How careful are you with your knives

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Barmoley

Barmoley

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I recently bought way too many gyutos, thanks to this forum:wink: After reading quite a bit I am getting the feeling, most likely incorrectly, that most of the more expensive knives that are best cutters are also quite fragile and require one to have perfect technique and only use the right knife for the job.

Is this the case for most of you, would you use your expensive gyuto to separate, for example lamb chops from a rack of lamb where you could hit a bone, or would you use a special knife for that?

Would you abuse a Marko 52100 or Devin AEB-L, etc.

I am just curious, since I now have a bunch of really nice knives, I am afraid to use...
 
If I'm separating bones like breaking down a chicken, I wouldn't choose to use a gyuto, neither an expensive nor cheap one. On the other hand, if I want to cut cucumbers, carrots, or butternut squash, I'd have no problem using a nice gyuto. Though to be honest, for the hard squash, I'd choose one of my cheaper gyutos rather than the more expensive ones (especially not the rarer or custom ones).

Also, more expensive doesn't always mean better performing.
 
I can do 99% of my cutting with all of my Japanese knives (mainly gyuto), including the most expensive ones. I only take out my old Wusthof when I need to go trough bones or do some other nasty things ;) but this almost never happens.

Braking down a chicken with honesuki does not involve any bone breaking. You always cut between the joints.

But it is true that you must not abuse the knives. When cutting you must pay attention that you are not twisting the cutting edge (usually on the board). And then also other self understanding things like never cut on plates, glass etc. But that is just plain logic...
 
Barmoley said:
I recently bought way too many gyutos.
Click to expand...

Is this an actual thing (way too many gyutos)?😉

I do use a Wustie or a cheaper gyuto on pumpkin and leeks and a cleaver &/or western boning knife on whole chooks. Good gyutos on almost everything else.
 
Tasks I leave to the beaters:

Things that need forceful rock mincing.
Frozen stuff (eg cutting frozen coconut off a block, or mincing it further).
Cutting up stuff that is fresh out a pan or deep frier (eg cutting pancake strips).
Nuts.
 
I use my nice stuff for everything except maybe lobster shells and frozen stuff.
 
Cutting on quality boards is a given and also not intentionally using the knife for stuff it is not supposed to be used for, but if one is reasonably careful it sounds like a quality gyuto should be usable for most things. I started paying more attention to sushi chefs and it seems like most use a single yanagi or sometimes 2 knives for everything. In most restaurants they seem to be cutting on some sort of plastic boards the length of the bar. So is it just their superior skill that allows them to do this?

It just seems like on some of these the edge is so thin that it will be ruined very easily. Maybe I should just start using them to convince myself they are more durable than they look.
 
"so is it just their superior skill that allows them to do this?"

Might be local health code that disallows them from doing anything else. And plastic might not be the disaster in itself - more the way some vendors texture their plastic boards.
 
That is a good point, the boards they use might be due to local health codes.

I can't believe though that professionals are as careful with their knives as we are. So the knives that are used by professionals must be able to withstand some abuse without chipping or rolling. Is it that the knives we buy are more optimized for best cutting performance and thus are more fragile or is it that we are just more paranoid and the knives are actually much more robust? I am assuming that the best knives discussed here are made out of the best materials, heat treated well and geometries are optimized.
 
Barmoley said:
I can't believe though that professionals are as careful with their knives as we are. So the knives that are used by professionals must be able to withstand some abuse without chipping or rolling.
Click to expand...

Keep in mind as a professional their technique and skill help prevent this more then the knife they choose to use.
 
It's hard to generalize about gyutos. There's such a range, and I don't think the distinction is "nice" vs. "beater" so much as thin vs. burly.

I do what a lot of people probably do. I have a thin gyuto that I use on softer foods and without a lot of force (I don't baby it, I just respect its limits). And I have a big fat German chef's knife for cutting around bones, chopping chocolate, mincing woody herbs, beheading fish, etc.. But I could just as easily have a gyuto in place of the the German knife. It would be one with a heavier blade, probably a slightly less hard steel, and I'd sharpen it to more obtuse angles. And there'd be no need for it to be an expensive one.

And some people probably have a single all-purpose gyuto. I can appreciate the minimalist approach. One knife for everything, like with a European chef's knife, only, somewhat better performance and edge retention. Any burly gyuto sharpened to less aggressive angles could play the part.
 
It makes sense that a lot of it is the skill.

Would something like Itinomonn stainless kasumi be considered burly enough? The core steel is supposed to be something similar to A2, so should be pretty tough. Or would I need something like Toyama noborikoi kasumi? The reason I used these as example is because I bought two Itinomonn and one Toyoma, among others :) Trying to decide which of these to start using.
 
hahah..i still remember my first time taking out a lobster. i had a chef direct me..it was like that "who's on first" comedy skit.

"right here"..here? no there..how hard? it was funny. not so much for the lobster.
 
There was some interview photo showing some sushi pro's deba, with serious electrical tape on the handle and chips galore...
 
While I own some nice knives, I tend to treat them like I did when I was working on the line. To me, they are tools in the end and should be treated as such. I do at least wipe them down after I'm done using them.
 
I think people tend to overstate how fragile knives are.

The only knives I have chipped are my cheap scanpans when i put too fine an edge on them or when i smacked my blazen's edge into the side of my sink while not paying attention.

Yes you have to alter your technique and you can't throw it around like you don't care about it. But most things that damage the knives we are talking about will damage a cheap knife... just that you don't care if the cheap knife is damaged.
 
I agree, it is made of steel...I will say that the very thinnest knives don't exactly suit my technique...more related to scraping a fragile edge across a board.:O
 
For the most part use all my stuff
at work, but - No ****** cutting boards, no $300+ stuff during service, no quality carbon on busy line work, beater bag for events/off site work (suisin western, fujiwara, togiharu.....)
 
I'm pretty careful and I cook proffesionally. I won't bring any of my $600+ blades to work, cause you just never know. My HHH, takamura, and honyakis stay at home. I generally won't use my j knives for high risk moves and keep a henckles from Wal-Mart in my kit. For super high stress line days I tend to only use stainless blades. I.E. Christmas my takamura will get a workout and my tanaka will stay hidden. But no frozen foods, nuts, lobster/crab shells. Basically anything I think might f my blade. Cheese(hard ones) only see the henckles as well. Sure I could probably use my tadafuda and get away with it, but I dont want to risk it when there's no additional award, besides saving what 5-7 seconds and if I'm cutting a wheel of cheese its probably a gm day and I'm probably doing it for a while.
 
malexthekid said:
I think people tend to overstate how fragile knives are.

The only knives I have chipped are my cheap scanpans when i put too fine an edge on them or when i smacked my blazen's edge into the side of my sink while not paying attention.

Yes you have to alter your technique and you can't throw it around like you don't care about it. But most things that damage the knives we are talking about will damage a cheap knife... just that you don't care if the cheap knife is damaged.
Click to expand...

+1

I used to baby my knives quite a lot, after some usage I relaxed considerably.
I guess I don't tend to use a thinner knife on squash.

A while ago my wife picked up my moritaka, AS and hard, my 'chippiest' knife, and I watched her portion a lamb rack. I didn't say anything, I was interested to see the damage it would do.
There were some micro chips, but not totally horrible, one or 2 sharpening sessions sorted it out.
She's much more careful when it comes to bones now :)
 
I have to pay attention to not add a twist when I finish a cut. It's an odd habit that doesn't happen often, but you can hear it ping as the blade lifts out of the board. Hasn't caused any problems (yet).
I also scrape produce across the board using the back of the blade (the spine). I don't have to think about it anymore as it's second nature.
Otherwise I just pay attention to technique. It's about cutting produce, not beating up your cutting board ;)
 
The pros I know who use nice knives don't baby them at all. One reason is that they sharpen after every shift anyway, so it doesn't matter much if they damage the edge ... they're fixing the thing in an hour or two anyway. If you're cooking at home you can probably go a lot longer between sharpening sessions, so there's a bit more motivation to keep your edges in passably nice shape.

Which explains another difference ... if you sharpen daily, you're going to be a really good and efficient sharpener. If you sharpen every few weeks, you're probably not going to be such a whiz at it. I can get a pretty good edge on my knives, and can repair most problems, but I'll bet anyone who does it daily can do it in fourth the time it takes me. More motivation to keep my edges in decent shape. "Babying" for me mostly consists of common sense, good cutting technique, and not letting anyone use my J-knives unless they're willing to endure some instruction. Nobody ever wants to put themselves through that, so I'm generally the only one who handles the things.
 
Hi. I cook professionally, and I use my knives as the tools they are, they allow me to do my job faster and better, to go through lots of ingredients with less fatigue. I try to use the right tool for the right task, that said, my masamoto vg can handle pretty much everything I throw at it with ease, chese, pumpkins, squash, it is not my sharpest knife, but it is very sharp nonetheless and very though, I can take it from the line to prep dutty and even let some of my co-workers use it in a pinch , the ergonomics are great, and is relatively inexpensive. I have other knives that I use at work too, but they are most task oriented.
 
Im a home user and use a shig kiteji deba to breakdown crab and lobster but I dont torque or tweek the blade.
 
I try and keep my gyuto's in the $300 or less price range so I don't feel I have to "baby" it. Work sucks as is and I don't really have the time to question wether or not I should use a certain knife for a certain task when I'm actually working. That being said there is a house stainless cleaver I use for the obvious "this will wreck your edge" stuff.
 
Cashn said:
That being said there is a house stainless cleaver I use for the obvious "this will wreck your edge" stuff.
Click to expand...

After putting a big ding in my biggest fattest German chef's knife (cutting neck off a 16lb turkey) I got a $5 stainless cleaver in Chinatown. It's now the house "this will wreck your edge" knife. Things do wreck its edge! And no one cares.
 
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