On safety, if the blade is vibrating and I put my finger perpendicularly under it, will it cut the skin?
They show the knife being touched from the side but of course that's safe
Ultrasonic Chef's Knife
401–410 of 697 posts
Re: Ultrasonic Chef's Knife
#402Earlier quoted context omitted.
For those of us who aren't knowledgeable in this field, what happens if you do?
It's hard to do irreparable damage to the steel of a knife. It's just an inert lump of metal. But you could fuck up the handle. Theoretically, the detergent could dull your edge. If you don't isolate your knife and it rattles around, that'll definitely dull it. Mostly: it should only take a couple seconds to clean off your knife in the sink.
> It's hard to do irreparable damage to the steel of a knife.
Sadly not impossible, I've 'lost' (they're still in the back of a drawer) two good knives to idiots attempting to pry apart frozen chops and steaks .. each case snapped a good inch from the tip.
Not damage from a dishwasher and not damage the edge I realize, but worth mention as a tale of caution.
Re: Ultrasonic Chef's Knife
#403Elsewhere 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…
I was surprised by that too. The Shun did surprisingly well in the real world test despite lower scores on the other two categories.
A slight tangent but I find sharpness tests often don’t represent the experience at the macro level, but it’s easily benchmarked and quantified.
As an example are tons of people pushing Feather or Astra or similar ultra sharp shaving razors. I bought a ton of sample packs the ones I liked the most were Kai, which are considered relatively dull, but have properties which make the overall experience better (I recall reading they’re thicker and vibrate less during cutting).
To me that makes this knife cutting benchmark more attractive than sharpness or retention, but I still have questions about technique used in the benchmarks, and how that affects knife performance (e.g. I would never try to cut bread by just pressing down as this move does).
Re: Ultrasonic Chef's Knife
#404Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't use knives in my kitchen. My romantic partner does. Yesterday I decided to cut some tomatoes only to find out that all knives are dull. She never said anything, I didn't know it. Why? Because she is just "used" to it and to her these knives were just fine. So she never thought about sharpening knives in the first place. I will take those knives to a pro and he will sharpen them for me, as in a rental I stay i…
You don't really need "tools" to sharpen knives. You just need a harder surface and some experience. It's one of those things that once you learn you can accomplish with a variety of "tools" because you're just trying to achieve an end goal. There's zero reason you can't sharpen a knife in a rental, lol. You don't need a belt grinder or anything. People get way too caught up in buying into systems and being told how…
when I was poor I used to make pricy shaving blades last for months longer than they should have by rubbing them on some old jeans. I don’t remember where I learned it but my roommates thought I was crazy til they tried it.
Re: Ultrasonic Chef's Knife
#405Why 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…
> using a $10 knife that is only reasonably well sharpened is probably 90% as good
I think the value proposition is in the idea that you don't have to sharpen this knife as often as with a normal knife, and that the performance is consistent.
The non stickiness is also a huge value proposition, because that is an annoying and time consuming aspect of any cutting.
Re: Ultrasonic Chef's Knife
#406Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't use knives in my kitchen. My romantic partner does. Yesterday I decided to cut some tomatoes only to find out that all knives are dull. She never said anything, I didn't know it. Why? Because she is just "used" to it and to her these knives were just fine. So she never thought about sharpening knives in the first place. I will take those knives to a pro and he will sharpen them for me, as in a rental I stay i…
You don't really need "tools" to sharpen knives. You just need a harder surface and some experience. It's one of those things that once you learn you can accomplish with a variety of "tools" because you're just trying to achieve an end goal. There's zero reason you can't sharpen a knife in a rental, lol. You don't need a belt grinder or anything. People get way too caught up in buying into systems and being told how…
> There's no substitute for experience here. It's also a very transferable skill so it's one that used to be taught in schools but no longer is.
This 100% should be taught in school, it would have been one of the most useful things I could have learned.
Re: Ultrasonic Chef's Knife
#407Earlier quoted context omitted.
Since you seem knowledgeable about knives, Do you know any great knives makers? And are those custom steels or carbide blades worth it? So far, I mostly sharpen my knives on the back of a plate. So definitely could be doing more :)
Knives get stupid beyond a certain price point. I've been using the same thrift store knife I picked up 15 years ago. It gets sharpened maybe once a year, honed every so often. It was like $20 i think? Most chefs I know have a similar story with their knife/knives, something cheap that does the job. Spending more on knives is just status symbol nonsense, which unfortunately has infected absolutely everything. It's li…
I'd take issue with your price point but agree with the sentiment
I've seen victorinox fibrox knives in Michelin Star kitchens, they get the job done and are very reasonably priced ($60 for a chef's knife).
Admittedly the knives I have at home are significantly more expensive largely because the knives I have at home are on display so I want something that looks good and I actually enjoy using them.
On one level it's a little silly but then on another level people spend thousands on art/sculptures which has no useful purpose.
Re: Ultrasonic Chef's Knife
#408Earlier quoted context omitted.
Overall agree it seems cool, and maybe interesting. "People spend hundreds of dollars and many hours sharpening kitchen knives," The former, totally agree - i've seen people buy a tormek to do basic knife sharpening (not grinding), which is like swatting a fly with an $800 hammer. The latter, do you mean overall, or in a sitting or what? I've certainly seen people on various forums go nuts, and then you have hertzman…
I admire you. You are a minority, you know that, right? I don't have time in my schedule at the moment, which says "sharpen the knifes". So for me - it would be amazing if someone solved this problem in a radical way. Sporadically I would sharpen the knives and since I don't have it in my "skills" section of the brain, I always have to "figure out" sharpening process.
You know you can buy a Dont have time in your schedule...jeeze. Sounds like learned helplessness to me. That or spoiled rotten. The comments in this thread help me understand the general animosity towards the tech industry from much of the population.
Re: Ultrasonic Chef's Knife
#409If you have a sharp knife and a wet cloth under your cutting board chopping is a joy, otherwise it's a dangerous, tedious, and exhausting task that turns so many people away from cooking entirely
My wood cutting board has rubber feet on the bottom. Seems like a much easier solution than handling a bunch of wet towels every day!
Yeah I have a few with rubber feet too. I still prefer a cloth as it dampens the impact of the knife so it's easier on your wrist.
Re: Ultrasonic Chef's Knife
#410Earlier quoted context omitted.
Since you seem knowledgeable about knives, Do you know any great knives makers? And are those custom steels or carbide blades worth it? So far, I mostly sharpen my knives on the back of a plate. So definitely could be doing more :)
Knives get stupid beyond a certain price point. I've been using the same thrift store knife I picked up 15 years ago. It gets sharpened maybe once a year, honed every so often. It was like $20 i think? Most chefs I know have a similar story with their knife/knives, something cheap that does the job. Spending more on knives is just status symbol nonsense, which unfortunately has infected absolutely everything. It's li…
I remember seeing a comment by a local "celebrity chef" where he said he never sharpens cleavers - he just buys a specific inexpensive brand 5 at a time for $8 each and throws them away when they become dull.
While I don't agree with externalising the manufacture/disposal costs with that sort of disposable consumption, I do see the economically-rational decision making behind it.
If you're running a restaurant in Australia, your lowest paid kitchen staff get $24 an hour during weekdays, 30-35 and hour on weekends, and as much as $55 an hour on public holidays. And if they work more than 8 hours in a day it's 1.5 times those rates for the first 2 hours of overtime, and double those rates for anything more than 2 hours overtime. https://www.fairwork.gov.au/find-help-for/fast-food-restaura...
While spending 15 or 20 seconds honing the edge with a sharpening steel during use makes sense (and I'll bet he does that just out of reflex), once the edge gets damaged enough to need more that what a steel can fix and you start needing a whetstone, it's probably not cost effective to have kitchen staff spend time doing that.