Are there any major "off-label" uses of deba knives?

Miura knives
Advertise with us
Kitchen Knife Forums

Help Support Kitchen Knife Forums:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Q

Qapla'

Senior Member
Joined
Jun 30, 2018
Messages
1,711
Reaction score
717
This one's for users of single-bevel deba's: What do you find deba's useful for other than for fish butchery?
 
Ok, a somewhat more elaborate answer. I’ve been looking for more uses for my debas, but so far I’ve come up empty handed. It would be cool to get a wider range of applications but I’ve sort of given up.
 
I picked up some single bevels knives over the last year to try them out and to be honest, as nice as they are to sharpen and use, they're basically useless for anything but their intended uses. yes you might get away with light chicken butchery but you'd have to be extremely careful and it's pointless, I'd rather use my honesuki anyways.
I had the same experience with an usuba, I really wanted to use one and I used it as a vegetable (and even raw protein) slicer for a while, but it made me realize I just wanted a Chinese cleaver, which was much better at everything I used it for.

my point is, you'll see a lot of these threads around. long story short, you're probably better off not using them because they're built to excel in very specific tasks, nothing else.

They're still fun to sharpen though
 
childermass said:
Maybe chicken butchery? I have used my Mioroshi for that and it was nice but that’s not nearly as brutal a knife as a regular Deba.
Click to expand...
minibatataman said:
I picked up some single bevels knives over the last year to try them out and to be honest, as nice as they are to sharpen and use, they're basically useless for anything but their intended uses. yes you might get away with light chicken butchery but you'd have to be extremely careful and it's pointless, I'd rather use my honesuki anyways.
I had the same experience with an usuba, I really wanted to use one and I used it as a vegetable (and even raw protein) slicer for a while, but it made me realize I just wanted a Chinese cleaver, which was much better at everything I used it for.

my point is, you'll see a lot of these threads around. long story short, you're probably better off not using them because they're built to excel in very specific tasks, nothing else.

They're still fun to sharpen though
Click to expand...

As for the chicken butchery part, that's what the Mukoita books use, but like you all I suspect that deba use there is really a matter of "this is the best available tool among the trad-j primary knife triad" and not necessarily because that's what it's good for.

Thanks to all who gave serious answers. I was wondering about buying the three main single-bevel knives (I still muck around with my usuba), but don't really do any fish butchery at all so I think I won't be buying a deba in the future.
 
honestly, a single bevel or highly asymmetric honesuki is more versatile, great at poultry, cleaning up big cuts of meat, decent at fish. A deba(180mm+) can do the other things too, but not as well
 
slickmamba said:
honestly, a single bevel or highly asymmetric honesuki is more versatile, great at poultry, cleaning up big cuts of meat, decent at fish. A deba(180mm+) can do the other things too, but not as well
Click to expand...
How then do honesuki's compare to garasuki's (presuming both having the same bevel configuration, i.e. single-bevel or highly-asymmetric double-bevel)?

One of the weirder things I've seen is Sukenari's kani-deba ("crab deba"?) which seems very garasuki'ish.
 
It seems like this convo wrapped up already, but regular users tend to use their single bevels for more than their intended purposes all the time. The only caveat there is that it's done because it's what's at hand and not necessarily what's best for the job. I've done katsuramuki with a deba just to prove to a novice chef that the skills are more important than the knife shape. A deba can do a lot more "off the books" but it's kind of a waste of time to own one unless you break down large quantities of fish.

In general I think people need single bevels the same way people need racing cars. They excel in a professional environment at one specific task, but not much else.
 
yeah it seems like professional doesn’t always mean fancy. Professional means repetitive more often than not. A professional tool is something that does the job well, can be maintained, and does the exact right task every time.
If I think about my own chemistry lab equipment, a multichannel micropipette would be really nice for dispensing even dots of sauce on a plate in a nice line, but making sure that each dot is exactly 300 µL serves no purpose.
 
that poor chicken, it’ll never walk normal again.
 
I've sliced way more than my share of 9" red abalone. The Forschner 12" slicer on a horseshoe-shaped hoop worked well for 3/8" thick steaks. The chain mail glove was strongly recommended.
Just picked up a Tojiro 180mm Deba for fish. I have quite a few filet knives and have wanted something more substantial.
Trying out the Staub cast iron vertical roaster for chicken, so I'm not cooking drawn and quartered chicken as much now. IMHO the chicken is juicier when cooked whole. Using the various poultry shears more. However, will need to cut up green onions and fresh ginger for the sauce.
Can't see using a blade to cut up crab. I have been using the crab crackers and lobster shears. About to try out the design from Toadfish.
 
I used to work with a prep cook who used a deba for everything . To this day I still don't quite understand how his veg prep came out looking so nice.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Latest posts

Back
Top