Haburn

[Mark76]

Here’s my review of Ian’s gyuto.

Looks

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

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

The fit and finish of this knife is very high. The stainless steel of the bolster encloses the blade without any gaps, without soldering or welding. 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 almost exactly 21 cm long and has a height above the heel of 46 mm. This is pretty similar to most other gyutos of this length and provides more than enough knuckle clearance to me.

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 the same as my 19 cm Carter funyaki and 0.2 mm less than my go-to knife, a Suisin Inox honyaki 21 cm gyuto.

The geometry of the blade is also nice: about two 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 be 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 Suisin Inox honyaki 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 edge has a pretty long flat spot, I’d say about one third of its length. It doesn’t have too much belly.

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 highest wear resistance, 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 using the knife I stropped it on my 5K Chosera stone. I did not want to sharpen it, since it is not my own knife.

The first thing I cut were onions. When Matus wrote that this knife put his Carter funyakl to a shame, I was a bit sceptical. But Matus was right! This thing flies through onions thanks to its grind and its wicked tip. I cut up a whole net of onions just for the fun of it.

The knife also performed great on hard veggies: it went through carrots, potatoes and celery without problem. I didn’t noticed any wedging at all. The knife also dealt beautifully 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. However, it may be that this is the placebo effect of a beautiful knife, but I felt it released potato slices just a little better than my Suisin Inox honyaki.

The profile of the knife, with a long flat spot and not too much belly, makes it more suitable for push-cutting than for rock-chopping. That said, it cut up herbs without any problem.

Even though the handle is slightly larger than usual, it felt good in my hands; I always use a pinch grip. I did have to get used to the weight of the knife, though, since I am used to a lighter gyuto. To my surprise this happened pretty quickly.

Conclusion

I enjoyed this knife a lot. It is first and foremost a very good cutter. And then a beautiful cutter. It could come close to the ideal knife for people who predominantly push-cut and like a knife that is slightly heavier than usual.

Many thanks Ian!

Factsheet

Molecule Polishing: my blog about sharpening with the Wicked Edge

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