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Ultrasonic Chef's Knife

seattleultrasonics.com

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Re: Ultrasonic Chef's Knife

#581

Post by raverbashing »

Taek wrote: post #243

I'm a bit surprised to see how much snark there is in the comment sections of this video. The requests for "let's see an independent chef use this knife to do real kitchen work" make total sense, but the moralizing around e-waste and losing fingers etc feels off balance. People spend hundreds of dollars and many hours sharpening kitchen knives, of course there's a viable market for sharper kitchen knives. And for e-w…

If anyone doubts the efficiency of ultrasonic cutters may I recommend this Old (Tony) video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFeek0a8s7Q

Re: Ultrasonic Chef's Knife

#582

Post by ReptileMan »

adonovan wrote: post #572
dlcarrier wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>People spend hundreds of dollars and many hours sharpening kitchen knives... What amazes me is how many people spend absolutely zero time sharpening knives, using decades-old knives that have never been sharpened and can't even cut through cucumbers.

Why there isn’t a bigger business selling diamond stones for the kitchen is a mystery to me. Everyone has a honing steel but that won’t grind a new edge like a proper stone.

I think because people rarely even know what a sharp knife is. Once upon a time being able to sharpen a knife was a mandatory skill in life. Right now unless you are woodworker, leatherworker, hairdresser or professional cook - you rarely know what really sharp means. So you can't compare and demand better.

And with families getting smaller and takeout more popular - the prep work in the kitchen has reduced substantially.

Re: Ultrasonic Chef's Knife

#583

Post by wffurr »

xandrius wrote: post #73
wffurr wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The odds I will ever learn to use a waterstone or strop are nil. A Chef’s Choice manual sharpener is really easy and makes my knives plenty sharp enough to cut tomatoes.

Why? Your hands don't work? They are really not that hard, especially if they come with the bit with the right angle.

>> Why? Your hands don't work?

That’s quite rude and unnecessary.

To answer the question, there is an infinite number of things I can do with my time. Learning that particular manual skill, especially when there is a very simple alternative, just doesn’t seem worthwhile to me.

Re: Ultrasonic Chef's Knife

#585

Post by sfink »

JimmyBiscuit wrote: post #454
gurgeous wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Rand's video he does an "old" lime, mozzarella, and a shallot. It's just a quick vid he did in like five minutes but it shows some prep. Rand is a prolific amateur chef... https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7374472... Disclaimer: I've enjoyed many delicious meals at Rand's table

Im sorry but the video feels a bit disingenuous with the way he is cutting the lime. With the normal knive he just pushes straight down on the lime and with the vibroknife he actually does a slicing move. Same with the cheese. It doesnt feel like an honest comparison

Maybe, though I'll note that this matches how I use regular knives with cheese & similar things: with a dull unscalloped knife I have to carefully go straight down to avoid tearing. If my knife is sharp (or temporarily oiled) and the food doesn't stick, I'll slice. Because I can. The end result is different: thinner slices, less crushing. Also faster.

Re: Ultrasonic Chef's Knife

#586

Post by omnicognate »

aenis wrote: post #435
DannyBee wrote: post #331

Earlier 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 spend hours every 6 months or so sharpening knifes on whetstones. I like the excuse to have some me time, listen to an audiobook or just do some thinking. Akin to meditation. I also dont like the blades ruined through automatic sharpeners - the knifes are made of good quality steel, were made to order in Jp, and have sentimental value. I also sharpen the cheap knifes this way, tho - I like manual work.

Do you not sharpen them in between? I've had to spend hours sorting out knives that have been left far too long without sharpening, but my routine is to spend about 15 minutes sharpening them every weekend. Then they're always sharp and never get into a terrible state and need remedial work.

My knives get noticeably suboptimal in a couple of weeks without sharpening, so if I left it 6 months they'd be blunt pretty much all the time.

Re: Ultrasonic Chef's Knife

#587

Post by abustamam »

stickfigure wrote: post #539
an_ko wrote: post #464

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Such people should perhaps consider a ceramic-bladed knife. They stay sharp basically forever because the blade is extremely hard, with the downside that it's not repairable with ordinary equipment if chipped. But if the owner would never maintain their metal knife anyway, then it's not _really_ a downside.

I used to be a fan, and used them heavily for years. They stay sharp... for a while, and then there's no practical way to re-sharpen them. You get a couple good years out of them and then a lot of mediocre to bad years. Running a steel knife through an electric sharpener once a month (a 2-minute operation) keeps it feeling consistently like new.

Are there consumer electric sharpeners that you'd recommend? My local grocery store does knife sharpening but it's not super convenient

Re: Ultrasonic Chef's Knife

#588

Post by dlcarrier »

petepete wrote: post #447
dlcarrier wrote: post #440

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I cut through tomatoes with my pairing knife all the time, with no resistance, and it has a straight blade.

Yeah if it's sharp enough it'll be fine. All tomato knives are serrated though, they glide through allowing thin, delicate slices. https://sabre-paris.co.uk/collections/tomato-knife

I've never seen a knife like that where I live, in California. The only small serrated knifes people here have are stake knives and on rare occasions sausage knives.

It's strange how two relatively similar cultures can have such oddball differences.

This is while living in California's Central Valley, where a third of the world's tomatoes are grown, so it's not like tomatoes aren't a major part of the culture here.

I wonder if it's because most of California's settlement was within the last 200 years, with modern metallurgy making it common for knifes to hold their edge long enough to easily cut tomatoes with only occasional sharpening, negating the need for a special knife just for tomatoes.

Nationwide advertisements for knives show people using straight-bladed knives for cutting cucumbers and tomatoes, despite stated stake knives being extremely common, so tomato knives are likely rare throughout the country, not that much of the country is any older than California.

Re: Ultrasonic Chef's Knife

#589

Post by Zigurd »

dlcarrier wrote: post #352
Taek wrote: post #243

I'm a bit surprised to see how much snark there is in the comment sections of this video. The requests for "let's see an independent chef use this knife to do real kitchen work" make total sense, but the moralizing around e-waste and losing fingers etc feels off balance. People spend hundreds of dollars and many hours sharpening kitchen knives, of course there's a viable market for sharper kitchen knives. And for e-w…

>People spend hundreds of dollars and many hours sharpening kitchen knives... What amazes me is how many people spend absolutely zero time sharpening knives, using decades-old knives that have never been sharpened and can't even cut through cucumbers.

People worry that they will ruin their knives in an attempt to sharpen them. They don't know that they always have the backstop of going to a competent kitchen store and having them sharpened there. I worry about ruining knives with a cheap sharpener I got at IKEA. So I don't buy super expensive knives. I buy commercial grade knives from Dexter and Mercer. I sharpen them to the best of my ability. The results are no doubt inferior to an expert sharpening them, but they're far better than no sharpening or settling for serrated knives.

Keeping knives sharp is just obscure enough of a skill to elude most home cooks. Videos that tell you to judge the angle for sharpening a knife unaided don't help.

Re: Ultrasonic Chef's Knife

#590

Post by Zigurd »

mapt wrote: post #555
an_ko wrote: post #464

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Such people should perhaps consider a ceramic-bladed knife. They stay sharp basically forever because the blade is extremely hard, with the downside that it's not repairable with ordinary equipment if chipped. But if the owner would never maintain their metal knife anyway, then it's not _really_ a downside.

They do not stay sharp. On hard material and when overloaded, they will chip in large, unfixable chunks. On softer material, they continuously sharpen their edges at a microscopic scale, fracturing away tiny chips as they're worn, to new glassy ceramic molecular edges. A well used ceramic blade becomes micro-serrated. This sounds fantastic until you think about what is happening to the shards of hard glassy ceramic w…

How much mineral and metal grit does one consume on a regular basis? The ceramic material from a ceramic knife blade is, obviously from just looking at it, very small. I bet the amount of grit I've eaten from having a taste for raw oysters vastly outweighs what I'd get from a lifetime of using ceramic knives.
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