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Ultrasonic Chef's Knife

seattleultrasonics.com

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Re: Ultrasonic Chef's Knife

#181

Post by ash_091 »

SilverElfin wrote: post #144
pukexxr wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a semantic argument. This product smacks of being a garbage kitchen gadget. Whether or not it's a QVC product, it certainly looks like cheap white-label alibaba junk. Just look at that handle. Did they just slap a knifeblade into an electric nosehair trimmer? I'd try one out of professional/academic curiosity (I'm a chef), but am highly skeptical of this product. It looks like absolute trash. All the people s…

They actually had an industrial design studio come up with the design. It isn’t white labeled “Alibaba junk” and to my eyes, it doesn’t resemble that either. > I've got knives that I've had for over 20 years that perform as well as this thing appears to (in the slick prepared advertisement). You have knives that can not have potatoes stick without scallops in the blade? Or that can atomize lemon drops? Or that can cu…

> Or that can cut through bread easily without a serrated edge?

Yes. Absolutely. IME a quality sharpened chefs' knife is far better at cutting bread cleanly than a serrated knife, which by contrast will leave a rough edge and loads of crumbs.

Re: Ultrasonic Chef's Knife

#182

Post by UltraSane »

Philip-J-Fry wrote: post #119
tptacek wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This thing is $399, which is on the expensive side of prestige chef knives, but by no means the extravagant side of it. People who buy knives that cost more than $150 generally buy lots of knives, and this is priced for that market.

But it's not priced for the market of people who buy lots of knives. Because those who buy lots of knives aren't going to be interested in some mediocre knife with a vibration motor attached to it. Those who are interested in knives would be able to get a more impressive knife for $399. And they are usually the type of people that enjoy sharpening a knife until it cuts better than this ultrasonic knife ever will. Thi…

Why do you think the knife is mediocre?

Re: Ultrasonic Chef's Knife

#183

Post by kakabelo3 »

What does this device accomplish in the kitchen, besides being able to make fine slices of vegetables more easily? Electric carver knives beat it for slicing meat.

And then for most any other situation of knife usage it isn't necessary at all, as knives are mostly used for chopping. The one (1) thing I can see this being useful for is a shrunken down version for paring, but whether or not that is mechanically feasible, I don't know. The curve and the handle are more important than this vibro-verbing.

Nice dialogue, btw. "Help chefs feel great about themselves in the kitchen", "access to sous vide". ?

Re: Ultrasonic Chef's Knife

#186

Post by enord »

thebenedict wrote: post #155
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.

This is nonsense and your cynicism is unwarranted. I personally know Scott. He's worked on food tech in Seattle for decades, and developed the product and fundraised for Seattle Ultrasonics locally. Ultrasonic knives are historically large footprint devices used in commercial/industrial food prep. The innovation here is making ultrasonic hardware compact enough to fit in the knife handle.

[flagged]

Re: Ultrasonic Chef's Knife

#187

Post by xxs »

rplnt wrote: post #148
pukexxr wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a semantic argument. This product smacks of being a garbage kitchen gadget. Whether or not it's a QVC product, it certainly looks like cheap white-label alibaba junk. Just look at that handle. Did they just slap a knifeblade into an electric nosehair trimmer? I'd try one out of professional/academic curiosity (I'm a chef), but am highly skeptical of this product. It looks like absolute trash. All the people s…

> All the people saying this knife does anything remarkable clearly have no experience in maintaining a decent knife blade. Yes? I mean, that's one of the main points of the gadget, as said in the advertisement.

The blade must be sharpen regardless, the apex won't stay sharp on its right own. The vibration does help but it doesn't do any actual cutting if you dull the blade.

Re: Ultrasonic Chef's Knife

#188

Post by xxs »

brandall10 wrote: post #132
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.

Check out Japanese knives. The Tojiro DP I got for an inflation adjusted $75 is a dramatically better knife than that Victorinox.

One note on high quality and carbon Japanese knives - they are way harder to sharpen, also usually come with 17 degrees apex.

Higher HRC would retain the sharp edge for longer, of course - but again much harder (literally) to sharp them.

Re: Ultrasonic Chef's Knife

#189

Post by tptacek »

condiment wrote: post #173
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…

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…

I'm not saying it can't work, just that they didn't show it, and after the required thin-tomato-slice that's the thing I'd most want to see the knife doing.

Re: Ultrasonic Chef's Knife

#190

Post by ianseyer »

andy99 wrote: post #184

As an aside, this feels very familiar as a sci-fi weapon, does that ring a bell for anyone? I was thinking William Gibson first but I can't place it there.

Raven in Snowcrash? Not quite ultrasonic iirc but extremely thin, like the wire developed in three body problem
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