A towel is the most massively useful thing an interstellar knife enthusiast can have

Miura knives
Shop Knives and stones on ebay
Kitchen Knife Forums

Help Support Kitchen Knife Forums:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
I tried towels in different materials but still prefers paper towel. Clean and efficient!
 
I use a sponge followed by a normal cotton kitchen towels. It absorbs enough for my usage. Contrastively to paper towel they are washable and reusable.
 
I use the tengui (several of them) that I got from Jon. It needs to be noted, that these needed 3-4 washing cycles to start to absorb water well. Now they work great.

I only use paper towels when I am sharpening to remove the mud from the knife.
 
If you use fabric softener on your towels that might be why they don't absorb well. My various kitchen towels all seem to absorb water fine. I have terry and herringbone weave. The herringbone weaves are the real cheapo looking ones with the stripe of color on them, ratty looking hems on the edges, and they shrink quite a lot on the first hot wash. I don't have an Ikea where I live, but the Ikea Tekla towels look pretty similar to what I have in pictures online. Towels like that are all over Amazon so I just got the cheapest ones I found at the time and they work for me.

While prepping I use those foodservice type wipes to wipe down my board and knife.

What I don't like about microfiber waffle weave is that once they're saturated they are seemingly impossible to wring out meaningfully so they're effectively useless until they're dry again.
 
DaveInMesa said:
At least, that's the advice from the Guide to the Galaxy, more or less, with a little adjusting to fit. The question is... what KIND of towel?

Now, before one of you Admins moves this to the Off-Topic room, this is actually a serious knife-related question. Everyone agrees that carbon knives should be (washed and) dried after each use, but no one says what to use for that all-important task. What difference does it make, you ask? Well, if you were afflicted with the pathetic excuses for toweling that seem to be all that's available in my area, having driven all the useful towels into exile, apparently, you would not ask such silly questions.

Now that I am no longer affiliated with any restaurants and, therefore, persona non grata at my local supply store, I find myself stuck with an assortment of essentially useless cloths that seem to actively repel water, rather than absorbing it. So, where does a non-professional find decent, absorbent kitchen towels, these days? Preferably without spending a fortune on them. It seems like such a simple thing, but it's trickier than one would expect.
Click to expand...

here are 12" x 12" 100% cotton basic shop/cooking towels for 28 cents each. I have not bought their towels, but I have bought denim shop aprons and heavy shop rags from them and was very happy with their service and quality of product.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/100-PACK-CO...264944?hash=item2113fcf230:g:4cYAAOSwENxXm2Vy
 
What TurboScooter said. Fabric softeners soften no fabric - they impregnate it!

...

If nothing else feels like absorbing today: Side of paper towel roll (on stand).
 
"Now that I am no longer affiliated with any restaurants and, therefore, persona non grata" ... god, you australians are so careful in avoiding imported diseases - and you got a serious case of german wholesale-vs-retail mentality?
 
We do not use any softeners at all. The tengui do need a few wash cycles.

Still - the best water absorbing towel we have at home are those made from bamboo fibres. These are made as diapers for a reason :)
 
Matus said:
We do not use any softeners at all. The tengui do need a few wash cycles.

Still - the best water absorbing towel we have at home are those made from bamboo fibres. These are made as diapers for a reason :)
Click to expand...

Isn't a lot or even most bamboo textile found in the consumer market just rayon by another name wrapped in "green" marketing?

In that case, Mrs. Miwako's Kitchen Towel.
 
I use what my grandma used to use; old or teared away clothing.
 
Costco sells shop/kitchen towels for something like $15.99 for 40. I buy a pack or two a year for home use. They hold up decently well and for the price after a few wash cycles the ratty looking ones get retired to the garage or trash.
 
My search for the ideal towel is over. (12-Pack) 16 in. x 16 in. Commercial Grade All-Purpose Microfiber HIGHLY ABSORBENT, LINT-FREE, STREAK-FREE Cleaning Towels - THE RAG COMPANY. This is by far the most ideal towel to work with on the cutting board -- one damp for wiping during cutting, and one dry. They are very soft and absorbent, and they fold evenly without lumps.

I tried this herringbone cotton dish cloth which is OK, however when folded the seams add uneven thickness. It is not the ideal towel either damp or dry to work with on the cutting board because they are not sufficiently soft and pliable, and they do not fold evenly.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
naifu said:
My search for the ideal towel is over. (12-Pack) 16 in. x 16 in. Commercial Grade All-Purpose Microfiber HIGHLY ABSORBENT, LINT-FREE, STREAK-FREE Cleaning Towels - THE RAG COMPANY. This is by far the most ideal towel to work with on the cutting board -- one damp for wiping during cutting, and one dry. They are very soft and absorbent, and they fold evenly without lumps.

I tried this herringbone cotton dish cloth which is OK, however when folded the seams add uneven thickness. It is not the ideal towel either damp or dry to work with on the cutting board because they are not sufficiently soft and pliable, and they do not fold evenly.
Click to expand...


I too use micro-fibers, however ( and I'm ASSuming, yes I know, ) it may be the brand I use. Drying in a dryer seems to destroy mine quicker than line drying. Do these hold up better to machine drying?
 
Last edited by a moderator:
nevrknow said:
I too use micro-fibers, however ( and I'm ASSuming, yes I know, ) it may be the brand I use. Drying in a dryer seems to destroy mine quicker than line drying. Do these hold up better to machine drying?
Click to expand...

I am sorry to tell you that I do not know. I have been using these before washing/drying. But I did hand wash and line dry one, and it works just as well.

I will test one in the washer and machine dry and report back in a week.
 
If you're going to dry MFs in a dryer do it on low or no heat.

Rag Company has a Detalk about washing/drying MF towels.
[video=youtube;FhZBikIIbPo]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FhZBikIIbPo[/video]
 
TurboScooter said:
If you're going to dry MFs in a dryer do it on low or no heat.

Rag Company has a Detalk about washing/drying MF towels.
[video=youtube;FhZBikIIbPo]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FhZBikIIbPo[/video]
Click to expand...

Very informative and helpful. Thank you.

Line dry or no-heat dry it is.
 
zetieum said:
I use a sponge followed by a normal cotton kitchen towels. It absorbs enough for my usage. Contrastively to paper towel they are washable and reusable.
Click to expand...

I'm with zetieum- I just use regular cotton dish towels. Why waste a paper towel? The dish towel can be used a bunch of times just to dry things... you know, use it, hang it to dry, use it, hang it to dry. Then maybe later use it on counters or to clean up spills THEN wash it... but you can get a lot of uses before it needs laundering, and with the cotton towels, they can just be washed and dried like anything else, no special treatment. Generally, I just use paper towels for spreading around a film of oil in my cast iron skillets or for really oily clean-up.
 
@ TurboScooter - thanks for the video link. I use microfibre, cotton and paper towels depending on the task at hand. However the video showed me I've been treating the microfibre towels rather poorly - very hot tap water, sometimes even adding boiling water and bleaching them. About to buy some new ones now and start over.
 
This thread is great. I am going to purchase some linen to see how that works as a towel.
 
I like linen a lot for wiping off stone slurry from the bevel during sharpening. Thin and hard. You can really feel the bevel thru it if you do apply some pressure, AYOR of course. For normal use though I prefer half linen / half cotton.
 
Holy Gee Willikers Batman! These linen towels online are pricier than a preacher's reverse osmosis holy water in the middle of a Quentin Terantino Halloween bash!

Although I have been looking into modifying my kitchen towel arsenal, I put my kitchen towels through too much tourment to pay $5 for ONE linen towel. My shaky hands from all the meth and alcohol abuse has put more holes in my towels than a victim of the infamouse Jigsaw.
 
Marek07 said:
@ TurboScooter - thanks for the video link. I use microfibre, cotton and paper towels depending on the task at hand. However the video showed me I've been treating the microfibre towels rather poorly - very hot tap water, sometimes even adding boiling water and bleaching them. About to buy some new ones now and start over.
Click to expand...

At some point boiling towels was a commonly accepted way of "rejuvenating" MF towels in the various online auto detailing communities. From what I remember it kind of started off as a "my towels are screwed, might as well try this before I dump them" thing, and at some point it got said often enough that it became truth.

Keep in mind also that these guys are also coming at towel care from the perspective of auto detaling; they're trying to avoid instilling scratches, even very fine ones, in auto paint. For the purposes of kitchen use, it probably doesn't matter so much. I certainly wouldn't buy top shelf MF meant for auto detailing for kitchen duty.
 
Talk about delicate work horse towels, I've washed them so many times, evidently doing every thing wrong and they still come out clean. I've snagged so many heels on these towels and the never rip, they have a weird self healing property. You can get them at Home Depot, usually pay around $3 a towel but I haven't burned even one out in three years. They are soft and grab anything they touch.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01G5WNQDE/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Don't laugh:

Cloth Diapers. A simple cotton prefold diaper (thick, multilayered cotton) that's been washed and dried about a dozen times is extremely absorbent. And you can buy them in a range of sizes for a couple dollars each.
 
I’ve been using these for years...

Nouvelle Legende Cotton Flour Sack Towels Commercial Grade 28in X 29in (12Pk) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B003BS4856/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20

I fold one side in 1/3 of the way, then fold the other side over to the newly folded edge (think folding a letter for putting in an envelope). Then I fold it in half lengthwise.

Perfect size in the kitchen, absorbent with the multi-layers, and as the outer sides get dirty you can flip things around and refold to expose cleaner areas of the cloth. Mine have held up well to repeated laundering, too, with little or no fraying, bunching or shrinking.

When one becomes too stained and unsightly for kitchen use, it gets repurposed for cleaning around the house...
 
Last edited by a moderator:
jljohn said:
Don't laugh:

Cloth Diapers. A simple cotton prefold diaper (thick, multilayered cotton) that's been washed and dried about a dozen times is extremely absorbent. And you can buy them in a range of sizes for a couple dollars each.
Click to expand...
I have to admit, cloth diaper towels are great for the kitchen. Cheap, gets my knives dry, easily replacable, can find them anywhere, nearly lint free, almost zero downsides outside of potentially confusing the kitchen diaper for the baby diaper lol
 
I really like flour sack towels for drying (stemware, knives, etc.) and in a pinch they work well for anything else and restaurant terry or oven cloth towels for the rest like handling pots and pans and such.
 
Pieces of old cotton sheets works really well.
 
An old thread springs back to life!
For something like glassware that absolutely has to be lint free I use good quality microfiber despite the hassle that goes with that: don't mix loads with non-microfiber fabrics, no bleach or fabric softener, air dry or at very low dryer temperatures, and potentially using specialized detergents. I prefer the smooth finish glass towels or the waffle weave over the looped/terry cloth style. IME Korean made microfiber tends to be much better quality than PRC manufactured.
For general dishware I like cotton flour sack towels or diaper material but newer production ones generally don't match the quality of the old towels, either too thin, overly loose weave, nonabsorbent, or lint monsters.
I have not tried the Japanese tengui towels.
For hand towels almost anything including terry cloth, surgical huck towels, etc. and I confess to using the apron when nothing else is in reach.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Latest posts

Back
Top