Haburn

[Mark76]

Here’s my review of Ian’s gyuto.

Looks

The first thing I noticed when I unpacked Ian’s knife is that she is a beauty. The entire blade is well polished and the knife has a handle of redwood burl. What I liked best is the bolster, made of stainless steel and brass. It is personal of course, but to me this gives the knife just a bit of extra class.

The handle is relatively long and wide. It tapers down from its butt to the blade. The handle is octagonal, but unlike most octagonal handles, which look elliptic, this one looks more square.

The fit and finish of this knife is excellent. The stainless steel of the bolster encloses the blade without any gaps. And although you can feel the transition from the wood to the bolster when you run over it with your finger, this is also without any gaps. The spine and choil of the knife are rounded, which makes it very comfortable to hold.

Blade

The blade is just over 21 cm long and it has a height above the heel of 46 mm. This is pretty similar to many other gyutos of this length and provides more than enough knuckle clearance to me. It has a profile with a pretty long flat spot, I’d say about one third of its length. It has a little belly, but not too much.

The blade is pretty thin: above the heel the spine is 2.4 mm wide. There is not a lot of tapering of the spine until a couple of centimeters before the tip. But then it tapers down very nicely to a whopping 0.7 mm one centimeter from the tip. In comparison: this is 0.1 mm less than my 19 cm Carter funayuki.

The geometry of the blade is also nice: about 2 to 2.5 centimeters from the edge the blade starts to taper down towards the edge, in a slightly convex manner.

Although a knife with these dimensions could be classified as a laser, I’m a bit hesitant to do so with this knife. The reason is its weight: 217 grams, which is pretty heavy for such a gyuto. For example, my 21 cm Suisin Inox honyaki gyuto weighs exactly 100 grams less. And this Haburn knife weighs almost the same as my Hiromoto gyuto, but this is a 24 cm knife with a Western handle. The weight is probably caused by the handle, which also affects the weight distribution. The balance point of the knife is right in front of the bolster.

The blade is made of AEB-L which is my favourite stainless steel for kitchen knives. Of all stainless steels this is the one I can get the sharpest. AEB-L doesn’t have the best edge retention, but since I like sharpening this is no problem.

Use

I used the knife for a couple of days, cutting things I normally cut as well. I cut a bit more stuff than normal, but I am a home cook, so I can only review the knife from that perspective.

Before use I stropped the knife on my 5K Chosera stone. I did not want to sharpen it, since it is not my own knife.

The handle felt good in my hands, even though it is a bit larger than usual. I always use a pinch grip. The knife was a bit too heavy for me, though, and I had to get used to the weight.

The first thing I cut were onions. When Matus wrote that this knife put his Carter funayuki to a shame, I was a bit sceptical. But Matus was right. :bigeek: This thing performed at least on par with my Carter. It flies through onions! I cut up a whole net just for the fun of it. :knife:

The knife also performed great on hard veggies: it went through carrots, potatoes , celery and white winter radish without any problem. I didn’t notice any wedging at all. The knife also dealt well with peppers and pretty soft tomatoes. And of course it laughed at proteins.

Food release is never great on thin knives and this one is no exception.

The profile of the knife, with a long flat spot and not too much belly, may make it a little more suitable for push cutting than for rock chopping. That said, I rock chopped herbs without any problem.

Conclusion

I enjoyed this knife a lot. It is first and foremost a very good cutter. And a beautiful cutter. The knife should appeal to people who like a laser type of knife that is a bit heavier than usual.

Many thanks Ian for letting me try this knife!

Factsheet

Molecule Polishing: my blog about sharpening with the Wicked Edge

[Author]

Posts