Knife related questions

[Albert Chaim]

Hi all,

I hope that someone with a good amount of knowledge can help me out here. I'm on a market for a kitchen knife because i'm struggling with my set. Right now, I have Mundial set. The set made of 3 knifes. It is made in Brazilian. The problem with that set is they don't hold the edge for a long. I started to do a research and landed on this Kitchen knife set article. It talks about western knifes and Japanese. What it is not covered is cleaver knifes.

I want to have good all purpose kitchen knife. Based on so many youtube videos with Cleaver knifes I am leaning towards that knife. It seems the chefs can do anything and everything with it.

So here is my question. I wasn't aware that japanese knifes are sharpened only on a single side. Is anyone know why? Is Cleaver knifes are sharpened on a single side too ?

How hard is it to sharpen the Japanese knife in comparison to Western Knifes?

Is anyone know why we can't see many art cutting with western knife or japanese?

The only thing that comes to mind is because Cleaver knife is thinner.

By art cutting I mean something like this:

 

[Infrared]

I wasn't aware that japanese knifes are sharpened only on a single side. Is anyone know why?

Traditional Japanese knives (yanagiba, usuba, deba, etc.) are usually sharpened on one side (called single bevel). More "modern" Japanese knives (santoku, gyuto, etc.) are usually sharpened on both sides (called double bevel). Among other reasons, single bevel knives allow for very thin cuts with minimal damage to the produce, which is important in Japanese (professional) cooking.

Is Cleaver knifes are sharpened on a single side too ?

Cleavers are sharpened on both sides.

How hard is it to sharpen the Japanese knife in comparison to Western Knifes?

Japanese knives are much easier to sharpen because they are much thinner than your average Western knife. Single bevel knives are also easy to sharpen as long as you know what you're doing.

The only thing that comes to mind is because Cleaver knife is thinner.

There are different kinds of cleavers. An all purpose "Chinese" cleaver is going to be much thinner than a cleaver used to cut into bone.

What is your budget? Gyutos and chef's knives are the usual recommendations for an all purpose knife. You can even get a nakiri or santoku if you want something smaller.

 

[DavidPF]

The reason we don't see artistic cutting more often is that it's not easy to do!