What started the workhorse craze?

[nhb22]

You know, I often find that the huge carrots at Asian groceries crack *less* than many of the smaller carrots you find elsewhere. Idk if it’s that they are more moist inside, or what, but sometimes knives just slide through them when they violently crack the little carrots I get elsewhere.

Interesting. I didn’t know that. This is the first time I bought carrots like this. I know the knives I used in my test are silent on small / medium sized carrots as I cut those all the time.

Anyone has any ideas around what I should use if I wanted to run stress test? Understand it might not be practical, but I’m just curious. Sort of like putting high performance CPUs and GPUs through 3DMark.

Disclaimer: I’m not interested in the workhorse vs lighter knives discussion itself. Pretty sure it is all about the user’s specific use case and personal preference. Any well designed / made knife is really about trade offs and prioritization. No bad knives. You just need to find the ones you like for your use case.

 

[stringer]

Interesting. I didn’t know that. This is the first time I bought carrots like this. I know the knives I used in my test are silent on small / medium sized carrots as I cut those all the time.

Anyone has any ideas around what I should use if I wanted to run stress test? Understand it might not be practical, but I’m just curious. Sort of like putting high performance CPUs and GPUs through 3DMark.

Disclaimer: I’m not interested in the workhorse vs lighter knives discussion itself. Pretty sure it is all about the user’s specific use case and personal preference. Any well designed / made knife is really about trade offs and prioritization. No bad knives. You just need to find the ones you like for your use case.

If I wanted to do a wedging stress test that was more relevant to how I use a knife in practice then I would go with small dicing jumbo sweet potatoes maybe. Or peeling a very bulbous round hard squash. Or peeling really large raw beets. These are times when I would want more laser geometry at the heel.

 

[Delat]

Interesting. I didn’t know that. This is the first time I bought carrots like this. I know the knives I used in my test are silent on small / medium sized carrots as I cut those all the time.

Anyone has any ideas around what I should use if I wanted to run stress test? Understand it might not be practical, but I’m just curious. Sort of like putting high performance CPUs and GPUs through 3DMark.

Disclaimer: I’m not interested in the workhorse vs lighter knives discussion itself. Pretty sure it is all about the user’s specific use case and personal preference. Any well designed / made knife is really about trade offs and prioritization. No bad knives. You just need to find the ones you like for your use case.

Large sweet potatoes for me - if I have to struggle to get the knife through then that knife falls into my mental category of “don’t use for thick or dense food”. Also large onions - I have some knives that need extra effort to split them vertically. Not that there’s anything wrong with those knives, but it limits how much I’ll reach for them.

I’ve noticed professional cooks tend to cut with much force than I do, and often at more of an angle with the tip angled down more. I understand why that is but it’s not really something I’m interested in emulating. IMHO the needs and habits of pro cooks are quite different than home cooks.

 

[Troopah_Knives]

I agree that handle size may be irrelevant but balance is not. To me a workhorse would have a ton of forward balance. I think blade weight and convexity have to be part of the conversation. Almost more so than spine thickness. I have had plenty of 4+mm knives that were in no way a workhorse. I am also not sure how you would classify work like Kamon, Birch & Bevel, Chris Anderson etc. that are using grinds that are thick and convex at the heal and move towards full flat grind thin tips. Eddworks, OEL also come to mind with grinds that change towa the tip. Part in the front, workhorse in the rear!!!

Yeah, this is the whole problem with these classifications. I feel like everyone has a different idea of what they mean and often people will assume they share the same definitions without checking.

 

[HolyDiverScallop]

And woe betide you if you feed him a horse radish.

 

[Chopper88]

IMHO the needs and habits of pro cooks are quite different than home cooks.

For sure, and also for pro/home cooks and knife enthusiasts. For us knives and sharpening are hobbies on their own, besides cooking.

I bet that if you ask a bunch of random chefs about knives wedging in carrots they'd call you insane.
They probably just want their ingredients chopped into bits and pieces so they can start cooking.

 

[M1k3]

Interesting. I didn’t know that. This is the first time I bought carrots like this. I know the knives I used in my test are silent on small / medium sized carrots as I cut those all the time.

Anyone has any ideas around what I should use if I wanted to run stress test? Understand it might not be practical, but I’m just curious. Sort of like putting high performance CPUs and GPUs through 3DMark.

Disclaimer: I’m not interested in the workhorse vs lighter knives discussion itself. Pretty sure it is all about the user’s specific use case and personal preference. Any well designed / made knife is really about trade offs and prioritization. No bad knives. You just need to find the ones you like for your use case.

Sweet potatoes, yams, hard squashes, fennel bulbs and cold water soaked potatoes.

 

[stringer]

All of my decisions and preferences are based off of time management. What is the absolute fastest most efficient way I can complete the task at hand and move onto the next one. Most of the time I will gravitate toward using as few tools as possible. I will only pull out a special tool or knife for a particular task if there is enough of a time advantage over using what's already out to justify the extra clean up time. So if I have a knife that I have to be precious with the I will probably only use it for precious tasks. And only if I need a large volume.

This is true for me at home or at work. I can't separate my training and habits and experiences. If a knife can't handle some pounding on the board then I won't use it much because pounding on the board saves me time. As long as it doesn't cause damage to a dainty edge that I then have to spend time to repair.

At work I find the sweet spot for me a Kanehide 240 semi-stainless gyuto. Love me some factory Japanese stuff for pure cutting efficiency and ability to take a beating for hours and hours days and days months and months. I don't like using my higher end stuff at work any more because I'm running a training operation I don't want my cooks to break my expensive knives or themselves.

So at home I use what I actually love to use. Which is big giant carbon workhorses that can do everything and do it fast. And my delicate lasers stay tucked away with my other specialty tools like my debas, boning knives, slicers, oyster knives, butcher cleavers, etc. Knives that don't hardly ever get used but I am happy to have them when I need them.

 

[Blank Blades.]

I guess I'm more interested in looking at knives that fail the carrot cracking contest and see if they still cut carrots. If so, then the test itself is irrelevant. Hold my beer!

I cut carrots for tests when messing with a certain geometry for the first time.

It really depends what I'm going for, on how much noise or no noise is acceptable.

I find, if there is no noise going through a carrot at all, the food release isn't very good. Since where that noise is coming from is the carrot getting pushed away from the carrot on the other side while cutting. Obviously thinner slices wont make noise at all, so thicker slices are needed for the test.

If going for something with food release the test is still useful, because something with good food release still shouldnt blast the carrot away when cutting.

A couple other maker's knives i know are popular here, that i had a chance to try a carrot test on while in my possession, were milan, and kippington.

Both had good food release, both cracked carrots. The kippington did better towards the tip, if you consider no noise being better. The milan i believe cracked along the whole blade. But that particular knife was probably the biggest chonker i have ever held in person.

This is not saying the milan was bad or anything, it just way bigger, heftier, etc than anything i had ever seen before. The knife itself was really impressive to me in person though.

 

[Blank Blades.]

Here is the choil shot

View attachment 308755

But how does it cut?

 

[HolyDiverScallop]

But how does it cut?

Like it could deforest Alderaan

 

[labor of love]

NGL all this workhorse talk really makes me want another Takada no Hamono
@ashy2classy hook me up

 

[stringer]

But how does it cut?

Works great for cutting up cooked chickens.
Works great for cutting heads off of fish.
Surprising capable slicer.
Excels at bush kitchen techniques that involve cutting non-food or frozen items that you aren't supposed to cut with chef knives.

https://www.google.com/search?clien...aYQ0pQJegQIDRAB&biw=486&bih=940&dpr=2.23#ip=1

 

[Blank Blades.]

Works great for cutting up cooked chickens.
Works great for cutting heads off of fish.
Surprising capable slicer.
Excels at bush kitchen techniques that involve cutting non-food or frozen items that you aren't supposed to cut with chef knives.

https://www.google.com/search?clien...aYQ0pQJegQIDRAB&biw=486&bih=940&dpr=2.23#ip=1

Now i need to see it do those slits in the onion with the heel.

 

[Gavva]

Interesting. I didn’t know that. This is the first time I bought carrots like this. I know the knives I used in my test are silent on small / medium sized carrots as I cut those all the time.

Anyone has any ideas around what I should use if I wanted to run stress test? Understand it might not be practical, but I’m just curious. Sort of like putting high performance CPUs and GPUs through 3DMark.

Disclaimer: I’m not interested in the workhorse vs lighter knives discussion itself. Pretty sure it is all about the user’s specific use case and personal preference. Any well designed / made knife is really about trade offs and prioritization. No bad knives. You just need to find the ones you like for your use case.

I find big daikon radishes more common and easier to use for cracking tests. I mean the crack is louder. Cut them at 2cm thickness then you're ready for some radish steak after.

 

[stringer]

Now i need to see it do those slits in the onion with the heel.

 

[nhb22]

I cut carrots for tests when messing with a certain geometry for the first time.

It really depends what I'm going for, on how much noise or no noise is acceptable.

I find, if there is no noise going through a carrot at all, the food release isn't very good. Since where that noise is coming from is the carrot getting pushed away from the carrot on the other side while cutting. Obviously thinner slices wont make noise at all, so thicker slices are needed for the test.

If going for something with food release the test is still useful, because something with good food release still shouldnt blast the carrot away when cutting.

A couple other maker's knives i know are popular here, that i had a chance to try a carrot test on while in my possession, were milan, and kippington.

Both had good food release, both cracked carrots. The kippington did better towards the tip, if you consider no noise being better. The milan i believe cracked along the whole blade. But that particular knife was probably the biggest chonker i have ever held in person.

This is not saying the milan was bad or anything, it just way bigger, heftier, etc than anything i had ever seen before. The knife itself was really impressive to me in person though.

I find myself like what I call mid weight all rounders in my home kitchen. I think someone already kinda described my ideal all rounder earlier in this thread. I like knives that have different functional sections via strong distal taper - very thin front 1/3, middle ground in the middle section and near workhorse around the heel. If I’m cutting carrot and celery sticks to pair with buffalo wings, I don’t need much food release as the cuts are large enough to have some weight. It generally can overcome the stiction from the blade. I real enjoy the surgical feeling of a thin tip. If I need to cut a carrot into thin slices, I might use the heel section for better food release as the heel section wouldn’t wedge with thin cuts anyway. Also, with push cutting, I find the thin front can do most of the cutting and the middle section of the blade can help with food release when you push the blade forward. There is sort of a sweet spot regarding the speed you push the blade forward. The latest A2 you sold looks super promising based on the spine shot! I imagine you probably spent a bunch of time to dial in the grind!

 

[nhb22]

When I first trained myself to tamp coffee in a portafilter, I used a kitchen scale to see the pressure I applied. It would be very interesting to see the real time pressure applied in cutting tests…

 

[Blank Blades.]

It was a joke

 

[nhb22]

I find big daikon radishes more common and easier to use for cracking tests. I mean the crack is louder. Cut them at 2cm thickness then you're ready for some radish steak after.

I feel those are easier to cut than carrots (agree you can still wedge). Not sure if this is true, but daikon feels softer and doesn’t have a hard core. Based on my observation, a lot of mid weight knives only crack the hard core.

 

[Blank Blades.]

I find myself like what I call mid weight all rounders in my home kitchen. I think someone already kinda described my ideal all rounder earlier in this thread. I like knives that have different functional sections via strong distal taper - very thin front 1/3, middle ground in the middle section and near workhorse around the heel. If I’m cutting carrot and celery sticks to pair with buffalo wings, I don’t need much food release as the cuts are large enough to have some weight. It generally can overcome the stiction from the blade. I real enjoy the surgical feeling of a thin tip. If I need to cut a carrot into thin slices, I might use the heel section for better food release as the heel section wouldn’t wedge with thin cuts anyway. Also, with push cutting, I find the thin front can do most of the cutting and the middle section of the blade can help with food release when you push the blade forward. There is sort of a sweet spot regarding the speed you push the blade forward. The latest A2 you sold looks super promising based on the spine shot! I imagine you probably spent a bunch of time to dial in the grind!

Yeah, a thin tip is nice. I like doing a little bit of a walkschliffe or however you spell it there too.

I mean, at least the r/chefknives types only use the tip of the knife anyway. Someone should start making knives for them that are just a thick spine, shaped like this to save material.

 

[M1k3]

Yeah, a thin tip is nice. I like doing a little bit of a walkschliffe or however you spell it there too.

I mean, at least the r/chefknives types only use the tip of the knife anyway. Someone should start making knives for them that are just a thick spine, shaped like this to save material.

View attachment 308796

How do you pop air holes in oil cans with that?

 

[Blank Blades.]

How do you pop air holes in oil cans with that?

Weld a spike onto the back of the handle. The ultimate kitchen tool

 

[M1k3]

Weld a spike onto the back of the handle. The ultimate kitchen tool

Sounds like something Dalstrong would do.

 

[HolyDiverScallop]

Weld a spike onto the back of the handle. The ultimate kitchen tool

For when expo isn't motivated.

 

[Rangen]

Today I learned that people try to cut carrots without a Chinese cleaver. Well, everyone needs a hobby.

 

[SwampDonkey]

just to muddy...this Okubo 256 is "only" ~4 mm at the pinch but anyone looking at choil can't mistake the grind for anything but deliciously convex workhorse. It outperformed the Spåre 250 below that  looks  like it'd be a better cutter

Cut test from Okubo on the biggest carrot I had. Not a horse carrot but it's enough for me, and usually about as big as I get.



I agree with above that a big sweet potato is the true test of a grind for me. My Yoshikane 240 would just get stuck in them or butternuts. The Okubo and Eddworks are both delightful on them. Seeing as how I cut/cook a ton of sweet potatoes and butternuts, it's a prerequisite to staying in my rotation.

 

[stringer]

Here's a pretty good chonker cutting sweet potatoes. Ikeda honyaki I had borrowed from @captaincaed

 

[panda]

just to muddy...this Okubo 256 is "only" ~4 mm at the pinch but anyone looking at choil can't mistake the grind for anything but deliciously convex workhorse. It outperformed the Spåre 250 below that  looks  like it'd be a better cutter

View attachment 308805
View attachment 308806


Cut test from Okubo on the biggest carrot I had. Not a horse carrot but it's enough for me, and usually about as big as I get.



I agree with above that a big sweet potato is the true test of a grind for me. My Yoshikane 240 would just get stuck in them or butternuts. The Okubo and Eddworks are both delightful on them. Seeing as how I cut/cook a ton of sweet potatoes and butternuts, it's a prerequisite to staying in my rotation.

nice board!

 

[Blank Blades.]

Huh, yeah. That board is fancy the plastic doesnt even look plain white like mine do.