Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ultrasonic Chef's Knife

seattleultrasonics.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

631–640 of 697 posts

Re: Ultrasonic Chef's Knife

#631

Post by dragonwriter »

com2kid wrote: post #375
peteforde wrote: post #336

I recently backed NeoBlade, which is an ultrasonic multi-blade cutting device for crafters. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/hozodesign/neoblade TL;DR it's really freaking cool, though the blades do seem to get dull fairly quickly. That said, they are made of a radically different grade of steel. If the tech in the NeoBlade has been adapted successfully to the chef's knife, then all of the haters are going to sou…

I'm still in the camp that air fryers are stupid. A convection oven does literally the same thing. Also, portable air fryers make such small servings that they're useless for people with families. What the hell I going to do with three chicken wings?

> I'm still in the camp that air fryers are stupid. A convection oven does literally the same thing.

Air fryers are convection ovens, just with higher capacity fans relative to their own size compared to typical convection ovens (large convection ovens are sometimes coming with "air fryer" modes that replicate this, now.)

OTOH, aside from the utiltiy of having an additional smaller oven—which is not negligible, for many people’s cooking patterns—plenty of existing ranges include conventional rather than convection ovens, and adding an air fryer is a lot cheaper than replacing the range.

> Also, portable air fryers make such small servings that they're useless for people with families.

I have a family, and a countertop (I assume that’s what you mean by “portable”) air fryer/toaster oven, and I don't find that to be the case. We get a lot of use out of it.

Re: Ultrasonic Chef's Knife

#632

Post by tptacek »

spott wrote: post #630
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…

I don’t understand judging a knife by any measure of “sharpness”? Sharpness is what the sharpener brings to the knife. Edge retention is the steel, but the skills of the sharpener (against how easy the steel is to sharpen) are what defines the edge sharpness. This is mostly just a remark on the fact that BESS is probably just measuring the factory edge… which only matters until it has dulled the first time?

That... seems wrong? It leaves out edge geometry and carbide size?

Re: Ultrasonic Chef's Knife

#633

Post by bjt »

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…

I also noticed that while they show the traditional knives struggling to make their way through something hard like a carrot, they never show the ultrasonic knife cutting a carrot. I suspect the ultrasonic feature helps more on softer things.

Re: Ultrasonic Chef's Knife

#634

Post by spott »

tptacek wrote: post #632
spott wrote: post #630

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t understand judging a knife by any measure of “sharpness”? Sharpness is what the sharpener brings to the knife. Edge retention is the steel, but the skills of the sharpener (against how easy the steel is to sharpen) are what defines the edge sharpness. This is mostly just a remark on the fact that BESS is probably just measuring the factory edge… which only matters until it has dulled the first time?

That... seems wrong? It leaves out edge geometry and carbide size?

Edge geometry only matters after the initial cut. BESS measures how much force it takes for the knife to cut a calibrated thread.

Carbide size maybe? But mostly I think it changes toothiness (so slicing, not push cutting). Also, I think that affects how hard or easy it is to get a given edge, but not how good the edge (as measured by BESS) can actually be.

Re: Ultrasonic Chef's Knife

#636

Post by whyenot »

DannyBee wrote: post #370
oakwhiz wrote: post #83

Honest question, does it aerosolize pathogens that cause food-borne illness?

Interesting question, short answer - almost certainly not any more or less than you are already, and to the degree it does, it almost certainly is making things better and not worse. First - ~all food illness causing bacteria is denser than air. about 1000x denser. On its own, it won't float. Second - almost all cutting motions are still going to throw it around. So you are already doing this when you cut or chop foo…

To me, it seems like you wrote a lot but never actually answered the question of the person you are responding to. A reminder: the question was does the blade aerosolize fluids. Based on the video (as soon as 10 seconds in) it sure looks like the answer is yes, to a much greater degree than a normal knife.

Re: Ultrasonic Chef's Knife

#637

Post by weaksauce »

Zigurd wrote: post #589
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.

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…

I am by no means an expert at sharpening knives but I can get my knives to razor sharp edges on a 20 dollar whetstone and an old pair of jeans glued onto a piece of plywood with some polishing compound on it as a strop. really isn't rocket science to do it right and it would take decades of daily sharpening(no one does this outside of chefs maybe) to make any kind of noticeable dent in the metal. if you can push it through paper(not just slice it) it's more than sharp enough and even a slicing cut on paper is fine.

Re: Ultrasonic Chef's Knife

#638

Post by whyenot »

NedF wrote: post #346
lordofgibbons wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's good point, aerosolized raw chicken meat water doesn't sound like a good time.

> That's good point Why is it a good point? Do you get disease at a rate we care about from smelling a fart? Or smelling raw chicken? Or cooking chicken and the aerosolize particles off that? The tool seems to melt going off similar tech - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNwHDWlA7gE Why does you brain think it's a good point other than you want to be negative? Because nihilism is cooler than thinking? Dentists do ult…

> Dentists do ultrasonic scaling, which a ultrasonic water spray and are not dropping like flies.

Dentists wear masks, and the human mouth doesn't tend to contain Salmonella

Re: Ultrasonic Chef's Knife

#639

Post by xandrius »

wffurr wrote: post #583
xandrius wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Rude? Just asking because 10min to sharpen a knife every 3-6 months is not that big of a commitment, unless your hands don't work properly.

Re: Ultrasonic Chef's Knife

#640

Post by araes »

jmarchello wrote: post #2

We made it! We’ve finally invented vibroblades!

Heinlein, Star Frontiers, Star Wars, Battletech, 40k, Rifts, GURPs, Gundam, Metal Gear, Guyver, Shadowrun, and Evangelion will all be pleased.

Time until vibroswords, vibroaxes, vorpal blades, ect...

Post reply on HN