[Q&A -- Knife Maintenance and Sharpening]

Thanks for the suggestions!

I'm quite sure I did have the edge of the blade sticking too far over the blade table, I was spending 1-2 hours on the 120 grit stone just to reach a burr. I can also see I have changed the profile of the knives somewhat. I have found it hard to maintain the "belly" or curve of the knife when using the EdgePro. Perhaps I need more practice and to adjust the position of the knife more frequently, or perhaps I have been applying too much pressure.

I think eventually with the EdgePro it will be hard to maintain a curved profile to the blade edge, and instead you will end up with a series of small straight lines forming an arc... if you can understand what I mean?

Has that happened to you?

[Q&A -- Knife Maintenance and Sharpening]

15 back and a 20 microbevel works fine for me on both Euro chef's and boning but you can see I'm on the conservative side. I think most of the performance benefit of thinning out the edge beyond a certain point comes from the back bevel not offering as much resistance, while the thicker microbevel is much more resistant to fracture and deformation (and much less of a PITA to maintain).

This is basically analogous to convexing, supposedly a high-end sharpening skill. I say supposedly because everyone convexes to some degree sharpening freehand.

So... go to 15 and back off a notch to create a microbevel if the edge starts failing on you?

Good advice. I will just sharpen everything to 15 degrees per side.

So far I have been sharpening everything up to the 6000 grit tape, which is the equivalent of a 18000 grit Japanese waterstone. I'm thinking of sharpening the boning knife and carving knife up to 1000 grit EdgePro stone (8000 grit Japanese waterstone equivalent) only, so that it would have more "bite" for cutting.

What do you think?

I also think I need to have less of the blade edge sticking out over the blade table, I feel like I have been filing away too much metal and working too hard to reach a burr.

[Q&A -- Knife Maintenance and Sharpening]

After these two sessions I can really see the advantage in having Japanese style blades due to the annoying bolster.

Someone around these parts gave me the good idea to have my neighborhood lawn mower blade sharpener grind down the bolsters on my chef's knives. It worked like a charm -- though he seemed a bit confused as to why I wouldn't want him to sharpen the knives.

Not sure if we have people offering that kind of service over here in the UK... although I've thought about taking them to the local mechanic/garage to see if they could grind down the bolsters...

Btw, does anyone have a good recommendation for the angle at which to sharpen a European style boning knife? Also any advice on how to sharpen the curved point using the EdgePro?

[Q&A -- Knife Maintenance and Sharpening]

15 is pushing it for a final edge on Euro stainless. Are you going to microbevel?

Possibly, but want to see what the edge retention is like at 15 degrees per side...

[Q&A -- Knife Maintenance and Sharpening]

I just reprofiled two of my knives. They were French style, V Sabatier knives, a 20cm and 15cm chef knives. I started on the 120 grit stone, and it seemed to take a VERY VERY VERY long time to reprofile to 15 degrees. I also seemed to be spending a long time on each subsequent stone (220, 320, 600, 1000, and 6000 tape) to come to a burr on each side. After these two sessions I can really see the advantage in having Japanese style blades due to the annoying bolster.

[Q&A -- Knife Maintenance and Sharpening]

I tried to maintain the steep angle that is currently on the blade using the Sharpie technique to make sure I was at the edge and not reprofiling. As you can see it is a single beveled edge.

It must be quite hard to hold the benriner blade, did you tape it down to the deck?

[Q&A -- Knife Maintenance and Sharpening]

So I have a few other questions regarding knife maintenance and sharpening:

1. Have you ever tried using the EdgePro to sharpen a (Benriner) mandolin blade?

Yes I have. It worked very well.

Cool. What angle did you use?

[Q&A -- Knife Maintenance and Sharpening]

Good going. Let's nerd out about

when you get the kit.

The video is not mine, btw - my knives are much sharper.

Which knives do you have, what edge do you sharpen them to, and what equipment do you have?

[Q&A -- Knife Maintenance and Sharpening]

I will be in New York this weekend to pick up my EdgePro. After reading the amazing zknives.com I also decided to order the 6000 grit abrasive film, some glass blanks, and a piece of Hand American honing leather which I will stick onto the glass blanks to make a leather strop. I also ordered some 0.5 micron and 0.25 micron Hand American diamond spray to use with the leather strops.

That may be a bit excessive, but it's not too expensive, and I would like to see just how far I can take the edge, beyond SCARY sharp!

I also ordered some borosilicate (pyrex) rods off of eBay, since the Hand American borosilicate honing rod is sold out every, but also extremely expensive. I got these rods for a fraction of the price, and with a slightly thicker diameter so that they will hopefully be a bit more impact resistant. I'm also going to order a stainless steel tube with an internal diameter just a little bit wide than that of the rod, as a carrying case for them. All that will still be cheaper than the Hand American rod. I've also thought about a hand grip, a hand guard, and some end caps for the rods, but since I will be holding the rod at the top firmly down against the chopping board, I dont think those will actually be necessary.

Will let you know how I get on!

[Q&A -- Knife Maintenance and Sharpening]

Anyone know the best or most recommended angle at which to sharpen a chinese cleaver?

I ordered the EdgePro and will be travelling to New York in a couple of weeks so I can pick it up then. If I get the chance I will try to visit the Korin store in NY too.

I also ordered the Gekko GE-5 240mm Gyuto with personal engraving. Can't wait for it to arrive! I'm seriously tempted to get the Sanetsu ZDP-189 270mm Gyuto, but it is about 6x the price and I can't justify it since I am a university student and haven't even gone to culinary school or worked in a professional kitchen yet!

[Japanese Knives – What to Buy?]

If you really want a bargain in a Japanese knife take a look at these. They are the Tosagata brand and for the money you get really good knives for a super cheap price. They are rough around the edges (no pun) but I'll tell ya, the blades are really good and they are sturdy knives. The Satsuma knife is a new one they started offering and looks like a great prep knife. The Atsu Deba is super tough. I have the small chopping knife and it's done a great job so far.

I looked at that website... How can they have blue steel knives at such a high RC and be soooo cheap??

[Q&A -- Knife Maintenance and Sharpening]

So I have a few other questions regarding knife maintenance and sharpening:

1. Have you ever tried using the EdgePro to sharpen a (Benriner) mandolin blade?

2. Do you finish with a different courseness depending on which knife you are sharpening? I.e. slightly coarser on a knife which does more slicing, and finer on a knife that does more pushing/chopping.

3. Have you ever tried making your own scalloped/granton edges to reduce friction when cutting and allow food to "release" more easily?

[Cooking with "Modernist Cuisine" (Part 2)]

In Modernist Cuisine it is recommended not to use a pressure cooker for some canning due to the way it vents, as you cannot be certain that when the pressure cooker seals itself that all air has been evacuated and there is only water and steam remaining. The intructions in Modernist Cuisine state to use a pressure canner, allow the canner to vent for at least 10 minutes for all air to have been evacuated, and then close the gauge with the provided weight.

I have a spring valve pressure cooker. Couldn't I simply keep the pressure cooker on a high heat so that it would go beyond the maximum 15psi and automatically vent to relieve the pressure for at least 10 minutes, and then turn the heat down so that it seals and cooks at the correct pressure? Surely that would work the same way as the canner?

Or I could put a weight on the spring valve so it never gets a chance to seal, vent it for 10 minutes, then remove the weight and allow the spring to rise to seal the cooker and build up the pressure...

[Q&A -- Knife Maintenance and Sharpening]

I really love the look of the damascus steel blades with the hammered texture like your Gekko knife. Do you find that the hammered effect allows food to release much easier?

I'd like to think that it does, indeed, offer better release, but... no.

That's very disappointing to hear. So purely for aesthetics then?

[Q&A -- Knife Maintenance and Sharpening]

But of course. I have three: a Mac paring knife, this Gekko nakiri 165mm from JCK (search for "GE-3 Nakiri 165mm"), and a pointed-tip nakiri from Tsubaya in Tokyo. You can read about them over in the Nakiri topic.

I really love the look of the damascus steel blades with the hammered texture like your Gekko knife. Do you find that the hammered effect allows food to release much easier?

Shun Premier knives feature a similar design. How would you think Shun compares to Gekko, or other handmade knives featuring the damascus and hammered texture?

Furthermore, have you heard about Tojiro Senkou knives? I am not sure if they are that well known in USA. They seem to be quite good quality, 63 layers of damascus steel, and linen micarta handles. All I know is that they are Heston Blumenthal's knives of choice, and I've seen him use them in every show he has been in.

[List of Errors in Charcuterie by M. Ruhlman]

"I'm shocked, shocked to find that..." My gosh, such an illustrious book by such a professional author to have errors? Didn't Ruhlman say recently

The text, and there is a lot of it, is proficient and as compelling as my high school science textbooks. But artful prose is not the point. While the quantity of aspirin required to read this straight through can be measured in thousands of milligrams, the goal was clarity and thoroughness, and the information is indeed clear, sound and, if anything, too thorough. Buried in the verbiage is a treasure of insights, some truly original, some familiar but described from new and compelling angles. Sometimes overly proud of itself, at other times it is recklessly (and admirably) opinionated.

No doubt he will be issuing errata on his site.

I wish there was a "like" for this post as there is on Facebook...

[Q&A -- Knife Maintenance and Sharpening]

I do the 15/20 angle on all my Western chef's knives because they're softer and thicker than my Japanese knifes and I use them, not the Japanese knives, for tougher tasks.

If I may ask, which Japanese knives do you have?

[Q&A -- Knife Maintenance and Sharpening]

I might as well turn in my Official eGullet Knife Nut Club badge right now because I have no experience with either Hattori or V Sabatier. I do know both of them are well regarded in their own categories. The high-end Hattoris in particular seem to be practically venerated by their owners.

If I had any advice to give it would be not to focus overmuch on brand names and specs and get a knife that really suits you. IMHO you can get a perfectly functional chef's for under $50, and an excellent one that also looks nice for under $100. Spending more than that will only get you relatively marginal performance gains and/or the prestige of owning a premium product (both of which I'm chronically guilty of, btw. I like nice things). I own much "better" knives but the ones I reach for 4 times out of 5 are a gyuto of unknown provenance (I can't read kanji) that is very similar or the same as the ones sold under the Gekko brand in USA and a baby chef's from Shun's Alton's Angles line.

The other piece of advice is to get that EdgePro and master it. Better a sharp dollar store knife than the latest four-figure wunderstahl gyuto if it's not sharp.

I agree with you. I got my V Sabatier knives all for £10-20 each, which I think is a very good price. I tend to mainly use the 20cm chef's knife, boning knife, bread knife, and paring knives most of the time, but they all do eventually get used from time to time. They are probably higher quality, and a similar price or even cheaper than the ones provided at the culinary school.

I am definitely going to get the EdgePro. Do you think the 15/20 compound bevel is the best way to go for these French-style knives? Or could I go even steeper?

[Q&A -- Knife Maintenance and Sharpening]

According to my DIN standards book it means the composition by weight is 0.5% carbon, 1% max silicon, 1% max manganese, 14.5% chrome, 0.65% molybdenum and 0.15% vanadium.

In other words it's a Euro name for what the rest of the world knows as 440A, a very common stainless cutlery material. IMHO heat treatments are a lot more critical than the material used (unless of course they use something really awful).

Thank you for this information. My knives are the "V Sabatier" range from Richard Sheffield.

Perhaps I should contact them to find out what their RC rating for these knives is. I am a final year university student and got these knives at a very good price, I think they will serve me well for the time being. I do want to go to culinary school, and the culinary schools I have looked at provide a set of knives as part of the tuition price. However, I have a feeling that these knives may be better than the ones they provide.

I don't think I will buy another set until I graduate from culinary school. Perhaps a set of Tojiro Senkou knives, but my dream knives may well be the Hattori KD Series, even with the 2 year waiting list, I'm sure they are worth waiting for.

Please take a look at the Hattori knives and tell me your opinions, I would be really glad to receive your input!

Cheers!

[Q&A -- Knife Maintenance and Sharpening]

I thought I had some really great knives, X50ChroMa15 or whatever V Sabatier knives. They are good, but I have been using the grooved honing steel that is in their series and always feel that my edge is never as sharp as I would like.

Having just checked my knives, they are X50CrMoV15, if that means anything to anyone

["Modernist Cuisine" by Myhrvold, Young & Bilet (Part 3)]

I was a bit disappointed to see the lack of an inclusion of a more recent, popular, and highly scientific theory in the Food Safety section:

The 5 Second Rule.

Perhaps Nathan might want to revise the current edition to include it in later printings??

[Q&A -- Knife Maintenance and Sharpening]

I've found that the people at EdgePro themselves are great to deal with. I'd contact them and see if you can arrange something. Website here.

You are absolutely right. Over the past couple of days I have been sending emails backwards and forwards with Ben from EdgePro and he has been very friendly and helpful. However he was unable to accomodate my requests.

I think the cheapest thing to do would be to order from one of their resellers who offer free national shipping, have it sent to my brother's office in New York where he works, and then have him send it to me marked as a gift at a lower value.

Ideally it would be cheaper to have someone buy it and bring it over to the UK, in which case I wouldn't have to pay any postage, but the only relative I know who plans to go to NY any time soon wont be for another 6 weeks, and I don't want to wait that long!

[Q&A -- Knife Maintenance and Sharpening]

Wow, I have finally gotten through reading the full knife sharpening and maintenance course, and the entire Q&A... there are just so many variables in cooking and equipment that we just don't think about or realise.

I thought I had some really great knives, X50ChroMa15 or whatever V Sabatier knives. They are good, but I have been using the grooved honing steel that is in their series and always feel that my edge is never as sharp as I would like.

Needless to say, I am currently figuring out the logistics to purchase and EdgePro and have it sent to me in the UK. The only UK reseller is significantly more expensive than the US price...

[Cooking with "Modernist Cuisine" (Part 2)]

Oh, and we must say, that we love Guy MovingOn’s idea to create a sphere within a sphere for a tequila shot! Let us know if you ever achieve this!

6. Guy MovingOn must have gotten his hands on a Thermomix, because he asked what recipes specifically call for, can be made with, or improved by using one.

It’s always fun to try out new toys in the kitchen and we can think of a variety of things that work well with a Thermomix. Have you ever tried scrambled eggs? Anything with eggs, like a custard base, would work well in a Thermomix. Other bases, like ice cream bases, can be made in one, too. Top it off by making some caramel on top. If you are in the mood for something savory, try making fondue or cheese foam.

A Thermomix is great for both dispersing and hydrating hydrocolloids. We discuss this in 4•24-27.

Thank you, Maxime, for your time taken to answer a lot of these questions that got lost in this thread!

I haven't gotten around to playing with spherification on the tequila shots, but it is something with which I will experiment in a few weeks after my exams have finished.

I don't have a thermomix, but I have been considering getting one. I have also wanted to purchase the Kenwood Chef Titanium for a long time, and they now produce a the Kenwood Cooking Chef withan induction heater built in, so I was just wondering about purchasing one of those instead. However, I think they temperature only increases in increments of 10C, and the accuracy is not that great either, so I may just get the Kenwood Chef Titanium instead.

["Modernist Cuisine" by Myhrvold, Young & Bilet (Part 3)]

I just ordered those books, so I'll let you know what I think.

Thank you Nathan, yes please do let me know! There are actually several technical baking books on that website, I'm sure eventually you will own all of those books!