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Ultrasonic Chef's Knife

seattleultrasonics.com

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Re: Ultrasonic Chef's Knife

#261

Post by saxonww »

tptacek wrote: post #96

Elsewhere on the thread I pointed out that I'd noticed the video doesn't show anybody doing actual prep; making an easy but deliberate thin slice of a tomato is one thing, quickly dicing an onion or a bell pepper is a very different thing. To that observation I'd add (h/t my Slack friends) this interesting site Seattle Ultrasonics stood up: https://seattleultrasonics.com/pages/knife-database One thing I notice here i…

The two things that stood out to me:

"The best tools shouldn't only be accessible to the pros" but his knife costs more than every knife in that database.

The weight is listed in their help articles as 330g. I also think that handle is chunkier than a typical high end chef's knife. It may be easier to cut things with it, but I think your hand and arm are going to get tired of using it more quickly than with a regular knife at ~100g less.

And I realize these fare worse than the high end japanese and german knives, but it's hard to get excited about a $400 knife you can't put in the dishwasher when you can get a perfectly credible fibrox knife for about a tenth of that, which doesn't require charging and can tolerate 'careless home cook' levels of abuse.

Re: Ultrasonic Chef's Knife

#262

Post by arp242 »

I watched the video and this seems pretty neat. Don't want to knock it or be negative. He's definitely right that most people's knives are dull – when I use knives in other people's homes I often just want to cry at how dull they are (also: pans – how the hell do so many people have dented damaged pans?) But you really don't need to splurge out €329 to have reasonably sharp knives.

All you need is a sharpening steel and use it once or twice after every usage. Even a cheap knife will last for years while remaining reasonable sharp. Mine was €6 or thereabouts at Tesco two years ago and is more than sharp enough.

Of course more expensive knifes (ultrasonic or not) are better and can hold an edge longer. You can spend more time, effort, and money on making them sharper than just a quick use of a cheap sharpening steel. If you want to spend the extra money: go for it! But for a normal home cook: you can go a long way with consistent use of a €10 sharpening steel.

Re: Ultrasonic Chef's Knife

#263

Post by shoobiedoo »

gorgoiler wrote: post #135

A different but far better piece of cutting edge technology is a modern, diamond-encrusted nickel/chrome-plated steel plate. These things are now so sharp they can bring an edge profile back to a knife in five strokes without even needing lubrication (which is nice as water is a PITA when it causes corrosion between the steel bed and the plating.) Every knife in your kitchen can be razor sharp in seconds and kept raz…

Agreed. Even a knife with heavy usage only needs a few swipes to realign the edge. Warning though, sharpening things can be addicting. I have a massive straight razor and finishing stone collection. It's a wonderful hobby, but dipping into natural stones gets very expensive

Re: Ultrasonic Chef's Knife

#265

Post by arp242 »

thomassmith65 wrote: post #251
wisty wrote: post #246

Why is it people here seem so unusually sceptical? It's expensive (but not really, only compared to knives - a $500 GPU isn't expensive). It's probably mostly good in certain niches and using a $10 knife that's sharpened properly is probably 95% as good in almost every application, and using a $10 knife that is only reasonably well sharpened is probably 90% as good. Slicing stuff for hotpot or yakiniku or Korean BBQ…

It's the lack of pragmatism. "Sure, people claim the kitchen knife has been a solved problem for hundreds of years, but what if there was a kitchen knife that had a battery inside and cost $500? " And if this version of the knife doesn't connect to the cloud, the next one will. It all seems quite gimmicky.

> if this version of the knife doesn't connect to the cloud, the next one will.

That's just ugly cynicism. And I'm willing to bet a good amount of money the "next one" from this company won't. But it doesn't matter because this one doesn't and we're talking about this one, not some hypothetical that may never arrive.

Re: Ultrasonic Chef's Knife

#266

Post by arp242 »

ok_computer wrote: post #65

This is a QVC product with the name of a US tech city slapped on it. Signed, a guy living nearby the home of QVC in a decidedly non-tech area of the US. Ps. don’t buy future e-waste kitchen ware unless you have accessibility reasons. You can get a good-enough victoronix 8” chef knife for $65 (I paid $36 a long time ago) and a world class chef knife for less than $250.

In the video he says he spent a lot of time making prototypes and perfecting the design.

Is he lying? He shows images of the prototypes. Did he create fake prototypes?

Re: Ultrasonic Chef's Knife

#267

Post by mckn1ght »

mattmaroon wrote: post #223
condiment wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A talented chef might cut vegetables at 25hz, while the blade is moving at 44khz. So whatever cutting improvement is conferred by the ultrasonic tech will certainly be applied towards fast cutting. It seems that the main benefit for fast cutting would be that food doesn't stick to the blade. I'll cut bread with my chef's knife (amazon shun knockoff) when I want to make less of a mess. One interesting thing I noticed…

Damn, I was set to completely dismiss this as entirely useless overcomplication but making stuff not stick to the knife would be nice.

That’s where a lot of mess comes from, so I’m very interested in this tech. The worst are cucumbers, they stick to the blade and new slices pop them up and they roll everywhere. I get some better results by slightly angling the blade but it’s not perfect.

The blade quality doesn’t look great but I think any decent cook that knows how to hone will do just fine with it.

I’m not sure I’d spend the money and replace my expensive knives for a relatively rare edge case but it’s a neat innovation that might catch on elsewhere, or maybe they’ll make premium lines.

Re: Ultrasonic Chef's Knife

#268

Post by mckn1ght »

tptacek wrote: post #255
jorvi wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, I can't speak to "false advertising", but the thin slice he did with the tomato and the grape you can just achieve with a well-sharpened knife. Both sides of a whetstone and then a strop will get you there. As for the sticking, this is solved by vertical fluting already. Ultrasonic vibration is a complicated solution for a problem that has already been solved by the simple solution of just sharpening your knive…

He acknowledges you can do that with a well-sharpened knife. Of course you can do it with a well-sharpened knife. It's exactly the demo every single sharp knife does! His claim is that the ultrasonic knife will always do that cut, whether or not you assiduously keep it sharp, which is what I have to do with my MAC and Yuki to make it cut tomatoes like that. But most chef-knife cutting isn't thin tomato slices, and yo…

Yep, I have a Shun with micro serrations ([0]) that will slice a tomato so finely you basically feel no resistance.

The only downside is that you can’t really hone or sharpen it yourself so you have to baby it. I’ve had mine about 15 years and have sent it in one time for their free sharpening at about the 11 year mark. At least Shun blades hold their edge a really long time.

[0]: https://shun.kaiusa.com/classic-serrated-utility-6.html?srsl...

Re: Ultrasonic Chef's Knife

#269

Post by wisty »

thomassmith65 wrote: post #251
wisty wrote: post #246

Why is it people here seem so unusually sceptical? It's expensive (but not really, only compared to knives - a $500 GPU isn't expensive). It's probably mostly good in certain niches and using a $10 knife that's sharpened properly is probably 95% as good in almost every application, and using a $10 knife that is only reasonably well sharpened is probably 90% as good. Slicing stuff for hotpot or yakiniku or Korean BBQ…

It's the lack of pragmatism. "Sure, people claim the kitchen knife has been a solved problem for hundreds of years, but what if there was a kitchen knife that had a battery inside and cost $500? " And if this version of the knife doesn't connect to the cloud, the next one will. It all seems quite gimmicky.

That's cynicism.

Everything has pros and cons. You haven't said a single pro. You haven't added any real cons to what I said, and made up hypothetical ones.

It's a sales pitch so you're saying why you wouldn't buy it. I'm not ordering one either, 500 is a bit steep for me. If he just showed off the technology, I suspect people here would be more enthusiastic about it, even if you wouldn't bother to buy it yourself.

I'm not saying you're wrong (at the price point), but that the framing of whether we're going to buy it is a result of the marketing.

Re: Ultrasonic Chef's Knife

#270

Post by superkuh »

scythe wrote: post #259
oofbey wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

25 chops per second would be EXTRAORDINARY. Possible? Probably but only with super elite training. Most competent home chefs can probably do 5 Hz and probably struggle to get to 10 Hz.

The sixteenth notes in "Crazy Train"[1] are nominally 552 per minute, or 9.2 Hz. Moving a knife at 10 Hz is probably very difficult. I would expect 2-3 Hz is a normal pace for a skilled knife user and 4-5 Hz is showing off. 1: https://youtube.com/watch?v=tMDFv5m18Pw#t=0m32s

Cerebellar oscillation (in the inferior olive) gate motor control interrupt speed and are generally limited to ~10 Hz in humans.
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