife was meant as a pro kitchen work horse where you don't have to baby it for cutting dense items without the concern of getting chips on your edge on poly boards , having a highly polished blade and of course the steel helps with the lack of the reactivity
The indentation dots are from the hardness tester , it averaged 62hrc ,
Here is the choil shot , it may have gotten bit thicker behind the edge from sharpening but at least it will give an idea how it was
ImageUploadedByKitchen Knife Forum1492138332.009922.jpg
 
Thanks for your detailed review Phil ,
Again as you noticed the knife was meant as a pro kitchen work horse where you don't have to baby it for cutting dense items without the concern of getting chips on your edge on poly boards , having a highly polished blade and of course the steel helps with the lack of the reactivity
The indentation dots are from the hardness tester , it averaged 62hrc ,
Here is the choil shot , it may have gotten bit thicker behind the edge from sharpening but at least it will give an idea how it was
View attachment 35368

It definitely doesn't feel like it needs to be babied. It feels solid, robust and even unstoppable. I never had any of that 'fragile edge' sensation that you sometimes get with thin knives (mainly an indication that my technique is falling down, I realise). I only used it on an end grain wood board (and I think once on one of James' yellow rubber boards) but it never missed a beat.

It's obviously difficult to compare your choil shot with my memory of the choil but I do get the impression that it's maybe a little thicker behind the edge now. I don't want to give the impression that it's some kind of axe or anything like that. FWIW, it's still thinner behind the edge than my (almost new) Hiromoto honyaki and only slightly thicker than my (almost new) Tansu honyaki workhorse and my Yoshikane tsuchime. It's obviously not designed to be a laser or even a middleweight. It's a big workhorse knife and I think that the thinness vs food release vs robustness compromise is pretty well dialled in for that role, along with an assymetrical convex grind and a couple of clever design features that help it to perform well in its intended role.
 
Here is the feedback I have gotten from jkerr, he had the knife first before it went to ynot1985, I am posting this on his behalf ( after getting the ok from him )
"I haven't been able to use it as much as I would have liked thus far. Went into work early yesterday to try and get all the good prep jobs for trialing a knife, but ended up on a surprise dumpling shift. Used it today for most of my vege prep and a little bit of proteins.

But initial impressions are very positive. Kinda rough amounts, but I probably would have cut up 2kg red chillies, 3kg ginger, 4-5kg snake beans, similar weights for garlic stems, mustard greens, **** tonnes of mushrooms and spring onions etc. Pretty much all finely sliced or chopped and with the edge you had on it it plowed through everything. We do pretty large numbers here and the vast majority of prep is knife work (asian restaurant) so I generally leaned towards using cleavers as I find they're more efficient for large quantities of prep. While I'm still more comfortable with a cleaver, I would confidently say, this is the first knife I've used where I've felt I could knock out prep as cleanly and efficiently as with a cleaver. I enjoy my sabs but for the volume of prep the upkeep is annoying and it's a little more effort to slice things particularly thin or without brusing while with a lot of japanese knives I've used (including "workhorses") I tend to work a little slower (cautiously) with them.

Performance wise:
Food release was definitely up there. Perhaps similar to the toyama? More consistant though, I feel like the toyama has a spot near the heel that was a bit more "sticky"than the rest.
Fell through onions and cabbage a lot better than I thought it would for such a beast. Pleasently surprised by that. Tried cutting a few carrots up, didn't wedge but they did crack, but I wouldn't expect anything other than a laser to really do that.
Handle's a good size for my hands, I like the weight and dimensions on the blade for that style of knife. I've never really taken to wa handles although I do tolerate them. that said, your knife kind of felt more like a western style in my mind. I think the combination of the relatively short machi and the skinny, but tall handle felt a bit more like a yo handle to me. I suppose this is probably personal though. At any rate, I liked it more than I thought I would.

Very mellow steel as well (52100?), don't know how long you've been using it for, but I had zero discolouring on food or the knife.

So yeah, performace wise I'd be happier using it over pretty much any other gyuto I've ever used that comes to mind. Certainly performing better than the toyama and from memory I'd take it over a shige any day. The only other gyuto I've used that it reminded me of with Marko's prototype (which I think you ended up with a couple years a go), I didn't get much time to spend with it, but I remember being pleasently surprised by it for a heavier knife, albeit too small for my tastes.

The only thing it wasn't great for was when I was slicing chillies I was getting a bit of an "accordion" cut going on. Though we've just recently replaced our chopping boards with pretty thin and flexible boards, so it's probably more down the the new surface, the board flexing and the long flat spot of the knife (I was generally using the back third/half for this).

I haven't touched it up at all or really used the tip yet so that's still to come.

At the moment, anything else I would change is purely personal preference and wouldn't be performace orientated so I'll save that for later.
Following up from my last post, I gave it a quick pass on a kaiden 1200 and a suehiro rika, the steel felt great on the stones, similar to some of the white steel knives I've used, i.e. very responsive and very forgiving.

Unfortinately I didn't get to give the tip much of a work out. We had a chef leave and another go on annual leave last week so I've been working out back making dumplings so my knife work has been somewhat limited. To be honest though, I seldom use the tips on my knives save for dicing onions and it's just not a job that gets done where I'm working.

Aside from those updates, everything is as my initial impression. The release was great, ease of cutting was up with a lot of (considerably thinner) gyutos I've used without feeling like I had to baby the edge, felt confident throwing it at pretty much everything. The handle was comfortable, comfy spine and choil. All up, If I ordered a knife to those specs, I'd be pretty stoked with what I got.

The only critique I can offer is based on my personal preference in knives so I don't see it as a valid point. But for the sake of full disclosure I'll offer it anyway. I would prefer a slightly more curved edge from heel to tip. As mentioned in my last post, I experienced a little bit of accordion cuts on things like chillies, spring onions and squid (for some of these jobs I switched out to my CCK), but also as mentioned before, the boards at work are new, thin/flexible and they are relatively small when using a 280mm knife. The boards we used previously would likely have rectified those issues as they were far more solid and worn in, but in general I prefer a more typical french pattern anyway. Out of curiosity, with that particular knife was the profile to a customers requests or is there a particular brand/pattern that you lean towards when shaping a knife? It kind of reminded me of a shig or some of the other sanjo makers.

Thanks again for giving me the opportunity to test it out. It's funny, whenever I've bought a new knife I've just unconciously liked it or not without really thinking about what appeals to me, within reason anyway. It really changes your perspective when you try and quantify the performance of one.

Josh
 
Great reviews by jkerr and memo. Sounds like a helluva knife. Much as it pains me guys, I'm going to have to recuse myself from this passaround as customs will sting me on the way in to the tune of a few hundred bucks and I'll have to register as an exporter to send it back because of the high value. I'll enjoy it vicariously through these great reviews.
 
Great reviews by jkerr and memo. Sounds like a helluva knife. Much as it pains me guys, I'm going to have to recuse myself from this passaround as customs will sting me on the way in to the tune of a few hundred bucks and I'll have to register as an exporter to send it back because of the high value. I'll enjoy it vicariously through these great reviews.

Should just order one from Mert. And how can customs sting you NZ is basically another state of Aus and vice versa. Ridiculous.
 
Yeah it's pretty egregious the way they go about it. I've had incredible luck with all the stones I get sent but lousy luck with knives
 
Great reviews by jkerr and memo. Sounds like a helluva knife. Much as it pains me guys, I'm going to have to recuse myself from this passaround as customs will sting me on the way in to the tune of a few hundred bucks and I'll have to register as an exporter to send it back because of the high value. I'll enjoy it vicariously through these great reviews.

damn. I reckon you would like it.. I'm not a 270mm user but that knife is on the heavier side of things (which I preferred as I don't go through the volume to actually cause hand issues for me). It pretty much destroyed with ease whatever I was trying to cut.
 
Yeah, I felt like it was an unstoppable steam train once it got going. Just kept plowing through food. Never had any issues with fatigue (but home cook only).
 
Phil , the knife is currently with me , I am profiling a custom knife after this [emoji6] and I will send it to Marek soon
 
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