Calling all single bevellers...

[Chappychap]

Dearest single bevellers of the forum!

Every year around this time I earmark a portion of my savings to spend on things that I wouldn't usually get the opportunity to buy. This year has been a really challenging year in a few ways, so this is definitely happening this year.

In previous years, this has usually meant investment towards my knife and cookware collection. But except for MAYBE a carbon steel skillet (which I'm on the fence about whether it'll provide enough value vs. my triply All Clad pans), I don't think I really want to buy any cookware at the moment. And in terms of the more 'conventional' double bevel knives, I don't think I really need any. I have a few petties, gyutos and nakiris each of various lengths, and as much as I love buying them, I can't really justify buying things that don't serve incremental new purposes.

Which leads me to single bevel. The final frontier.

For the last year or two I've been getting deeper into Japanese cooking, enjoying fine knife work with vegetables and the occasional foray into sushi and grilled seafood. My wife is pescatarian, so building my interest and confidence with seafood has helped my cooking hobby to be more helpful there. I want to do more of this type of cooking and am taking steps to continue my learning with classes.

If the benefit is there, I'm considering whether to bite the bullet and go for a few single bevels most geared towards vegetables and seafood. I don't mind learning how to sharpen single bevel.

In terms of budget, I don't think I'll be buying multiples of these in the future (as I tended to with gyutos etc), so if I proceed, I'd want to do these purchases 'right'. 'Buy once, cry once', as I think Ronnie said a while back. My budget max would be $900-1k if I was to go for a deba, yanagiba and usuba, but ideally less if experienced folks here think I can get sufficient performance from something less expensive.

My questions:
1. Does the trio of deba, yanagiba and usuba make sense for what I'm looking to do (filleting, slicing vegetables finely, sushi and sashimi)?
2. How would you describe the level of ACTUAL benefit you have seen from your single bevel knives, compared to their double bevel equivalents?
3. Any recommendation on brands/models?

Thanks again for any wisdom you can provide based on your journey with single bevel.

Cc
Thank you!

[gladius]

Start with an inexpensive set and see if you like using them. They will make very fine cuts but steer a bit. Also sharpening will be different. Check out the Tojiro Shirogami line: Usuba 180mm, Yanagiba 270mm and Deba 180mm. Go from there...

[delmar]

Start with an inexpensive set and see if you like using them. They will make very fine cuts but steer a bit. Also sharpening will be different. Check out the Tojiro Shirogami line: Usuba 180mm, Yanagiba 270mm and Deba 180mm. Go from there...

Exactly the advice I was going to give.

I found myself trying to figure out what to use instead of a gyuto. Had to wrap my brain around single purpose = single knife, where as gyuto is many purposes = single knife. Usuba more for veggies; deba and honesuki more for proteins.

You'll find the steering is generally more pronounced the taller the product, but you get used to it.

Enjoy the ride. It's pretty cool.

[silylanjie]

Former sushi chef here...

Deba and yanagi are great knives to cut and slice fish. For these knives, the grip will be different which I'll rest my index on the spine instead of a pitch grip. With a yanagi, the slicing direction will be different which start from the heel to the tip.

As gladius recommended and start off with the Tojiro Shirogami or even a Takayuki Yellow Kasumi and see how you like it

[d_rap]

Some thoughts based on my two honesukis, both atypically thin: a flexible Ishikawa W2 and a thin, but stiffer, Konosuke HD2. My experience is limited but I think these points will apply to single bevels in general.

Of course my honesukis part chickens well, but they really shine for boning, where the steering is desirable because of the tendency of the edge to move along the bone. Smaller fish aren't poultry of course, but for fileting the same principle holds true; move in the correct direction and the edge hugs the backbone (or moves along skin for removal) beautifully. It's very satisfying to feel the steer work to increase accuracy. Cutting chicken breasts off the bone is a dream.

As I've posted, I also use my honesukis for some utility. Silverskin and such, but even some slicing. So another observation about steer in general from some experience: I'm right handed and I have a right-handed honesuki, and let's assume I want to cut paper thin slices of zucchini (wrong knife I know but bear with me). I don't have an usuba but the same principle applies. With a double bevel knife as I cut straight down if my cut is even slightly imperfect I might miss left or right. But with a righty single bevel knife if I aim to cut the thinnest slice possible and I know I'm going to steer left I can get beautifully thin slices, reasonably perfect coins every time. However my cuts vary slightly the steer overcomes the slight inaccuracy. Knowing I'm going to steer slightly left means that I can confidently start the cut barely a millimeter into the product. Get great at it, which I certainly am not, obviously with an usuba not a honesuki, and I'm sure you're off to the races. An usuba is my next single bevel purchase because I think I really see what it can do for ultra fine slicing.

Sharpening? Not that you asked but since it comes up fairly often...if you are a decent double bevel sharpener, my take is that single bevel sharpening is different but not inherently more difficult. Arguably you have to be more careful and there's a greater chance for error. But if you can sharpen you can learn to sharpen single bevel with the appropriate adjustments in reasonably short order.

Thanks for starting another cool thread Chappy.

[Radar53]

Sharpening? Not that you asked but since it comes up fairly often...if you are a decent double bevel sharpener, my take is that single bevel sharpening is different but not inherently more difficult. Arguably you have to be more careful and there's a greater chance for error. But if you can sharpen you can learn to sharpen single bevel with the appropriate adjustments in reasonably short order.

Just to follow David's lead here, there is a lot of bad and good videos out there in the ether on single bevel sharpening. Here's a couple that I found useful & I'm sure that there area others as well.

Vincent Lau Korin https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExpQB_W ... N6&index=6
John Broida JKI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kA0vdeDDSJI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYZmtDlwDi4

HTH & best of luck

[atang]

....

For the last year or two I've been getting deeper into Japanese cooking, enjoying fine knife work with vegetables and the occasional foray into sushi and grilled seafood. My wife is pescatarian, so building my interest and confidence with seafood has helped my cooking hobby to be more helpful there. I want to do more of this type of cooking and am taking steps to continue my learning with classes.

If the benefit is there, I'm considering whether to bite the bullet and go for a few single bevels most geared towards vegetables and seafood. I don't mind learning how to sharpen single bevel.

....

My questions:
1. Does the trio of deba, yanagiba and usuba make sense for what I'm looking to do (filleting, slicing vegetables finely, sushi and sashimi)?
2. How would you describe the level of ACTUAL benefit you have seen from your single bevel knives, compared to their double bevel equivalents?
3. Any recommendation on brands/models?

Thanks again for any wisdom you can provide based on your journey with single bevel.

Cc
Thank you!

I did the sushi chef thing a while back for about 3 years. Loved the work. Love the art. Fun at times.

If you’re exclusively doing nihon ryori (Japanese cuisine) then single bevels will aid in your adventures. Also tasks like breaking down whole fish and vegetable garnishes will be done more easily in the traditional method with the right tools. The single bevels are fun for trying new techniques while discovering new approaches and methods to sharpening them too, however if one is to invest in such tools, an often encountered scenario comes about such as ‘what you get out of them entirely depends on what levels of effort you put into them’. This is not meant to intimidate you away from trying traditional Japanese knife work. More like a realization of perceived expectations of such a investment of both cost and time. Often one can break down fish and cut vegetables with the pettys, sujis, and nakiris just fine. Also if you’re cooking most of the ingredients it’s harder to tell the difference in the quality of the cut compared to raw fare. But if you’re thinking of taking a serious dive into traditional Japanese prep methods, then the single bevels may be warranted (possibly a menkiri could be another option if you’re thinking of making noodles from scratch too!).

Deba is good if you breaking down whole fish with head on. If your fish are dressed and head off, a small suji or gyuto may be sufficient. A yanagiba may also work if the prepped fish are quite tiny. For most fish a 165mm deba is sufficient.

Yanagiba is great for nigiri or sashimi. Also depends on the quality of the fish. Finding a good purveyor that can get you sushi grade seafood would be worth looking into a yanagiba.

There’s a couple styles of usuba this is an example of Edogata style usuba
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=eC7EUa-S_qs
If you really looking to learn knife skills, then usuba is the way to go If you’re not looking for that level of challenge, nakiris slay some vegetables on the cutting board. Whatever you prefer.

As far as ACTUAL benefit just depends how dedicated you are to learning nihon ryori. Break Down a whole fish every other day using just deba, you’ll get pretty good at it and you’ll be faster every time you do it. It’s all about repetitions and not getting sick of it before you’re proficient

Sharpening is another topic feel free to pm me anytime

I might browse some recommendations for you if you think you want to dive in.

[shiupo]

Great advice from others! I have some single-bevel knives and it takes some time to get used to the steering but it's quite fun to use.

Maybe you can start with a yanagiba? I see some chef used it for filleting, slicing vegetables, and sashimi. It seems more versatile.

I will probably start with Richmond Sakai knives. https://www.chefknivestogo.com/risawh2ya27.html. I don't have one but it looks very good for the price.

[jknife]

I don't yet have any single bevel knives but have felt the pull after seeing Ray's fantastic collection ( I miss that guy). Not that I would be able to be at his level. Thanks Chappy ( I think $$$ ) for reminding me that I have to expand my horizons.

[Chappychap]

Just wanted to say thanks again to everyone on this thread. After mulling all of your input over, I ended up buying a Doi 180mm deba and a Sakai Takayuki 195mm usuba.

The Doi is intentionally on the higher end of my budget because I feel well be a good incentive to pursue learning fish butchery, encouraging a path to more and more dishes with my wife. When I've spent that much, I HAVE to use it, right?

The Sakai Takayuki usuba is a bit more of a tentative step into usubas, to see if I like them. Whilst I usually prefer to jump right in with both feet and get a purchase that might have more longevity as my skills grow, my rationale is that this will be something I'll be a little less intimidated by when learning proper technique and sharpening. And it won't be the same as screwing up a purchase of hundreds and hundreds of dollars . Reading the book referenced later though, I have a feeling I'll be back to buy a second higher end version at some point. But I could be wrong.

I do want a yanagiba but I'm going to draw the line here for now as arguably I can use my Shibata Kotetsu 240 k-tip gyuto as a slicer. In that sense, a yanagiba ideas the least incremental functionality for my use cases.

As an aside, I just wanted to share a FANTASTIC book with the folks on this thread. You wouldn't necessarily know from the title, but it's actually dedicated to using usuba, yanagiba and deba specifically. Each knife has a section with instructional photography for methods, followed by recipes that but the techniques into action. It's a beautiful book that I'm learning a lot from already. Hope it's helpful to others!

Thanks again and if you don't see a s**t ton of dishes with freshly butchered fish and katsuramuki-based vegetable preparations in the 'What did you cook today?' thread, please kick me right up the arse.

Japanese Kitchen Knives: Essential Techniques and Recipes

[Is That Blood?]

You bought a beautiful deba. I have eyed that one for many months, but don't do much fish. Congrats!

[silylanjie]

Good choice on the Doi Deba, his knives are amazing!

[Dzieke]

Since I have not used a single bevel knife before, others have suggested that a single bevel "steers." Would someone please explain how a single bevel knife steers and what you need to do to compensate?

Thank you.

[d_rap]

Although there are many applications where you wouldn't cut straight into for example a zucchini with a single bevel knife, let's assume that's what you're doing for a moment. You're looking down at the spine, and the knife, let's just say it's a right-handed knife, only has a sharpened bevel on the right side of the blade. If I hold the knife at a normal 90 degree angle to the zucchini and make a sliding push cut down, unless I turn my wrist against the tendency the knife will "steer" left and cut a slightly wedge shaped slice. An engineer could explain the exact physics better, but it's effectively a chisel, which used flat against a piece of wood will tend to push downward, or pushed through a piece of zucchini would steer in the opposite direction to the sharpened bevel. In a chisel ground knife, which a single bevel is, or a woodworking chisel, the steer is away from the sharpened side of the bevel. The sharpened side of the knife cuts (displaces material) easily and the entire blade is gently forced away from the side doing the cutting.

If you're really doing normal slicing with a single bevel like a traditional kiritsuke, you can compensate by introducing a slight offset angle and or pushing with your wrist. For my home use I would generally find that impractical, although I do use my single bevel knives for some utility cuts.

But for me, I reach for my single bevels when the tendency to steer is desirable. For instance when I want the knife to move right along a fish spine during filleting, or along a chicken breast bone. Obviously for these cuts I'm not slicing straight up and down but working flat or at an angle because it's butchery. So if I start at a fish tail looking down at the cutting side or right side of my single bevel knife the steer is going to push the cut into the spine (down) and slice the filet cleanly off the bone. It's a really pleasurable right tool for the job feeling.

[FisherMAn1298]

I just bought the tojiro shirogami 240mm yanagiba. https://www.chefknivestogo.com/toshya24.html. My first single bevel. I'm thinking of getting a copy of your book suggestion Chappychap. My wife and I need some new fresh ideas for healthy cuisine. Any good single bevel sharpening videos would be greatly appreciated.

[Wassabi777]

I've done a bit of Japanese casual and kaiseki work.

Usuba's are specifically made for high-end pro use. They can do things well that no other knife can do, do to the unbeatable inclusive angle, and concave back. It's taken me a few years of professional work/sharpening to really them and their many uses.

I would think of it as the absolute, no compromise laser. It also peels and does kaiseki/sushi decorative techniques far better than any other knife. Lately I cut onions with no wind-up, exactly where I mean too- very addictive. Much better and longer-lasting super-sharpness than any laser gyuto if you get a standard 62-63 white steel Usuba.

If you get one, go for a 210 kamagata. Tokyo style without the tip is nerfed. A tiny micro-bevel is recommended if you don't want to chip the crap out of your edge.

Not recommended for 99.9% of cooks. Only get this one if you're willing to do research. Get a hon-kasumi level blade from a vanilla company (like Yoshihiro) in the $300+ range. It will likely have scratches, but any lower in quality and you are asking for a potentially warped blade. Otherwise ask cktg for an inspected one from a quality blacksmith (like yauji or kitaoka) on the site and you can probably get a better deal.