Knives

[bill_schubert]

Last year I went with my sister to a knife shop in Seattle.  I've been piddling around with my knives and finally have decided to go to one in Austin hoping it will be as good as hers in Seattle.  I've got a couple of very good Henkel knives that need to be sharpened and a bunch of mediocre ones that also need to be sharpened but may not deserve it.

And I need to buy a primary chopping knife.  I know what I want (and can't afford it but never mind that) and have been putting up with mediocre ones for ages.  I think it is time to upgrade.  I use five knives for various purposes but the same one for 80% of my kitchen work.

The downside is that the store is in Austin.  But there is another stop I want to make on the way back at a Woodworking store.  Now that Covid is gone in Texas (the governor said so) I'm wanting to investigate shop classes again.  

So an hour round trip not including stops at the two locations.  Quite the trip for me.

Comments

[susandennis]

ohhh good luck!! I read the other day that the best test for knife sharpness is how easily it slices through a sheet of paper (and I remember that woman doing that in the shop). All of my knives do paper well.

Whaddya know about sharpening serrated knives? It's the one that I question. I do love the ones we bought when you were here. So. Much.

[bill_schubert]

So the trip was very different from yours. Guy that ran the shop was pretty much like me, a curmudgeon. He sharpen four knives for me on the spot for $26 and said I didn't need to buy a new one.
It will be interesting to see how long these stay sharp. I don't mind paying what amounts to $7 per knife to get it sharpened on the spot but the drive is kind of a pain in the neck.

I would have said a serrated knife never gets sharpened. But the internet disagrees so I think that gives us a good reason to visit the new knife shop in your neck of the woods.

[susandennis]

wow. on the spot! and wouldn't sell you a new one. that's wild. and great idea about the excuse to visit. works for me.

[msconduct]

You can definitely get serrated knives sharpened! I have a Wusthof bread knife that gets a beating from my crisp-crusted sourdoughs and that thing definitely needs regular sharpening. I keep my straight bladed Zwilling chef's knife sharp with a steel, but I'm not game to try and sharpen a serrated knife. My knife sharpening guy deals with that and also my serrated Wusthof tomato knife.

I absolutely love knife shops. The last time I visited my one I bought several Wusthof knives and the guy asked me what I did - I think he thought I was a tech billionaire or something! But they'll last forever and they make my life better every single day.

I've had my Zwilling knife for about 25 years now. The price made me wince at the time, but I use it every day. The benefit I got from buying it at a knife shop was that the knife guy gave me such good advice. I initially thought the Zwilling knife was far too heavy, but he told me that when you get used to that the heaviness works in your favour to cut through things. He was absolutely right. He also showed me how to use a chef's knife properly, keeping the tip down, and made me cut up carrots until I had the hang of it - another incredibly useful tip. I'm always amazed when I see people using knives on TV how few of them, apart from trained chefs, who use a chef's knife correctly. It takes most of the work out of it.

I hope the two of you enjoy your knife shop visit!

[beautiful_dreamer_02]

H'eh.
I learned about sharpening blades in a histology lab in the pathology department of a city hospital. First thing was to learn to hand-sharpen a microtome blade (which we NEVER used for "real" work on a microtome), then to finish it, and finally to strop it. After we mastered that we were permitted to machine-sharpen the "real" blades for "real" work, and we hand-stropped those.

A microtome, for those unfamiliar, is the equipment used to make slices of tissue no more than one cell's thickness to be put onto a slide, then through a series of stains to make the cell structures easily visible under a microscope, before being examined by a pathologist.

Those blades cut at one cell's thickness and are so sharp that if you're careless and touch one, you won't feel the cut although you'll be aware you've cut yourself by the cooler sensation of your blood hitting the air.
In my day, the cutting edge was longer than a chef's knife's cutting edge, so the histologist could move the tissue block from here to there and use the whole blade before having to sharpen and strop it again.
The chief histo tech used to test those blades for uniform edges by touching them with the edge of her fingernail which she would slide along their length, barely touching them, and then she would bend her elbow so her wrist was at her shoulder level and she'd shave the hair on her forearm.
Without any of those arrangements you see in commercials about what pulls and holds whiskers or axilla hairs or leg hairs or wherever else you're shaving.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is a sharp, sharp blade.

But to this day, I use the identical motions---and lack of speed---when I put a knife on a whetstone or on a strop: slow, exact, careful.
Can't help it: muscle memory just takes over. But as it's my kitchen and I don't have to hurry, I can afford the time.
For the record, I doubt my kitchen knives are as sharp as any microtome knife. Er..if it matters.

[thestainlesssteelrat]

What's the unaffordable knife that you want? (I don't know much above knives)

[bill_schubert]

I like these (https://madeincookware.com/products/santoku-knife/pomme-red?flow_country=usa&utm_source=google&utm_medium=shopping&utm_campaign=16196730950-131153954337&utm_content=31789486506063&audience=pros&gclid=CjwKCAiAyPyQBhB6EiwAFUuaki0YX00iR7Su5EWXeQGL15Fs8Sc-D7zKi3kGQOygi4JREQBSTiZzZxoCAQQQAvD_BwE) kind of knives best but there are hundreds of variants. The guy wasn't really interested in selling me one.

I have, and really like, a fat blade. That allows me to move my hand up so my thumb and inside of my index finger are actually grabbing the blade while the rest of my hand is on the handle. That maximizes control. I'm not a chef level chopper (no patience for it) but I get close to the form anyway if not the performance.

His quote:

"you don't need new knives, you just need them to be sharpened" so they were. We'll see how long they last.

[beautiful_dreamer_02]

You're putting your knives across a steel just about every time you use each one, right? And how often on a whetstone?
The steel doesn't truly sharpen a knife; it straightens the edge, lifting any "bent under" places.

And, do you have a strop? That final polish to the cutting edge is just---m'mm! So delightful!

[bill_schubert]

Not doing much of that. I do use a steel occasionally but don't sharpen myself. Especially now I've got a service that does it immediately for $6.

[beautiful_dreamer_02]

My understanding is that a kitchen knife blade should be "steeled" before and possibly during a day's use; it should go on a whetstone as needed; and it should be professionally sharpened once a year.

I have never had any of my knives professionally sharpened and I'm not suggesting that mine don't need to be.
Gotta find the right shop, doncherknow.

Meanwhile, they are sharp enough to have favorably impressed a butcher, so I'm not feeling too bad about those edges.

[mrdreamjeans]

I hadn't been to downtown Austin in years until my recent visit. My niece was speaking to student teachers on the TU campus; she and her husband stayed in The Fairmont Hotel downtown for the weekend. I dropped them off and picked them up, so downtown twice within a couple of days. So crowded and so much traffic on 35!