Welcome to the family: New knives
Posted by Chewy on Sunday, March 9th, 2008
Kitchen knives are to me what wands are to witches and wizards in Harry Potter. Not every knife fits every person. You have to be comfortable holding your knife. Preferance for size, shape, weight, balance, metallic make-up all vary from cook to cook.
Really, for the home cook, you only need three knives: A chef’s knife, a paring knife and a serrated knife. And the latter two can be cheap–in price and quality. (And if, for some reason, you don’t eat fresh crusty bread, then you don’t even need the serrtated one.) Unfortunately this doesn’t apply to me, so I end up spending lots of money that probably seems ridiculous to you. But I do like sharp, shiny, pointy things.
I have recently purchased three new knives. I already posted on my new chef’s knife. The only problem with it, is that it’s too large to keep on my station at work during service. So I bought a utility knife which I use as a service knife to do little a la minute jobs–like chiffonade parsley, trim down protein portions and cut pasta sheets. It’s the same brand as my new chef’s knife (Kikuichi) and almost as expensive, but didn’t come with a wooden sheath. The manufacturer calls it a boning knife for some reason. Maybe this is a mistake in translation or maybe they like to make boning things hard for themselves in Japan. 6″ and is carbon steel sandwiched between stainless steel.
Next up is the Wusthof Cruster Buster serrated knife. The fucking this is a called a Crust Buster! It’s 10.5″ inches long and is shaped like a curved chef’s knife for maximum busting through of crusts with minimal effort. $60 with free shipping from Amazon.com. It pretty much rules.
Finally, we have the slicer. Used to, um, slice through meat. Called a sujihiki in Japanese. Using my chef’s knife to make pretty slices out of dozens of portions of meats a night was clumsy and awkward. Kinda like using a toilet wand to brush your teeth. As expensive and the same length as my chef’s knife (9.5″) and obtained from Bowery Kitchen. It’s fucking dreamy and cuts like a hot knife through butter. Using it brings a big shit eating grin to my face.
On knife care: It seems like everyone has an opinion on how to proper care for you knife: Some people hone it on steel before every use (which I don’t). Some people say to never use a diamond honer (which I do). Some people say to never use a honer and only use a sharpening stone (which I use once a week). I find it’s like masturbating–everyone has their own technique to get to the same end.
Alton Brown brings his knives (he is the spokesman for Shun brand) to a professional sharpener, which I was bummed to learn because he’s usually a big D.I.Y. guy.
Now I just have to figure out how to properly dispose of unwanted knives as it’s probably illegal to just leave them on my stoop like people do with clothes, books and old electronics. Anyone have any information regarding this?
Categories: 
Discussion: 
I don’t know if there are places that do this in NYC, but in Syracuse there are a couple of restaurant supply stores that will buy old knives, resharpen them and sell em for a couple bucks.
Also, during the one recent cooking class, it was suggested that you hone your knives on a steel (diamond, steel, whatever is up to you) once every three days, and then have them professionally sharpened once annually, as the two techniques do two different things to you knife. Honing, basically just straightens out the edge of your knife, but doesn’t remove any metal, while sharpening removes metal to create a new edge. I don’t know if that helps at all, but I’ve had a couple drinks already today, and don’t have to go to work.
Comment written by Joe on 1:21 pm on the 10th of March, 2008
Renewing the edge on a knife really depends on:
1.) Your knife (some knives hold their edge better than others depending on the metal used).
2.) How often you use your knife and what you use it for. Like if you don’t cook that often and don’t small dice pounds of hard vegetables, then sharpening it once a year sounds okay. But I use my chef’s for hours a day and by the time Saturday rolls around, honing won’t do shit for it. And since I need to stone it each and every week, it’s not worth it for me to get off my ass and pay someone else to do it for me.
Also, I think Goodwill takes used knives. There’s one in Astoria!
Comment written by Chewy on 1:43 pm on the 10th of March, 2008
You make good points, the class I took was geared towards homebodies like me and culinary school twats.
Comment written by Joe on 2:57 pm on the 10th of March, 2008
When I want to get rid of an old knife I take it to the subway station in the morning and launch in on the first the rush hour F train that comes along. I also yell “Free knife!!” so everyone knows that I mean no harm.
Comment written by Trevor on 7:35 pm on the 10th of March, 2008
although not necessary, if you don’t have one already, cheese knives are very pretty and so handy. the holes in the knife make it fun to cut the cheese!
yeh, i said it.
Comment written by stephTM on 7:44 pm on the 27th of March, 2008
Yeah! I want a bunch of different cheese knives. Those things look badass. Looks like I’ll need another magnetic knife holder.
Comment written by Chewy on 11:32 pm on the 27th of March, 2008
Regarding the guy Alton Brown brings his knives to, that was a very old episode and that guy BUTCHERED the knives. If you see someone grinding a knife and producing sparks, he’s distempering the edge which is a big deal on a knife like your Kikuichi knives because those are designed for (and rely on) the temper to stay hard and sharp over time.
If you use a diamond honing rod and you’re running the Kikuichi knives over a stone once a week, it should probably be about a 1000 grit because you don’t have much metal worn down yet (even in a professional kitchen setting). That’s not exact though and your mileage may vary.
Also, they call it a boning knife because that size and shape of blade is for boning larger salt water fish. It’s a step below a deba knife and a step above fish bone tweezers. That being said, good choice!
Have you ever looked at offset bread knives vs. curved or traditional ones?
Comment written by Ryan on 11:31 pm on the 30th of March, 2008
Thanks for the info, Ryan!
Yeah, I am using a 1000 grit stone, but recently obtained a 6000 grit one because I can never get the edges to be as sharp as when I bought them.
My chef uses an offset bread knife and I find it much easier on the wrists.
Nigella Lawson is a big fan of using a mezzaluna for just about everything (as she likes to rough chop things). I hear they are good for herbs. Do you know anything about them?
Comment written by Chewy on 6:03 pm on the 31st of March, 2008
I generally feel like the larger the mezzaluna the better. I recently purchased a 12″ two-handed vintage carbon Italian mezzaluna, as a gift for someone, from ebay for about $90. After the local cutlery shop (Stoddards of Boston) ground and polished it down on a 6000 grit stone (your point about keen edges being absolutely valid) it was terrifyingly sharp. It was made around 1920 and it was still just an absolute joy to use (on a large end grain board… anything “wimpier” and it’d have wound up gouging the hell out of the board). That being said, it didn’t do anything any better or much faster than I (or you) could do it with a comfortable chef knife.
The thing about the Kikuichi knives (strictly from my experience and I am *not* an expert) is that the steel (both their carbon and stainless) is pretty damned hard (starting at like, 58 on the Rockwell scale and moving up from there) and extremely finicky about angles. They really are ground (by hand) by the blade smiths at about a 12-15 degree angle on each side and the blades are usually so thin that anything broader feels more like it’s crushing food than cutting it.
I ask about the offset bread knife because LamsonSharp makes a really nice forged offset that I’ve been eyeing for a few months now, and I’m one spare paycheck away from picking it up. I have their smaller one (~7″) and I really wish I’d bought the larger one when I had the chance.
I’m going off about knives like a total snob here, but in the end I think I’m just jealous at your new additions. That sujihiki is beautiful.
Comment written by Ryan on 8:05 pm on the 31st of March, 2008
I was just reading Cook’s Illustrated’s review of serrated knives. They didn’t mention mine, but they do love Wusthof’s Classic Bread Knife ($80). I’m not sure if it’s the same knife you want, but they recommend against the LamsonSharp Offset Bread Knife with Ebony Handle (9″). They say it’s too short and it’s serrations too small. Maybe try to Victorinox Forschner 10 1/4″ Curved Blade Bread Knife with Black Fibrox Handle which they highly recommend and give it the best buy stamp, $25! I love this magazine.
I just stared sharpening my knives at a more acute angle: A cook friend once told me angle it so you can fit a finger between the knife and stone (we both have small female hands, though). Someone at Korin just told my chef that the space between the knife and the stone should be the height of two stacked pennies.
Comment written by Chewy on 4:46 pm on the 14th of April, 2008
What I found really interesting about the cooks illustrated review was they’re use of it for three separate tasks which are distinctly different. That being said, I can appreciate the utility of a knife that excels at each. I also wonder how they used their offset knives due solely to the fact that I have the best results when they’re “played” sort of like a violin bow, and held less like a long slicing knife.
I have been trying to find the Forschners bread knife that they recommend, and my local blade-monger (knife-guy? edge-peddler? crack-dealer?) tells me that they are backed up in shipments for those right now due solely to that article. Definitely something to look into though, as $30 almost constitutes a novelty purchase or a throw-away item.
As for sharpening, it depends on the width of the spine, grain of the steel, and nature of the knife. For your gyuto or any one-sided slicing knife (yanagi, deba, etc), two pennies stacked up (~12-16 degrees depending) is pretty good. For a thicker spine (strictly “classic” european style knives) your mincey little girl finger (~16-20 degrees) is the sweet spot. That being said, I cannot grind my own knives for any other use than a quick touch up and I still have to defer to my local shop for any serious work (like the Victorinox 8″ chef’s I tipped pretty good last week).
how is Korin nowadays, by the way? I have not been into the shop since I interviewed for a job in the city like, 3 or 4 years ago. Their online store is excellent but I can’t bring myself to stop shopping locally if only for the conversation at the shop.
Comment written by Ryan on 4:28 pm on the 1st of May, 2008
Ergh. “Their” or “the”, not “they’re”. I must have learned english in a public school.
Comment written by Ryan on 4:29 pm on the 1st of May, 2008