Dakki

But don't take my word for it: Herr Landes discusses it with others in this thread. Relevant quote:

There's tool steels and there's tool steels. W series is just a high-quality carbon steel. D2 is specifically formulated for wear resistance, not hot work. For that, you want one of the hot-hard steels. How much heat is "a lot" is entirely subjective, but knifemaker Roman Landes has done a great deal of research on the topic of edge "burning" on power tools and gadgets. I don't recall the exact temps reached or the precise degree of damage done, but his conclusion can summed up as "just don't."

It's fine dude, I don't think anyone actually reads my posts except the mods.

That doesn't matter. Temper will be screwed by heat on any heat treated steel part (and I think work-hardened and precipitation-hardened knives are probably pretty rare). I think you were thinking of austenitic stainless or maybe hot hard steels (H series and similar).

Heh, actually I mentioned that (and the proper way of flattening) in my first post.

If it's like my Sab (it might not be, the Sabatier brand is a designation of origin, not a single factory's brand) it has a bolster that gets in the way of straightening off that hollow. I suggest taking it to a machining job shop to have them grind it off. If they can't/won't do it "wet" (liquid cooled), find another job shop.

Oh great we're having this argument again. Yeah, power tools can ruin a knife in no time flat. Not only do they remove a lot of material, they also heat it, potentially affecting the blade's hardness (and therefore its potential sharpness).

I oil mine, both boards and utensils. They look and feel much nicer and I haven't had any of my boards warp since I started doing it, but it could be all in my head.

The weirdest (and funniest) story I've read lately. http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2013/09/11/cbs-2-investigation-underground-and-illegal-nyc-dinner-parties/

Awesome. So what's the code? Or is it a trade secret?

I don't really care about the grill marks, maybe because to me "grilled" should signify grilled over charcoal or wood, and grill marks obtained any other way are "cheating." A silly prejudice but there you go. I have heard a rumor though that steak houses "code" the doneness into the marks, eg single marks means the steak is rare, cross-hatched at a certain angle means medium and so on. Can anyone in the industry confirm/deny this?

dcarch, your photos are stunning as always. I would never have guessed they weren't done without some highly specialized and expensive gear.

I think the "Sharpmaker" should be called a "Sharpkeeper." I've found it works really well for maintaining an existing edge but is much too slow to set an edge or repair a chipped edge. I keep mine set up next to the cutting boards so I can do a pass or two to restore that "light saber" feeling you only get with a really fresh edge. A steel will work just as well in most cases, but can damage some of your really hard knives, which won't get any benefit from honing (technically burnishing) anyway. Like I said above, it is much too slow for major work, and it does require a bit more focus (not that much, though) and hand-eye coordination than the EdgePro. Using the EdgePro is messier and more time-consuming, though, and just feels a lot more like a project. What did you not like about the Sharpmaker?

I agree with this post, but I think it can be misunderstood. I don't think you need to stay at a given angle - slight variation will just produce a convex edge, which is actually desirable - and it's basically impossible anyway, since neither the jig or the knife are perfectly rigid. All you need is a "good enough" geometry at the cutting edge to get the results we seek. Where the jig systems shine is in allowing you to be approximately consistent in each stroke without having to focus on a very repetitive task, so you don't knock off your lovingly created 15° edge with a single 45° pass on the stone.

I think a light touch and a little understanding of how abrasives act on steel go a long way and are much more important to results than having the "right" stones or system. Nice gear is tautologically nice but you can get very good results on almost anything if you understand what you're doing. I've tried freehand on a variety of stones and a lot of systems over the years and a very coarse bench stone and Apex EdgePro for the first sharpening and repair work and the Spyderco Sharpmaker for everyday maintenace is what works for me. For stainess, I think finer grits are pretty much a waste of time, and cheap/free (with a diamond tool) abrasive files will work just fine if you don't mind scratching the blade a little. If you decide to try those abrasive files or other cheapies, prepare them using the three plate method and you'll get some really nice results.

I've never had a problem with that particular product/service, so if anyone else has that's obviously their fault. (That's a joke, btw) Yeah, there's no guarantee photobucket or dropbox or eG for that matter are going to be in business next month, nevermind keep your precious files safe. I agree you should keep copies of anything that you care about on your PC, preferably in a RAID or similar. I suggest photobucket and similar image hosting services because they make it much easier to share pics across multiple forums, allowing you to share an existing link instead of uploading to each one individually, which many forums don't even allow. Having those links ready also encourages you to share stuff when you might not have taken the trouble otherwise. This is a stray I picked up. Isn't he cute?!

Photobucket has apps to work directly with most mobile devices, including Apple products. Consolidating your photos on a service like this also allows you to manage them across the board, which is useful if you crosspost pics on multiple forums.

I've had uniformly good results with the method discussed in this thread.

I think it's like any other hobby - people can get really annoying about it. Particularly if it's combined with the whole green/organic/home gardening/farmer's market holier-than-thou thing. (I.e. "Of course I only use my own home canned tomatoes that I grew myself using compost that we made at home.") It's generally time consuming and messy and physically demanding since you often don't can unless you have a quantity of something, so it just doesn't fit into everyone's lifestyle, but some people seem to think you should MAKE it fit. (Plus, even if you have the time and the space and the energy to do it, there's the food safety aspect - some people may just not want to deal with making sure they do everything properly so the canned stuff is safe. It's not like most of us are in a situation now where we NEED to can in order to have stuff available during the winter, thanks to supermarkets and commercially available products.) I mean, I quite enjoyed it and I'd do it again, but there are plenty of items that I COULD can where I don't see the point when you can buy something just as good or better, or where canning isn't the preservation method I like. (I don't like canning vegetables in general, for example. I think they're better frozen for preservation, if you have the freezer space. I don't like the canned vegetable texture.) Wait, you mean canning doesn't suck the organic right out of food? I understand not "getting" an interest or even thinking it's kinda stupid and probably symptomatic of moral depravity or something -that's how I feel about RAH RAH HOMETOWN SPORTS TEAM- but, really, canning? If you hate thise annoying granola canning people, you'd presumably avoid them because they're annoying, not because they're into canning. I think.

Canning seems as innocous as an activity can get. There's no strong smell or noise involved, and I am not aware of any major belief system forbidding it. What am I missing?

There seems to be far less home canning here in Mexico, at least in urban populations. What little there is tends to be of the open kettle method, using recycled jars with conventional lids rather than the two-piece type. I think the reason is the lack of a hobby culture, which is directly tied in with a lack of free time and disposable income/consumer credit. I personally do pickled chiles (a whole different product from the commercial kind, believe me), and I remember my great-aunt doing jams and jellies with quince, fig and sour orange, among other fruits. So it's not totally unknown, just a bit unusual.

Ceramics are a love or hate thing, I think. I'm on the hate side. My brother swears by his. In my experience, the edge chips far too easily. Furthermore, if shipping it to the company isn't an option (it isn't, for me) or you enjoy maintaining your own eq (which I do), you have to buy a set of diamond stones, which remain expensive, even if the knives themselves have dropped in price. This is especially true of the coarse stones, which makes the chipping issue even more problematic.To top it off, the stones are short lived compared to conventional stones of any type, even shorter if you distractedly put some weight behind the stroke or try to sharpen your steel knives on them, as the diamond particles tend to embed in the steel and get torn off their base. Finally, I've never seen a ceramic with a real hair-whittling edge, although to be fair I haven't really tried to get one. I think the reasons people are enthusing about the sharpness of these things is because 1) they're comparing to a mediocre-to-awful factory edge on a steel knife and 2) ceramic knives -do- tend to be slimmer than most steel knives, which means less wedging. Good, slim steel knives are also available, though. YMMV of course. I say get a cheap one and give it away if you don't like it.

I'm making sauerkraut. Initially the brine level (2.5% salt by weight of cabbage, no water added) was about 4-5 cm over the plate, now (8 days in) it's only about 2 cm deep over the plate, presumably due to evaporation. Websites suggest adding a brine, but I think that will just up the salt concentration as more water evaporates. So, add brine or just (cool boiled) water? Also, while scumming the "bloom" (in this case, a white, yeasty-smelling film) from the surface, some of it got mixed into the brine. Do I need to worry about this?

Hello, all. My sister will be visiting the city sometime next week. We both love deli-type restaurants. I would like to hear what the natives consider the best places, and what to order in them so I can pass it along. (She's probably going to end up with a Reuben at whatever's close to the hotel, but, yeah).

Regular use: Gyuto/chef's Paring Boning Cutting boards CI skillet (you need at least two of these, one for scorching things and one you can build a good seasoning on) Griddle/comal Stick blender Small pot w/ lid Salad spinner Spyderco Sharpmaker Casserole dishes w/ lids (more for food storage than actual cooking) Vast amounts of disposable clear plastic containers (wash and reuse supermarket stuff) Stainless mixing bowls Cheese grater Coffee grinder Pourover coffee funnel gadget Electric kettle Wooden spoon Metal spatula Tongs Egg timer Occasional: Meat cleaver Carving Bread knife Colander Sieves Masher Small stockpot w/ steamer inserts Slow cooker Dutch oven (doubles as deep fryer) Baking sheets Round-sided saucepan Ramekins (with hermetic plastic lids, these double as storage for single servings of pates, etc.) Mortar & pestle Molcajete Microwave oven Toaster Microplane Oven thermometer Meat thermometer Spider Ladle Rare: Tea ball Food processor Stand mixer (would trade this for a purpose-built meat grinder in an instant) Conventional blender Dehydrator Toaster oven EdgePro and freestanding stones Things I'll probably get when I get around to it: Purpose-built meat grinder Spice grinder (there's one that's basically a motorized mortar... yeah) Sausage stuffer Ventless pressure cooker/canner