Hey guys welcome back Ricky here. Alright, so it has been quite some time since I've done an ask Ricky video
And I get lots of questions on my channel. My average about two to three hundred messages in a day
And so I really want to get through all my questions
And I do my best to answer any questions that come to my channel, but as you guys know that it's not always possible
So I actually want to put together a series where I answer your questions
once a week or so and I want to take two or three of the you know top questions of the week and
put a video
answer together for you guys and so my goal for these videos is to answer you these questions as thoroughly as I can and
giving you guys my
Personal experience of how I've learned to go about it so the first question here is from Saji and the question is
How do I know when I should move up to a higher grit when sharpening a knife?
Okay, so a question for very basic whetstone in sharpening. I'm guessing
it's a whetstone sharpening question because I only sharpen on whetstone here on my channel and
So this is the whetstone for those who don't know what a whetstone is
It's basically a stone that you use to sharpen your knives with and there are many methods
You can use to sharpen a knife, but here on Burrfection
I mainly do a hand sharpening with whetstone
Before I begin I have a couple of videos you guys may want to look at it's a sharpen tutorial and a video on burr
Development which I will post here, or I'll link here in the video now
This is an argument that can go on to the end of ages. Okay. It's not gonna be
solved in this one video here
But I'll tell you how I go about sharpening and how I go about going up to a higher grit
It's basically the easiest way for me is
By feeling the burr and making sure that I have a burr that is consistent from the tip of the knife to the heel of
The knife and so you might be wondering
What is a burr so a burr is essentially just a lip of material or a?
Line or a fold of material that develops on
The opposite side of what you're sharpening on so if you are sharpening the left side of the knife on a whetstone
The burr will develop on the right side of the knife the act of pushing your knife up and down a whetstone
You are removing materials or moving
You're exposing fresh material on the left side of the knife and so the older material
Let's just say for the sake of this argument
The older material gets pushed up on the right-hand side of the knife, and so you will feel it if you will run your fingers
perpendicular to the cutting edge
And you will feel a little this is a little fold material that appears on the cutting edge
and the goal is to get a very minor a very micro burr that appears from the tip of the
cutting edge to the heel and
you want that burr to be as evenly as possible you don't want to have the front of the knife developed very harsh burr and
In the latter half of the knife develop a very soft burr you want the burr to be as equal and as even as possible
Now once you have a burr. That's actually you know
Relatively consistent from the tip to the heel you
Know that you can move on to the other side of the knife so on the other side of the knife you do your push
And pull method again, and once you've developed burr. It's consistent from the tip to the heel. You know that you have
Revealed enough materials on both sides of the knife
Now the question is how do you move on well before you actually move on to the hybrid stone you want to make sure that?
the burr is
Mostly removed or the edge has been prepped and prepared to move on
Because at this point if I were to move on to the higher grit stone
It's a softer stone typically
The burr that's left there on the cutting edge may be too aggressive and may damage the stone or just leave
micro-operations on the stone that you may not want
So what I typically do is before I move on to the higher grit
I will do the exact same method that just sharpen the knife with but only using
maybe half a half the amount of strokes or even just one or two strokes per section of the knife and
once you deal with that a couple of times on both sides that will remove most of the
Heavy materials that may damage the higher grit stone
so that is the easiest way to
For me to explain that I do have more videos kind of talking about these things
If you guys watch enough of my videos you guys will see how I go about moving up to different grits
But that is the easiest way I can describe it again if you guys want to see a more of an in-depth tutorial
In the video of how I go about sharpening my knives just go to a video link to here in the video
Or video in the video go to the video linked here, so the next question. We are going to is by dumbdumb 27
I hope I pronounced that right
dumbdumb 27, I'm sure that's a joke inside joking somewhere, but the question is in recommendation
What's the best knife to cut a fish like mackerel and salmon?
okay, so
Kind of a broad question there and the reason I say that because salmon can be very small
trout-sized salmon or
more of a
King salmon where they're you know 2 feet 3 feet long
So the first knife that I recommend people to buy is a six inch or 7 inch fillet knife
This here is a knife by Dalstrong. It's a great knife. It's a knife that can pretty much
handle most of your filleting
I use this knife pretty much all the time at this point and because it's curved
And it is very sharp it also allows me to use the knife on cutting ribs and separating ribs
When I smoked ribs. So it's a really good overall
knife for a fish. One of the best tips I can give you is that whatever knife you choose whether it's a
Victorinox, a Dalstrong, a Shun just
make sure that your knife is very sharp a really sharp knife will help you cut raw fish much more easily and
raw fish can be easily bruised and so certain fishes especially salmon I
Find that salmon is and is a meat that you can definitely easily bruised and so you definitely want to have the sharpest knife
Available to you to use on that fish
So this is the main knife that I use for a fillet most of my most of my fish
There is a knife that I don't have in my studio, and it's a called a flexible filleting fish
And it looks a lot like a boning knife, but it's even thinner than a boning knife
And it has a blade that is very flexible I find that knife to be very useful when you are
Trying to separate the skin of the fish from the actual fillet itself
It's more of a specialty use case knife and knife that I find very high skill
Fish mongers are very adequate at using people like myself average people like myself
That knife tends to be just a little bit too specialty of a knife, and I don't find myself
Very efficient at it. I will attempt to pick up a
Flexible fillet knife and compare it to what I currently use and show you guys the differences. Again, I'm not the best
Knife Handler, I'm not the best
fish cutter or a fish monger
So I don't have the best skills to demonstrate that but I will make an attempt to actually make that happen at some point
so a deba is more like a chef's knife, but for fish they tend to have very thick spines, so they're very girthy and they're
Handling ability they tend to be very efficient in terms of cutting through the fishbone so the heft of the Debas are
Great for when you try to separate the tail of a fish from the body or separate the head from the body
They have a very fine cutting edge
and so this deba here is by Shun it's a single bevel knife and so they tend to generate a
Tremendous amount of cut force because they have a really thick spine, but they also have a very thin cutting edge
So it makes them really efficient at being very sharp, and so they tend to be
Knives that you will see again more specialty users will use them
I would see I see them being used in Japanese sushi restaurants when they are prepping larger fish. I don't really see
Most average home users using them I myself have used them a number of times
They're fun to use because they do provide such great cutting power, but you really have to be more skilled to actually use the deba
Properly not to say that you can't use one, but I find them to be
Again more specialty knives, and I find that the fillet knife
you know a curved fillet knife have tend to serve my needs and my
Purposes is better than a deba. Although
I am trying to use them more often, and I am trying to teach myself how to cook and prep more fish
So I will
Make the attempt to actually use more debas here in the studio and again these questions come from people that I have never met
So dumbdumb 27. I'm not sure what skills you are
At and what type of even though you are saying you want to do salmon
Do you do you want to you know?
Do you want to gut a salmon from A to Z?
Or do you want to just simply take a fillet of salmon and cut them into chunks and smoke them like how I do it
if you do it that way
Then the fillet knife is gonna be the better bet for you if you go to any sushi
Restaurant you will find your sushi chef using a Yanagi-ba and so these knives are definitely extremely
Specialized it takes a very skilled hands to use these properly now for myself
I only use these knives once every 2 to 3 months
And I typically use it when I have a large slice of fish
I might even use them on large pieces of beef where I'm trying to get really nice thin cuts
So I do use these for things other than fish
they're great because the extra length you have really allows your knife to have a
Really nice clean long cut so when you're trying to you know getting really nice thin slices
And you don't want to bruise the meat a great knife is a yanagi-ba
And so I use these for things other than fish like I said for me
I mean to be honest with you
If you really wanted to use a chef's knife on your fish
And I do this actually quite often is when I have my large
fillet of king salmon that I smoked once or twice a month
I typically would just throw it onto the cutting board after I rinse the meat under cold water and
To cut the chunks I actually just use my chef's knife half the time
Because my chef's knives are actually quite sharp and they can handle
Fish fairly well and they can handle even salmon skin really well
So I find myself using my chef's knife often just to do quick cuts on the cutting board
But for the majority of us if you're just prepping and filleting
Mackerel and salmon, I think a good sharp chef's knife will do the job
Just fine all right so the last question here is from caboose three
I hope I pronounced that right or Cabos three caboose let's just say caboose three
So the question is what is the best way to sharpen a knife without getting out my sharpening stone?
Okay
Okay
hmm good question
It's a question that I have been exploring a lot lately mainly because none because I don't like sharpening on wet stones
I love sharpening on wet stones, but because my time these days are very tight. I only have about one day
Maybe two days a week where actually can come back here and actually do sharpening videos for you guys
So here we go we have two straps here
And I'm only using two because one is
Loaded and when it's not and so these are buffalo straps that I have made for my own personal usage
I
Have found that buffalo straps are great because they the grit level is close to what you would see on a six to eight thousand
grit stone
So they are very high gloss they provide a lot of oil inside of the skin itself
So they're really great for people who just are like me who may only have one or two minutes a day
to get your knives sharp and
So this here is the same strop. It's the same block, but it has a NK
Greene
Strapping compound on it compound. It's great because they make everything work a little bit faster
But the finish that you get on a good
drop or a really good leather strop can be just as good as most compounds drops unless you're going to a
Like a 15,000 grits drop strapping compound or even like a twenty thousand or 40,000 DMT
If you are not interested in getting super high-end or super low grit or high grit ratings
You can just go with a good leather strop whether a latigo cowhide
Which pushes or what I would recommend for the basic straps, and you can go up to you know Buffalo
Which is a higher-end strop? And then you have shell cordovan? Which is a horse hide stroke, which is very expensive?
I do have a video on how to maintain your knives on a weekly basis, which I will link here in the corner there
It's basically me showing you what the benefits of having a straw?
Access to a strop is okay so from my personal usage in my home
I find that I strop my knives every three to four days if I'm testing a knife
I may not stop it because I want to see how
How long that edge can last but for my personal apps that I use I simply take the strap out
Every three to four days and my knife, and I just drop the knife
That's really all I do and I do this like I said every three to four days in my knives stay very very sharp
Over time the edge will not hold up as well because you are gonna be wearing down materials and for me
I am a sharp knife I
Would call myself a sharp knife freak, but I do enjoy having a sharp knife and so after some time
I don't know exactly how long that is gonna be my
The curt knife that I have in my kitchen the DAO strong 8 inch Shogun
It has now been three months since I have not sharpened it and I only stopped it every three to four days
It's still just as sharp as I left the studio here
You know being sharpened or polished on a 6000 grit stone
So I can tell you that dropping will save you a lot of time
And it makes it really easy to keep a knife very sharp. This is especially handy for those
Who are in the food industry?
If you are chef a sous chef or line cook
and
you only have you know a couple of minutes when you get into your
Kitchen to prep a meal to get ready before the kitchen starts up having a strop
It's much more handy than having a whetstone there because they strop will allow you to take your knife that hopefully has been has been
well-maintained
You simply just wrap your knives
For 12 to 20 strokes on each side and your knife should be ready to go for the ready for the whole day
Strokes are great more so for people who have knives
That are higher on the heat treatment scale so if you have a knife that is
60 or 59 or above having a strap is great because you can literally just drop your knives
Before your workday begins or at the end of the work day, and your knives will stay razor sharp for the next day
For those who have a knife that is heat treated from a 55 let's say to a 58
Then the other option would be a honing rod, which I have one here
Okay, so this here is a boost off
Classic icon with the CREM handle this one here
Let's just say you're cutting you're cutting into your meats, and you Nick a bone
You don't ship the knife, and you don't really damage the knife anyway, but you notice on the cutting edge
There's a slight indentation on or a very slight
You know bump on the cutting edge in that sort of situation the rod we actually do a better job at
realigning that edge
It's gonna straighten the edge much better and also will take off larger
amounts of material versus the strop where that strap will instead of trying to take off you know larger chunks of material
It will try to polish that edge
And so you don't want to polish the edge when you have a chunk or a low dent you want that dent
Let's call that micro dent
Realigned not polished so that is really the main difference between a strop and a rod the rod will realign your edge better
The strop will polish your edge better if you're using a knife from again
he treated from a 55 or lower up to a 58 I would say go with a rod a
Steel rod that you have from your kitchens knife set will work just fine
You don't have to have anything fancy and for those who have knives that are heat treated from a 59 and upwards
I think that you'll be served better if you were to maintain your knives on a daily basis on a strop
Cool, I want to try something a little bit different here and see if it will work if you guys want your questions answered all
my videos on my ask Ricky videos leave in the comments with the hashtag ask Ricky and
Also either on Facebook or Twitter ask hashtag ask Ricky and so when I do a search on
Twitter Facebook or on on YouTube with the hashtag ask Ricky in the comment section
All of the questions that come up with the hashtag in front of it will automatically appear on one page that way
I don't have to search every
video individually I can just do it do a comet search on my
Line of my home page, I think that will work so again in the comments either before or after the questions
Just put the hashtag ask Ricky, and I will just do a quick search for it
and
I'll take the top three or four comments every single week and put it into a video and in case you guys have not heard
I'm doing a shoe knife giveaway. This year is a shoe-in santoku classic which I have just restored
I would say that this lamp here is probably just as good as new or maybe even better than new
If I may say so myself
in case you guys want to be a part of the giveaway head over to this video here or
Check the video description, and I will leave a link there as well or where I will that'll be it for this video
Thank you for being here. I'll catch you guys in the next video
