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High end knives and dishwashers
Sir Woke XR Re… 19 Jan 24 09:11
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Now, knife manufacturers and vendors always tell you that good steel kitchen knives don’t go in the dishwasher. Sometimes they do this in hectoring and antsy ways eg one of my knives came with a small leaflet that actually contained the statement (in bold) knives do not belong anywhere near dishwashers. Oh well thank you for putting me straight Sir.

I usually follow this advice because I’m the kind of person who usually follows advice.

But what IS it about a dishwasher that makes it so damaging to rock hard German or Japanese steel? I mean all you do in a dishwasher is put the knives in to sit still and be blasted by hot water and detergent. As opposed to being knocked around while being washed with hot water and detergent in the sink.

Is there some secret device inside my dishwasher that secretly bashes a secret lump of granite off any cutlery it finds?

back in the days when we had a nanny occasionally the nanny would apparently put the knives in the dishwasher.  weirdly she appeared to pop back on days when she wasn't working to do the same.

 

these days it's the cleaner who comes in when she's not working to put them in the dishwasher instead.  

While the knife may be tough, the edge is a precious and delicate thing that can be ruined with abrasive treatment. Good knives should be gently washed with a soft sponge and then immediately dried and stored. 

Dishwashers are for getting encrusted shite off ceramic stuff and a great way of ruining your knife.

Depending on the programme you have put your dishwasher on, it may be hotter than handwashing - but also it will usually then sit in a hot steamy environment for a while and fancy schmancy knives are made out of carbon steel which will rust more easily.

Turbulence causing the blade to knock into other materia in the device. 

Corrosion from the nasty salty chemical water.

If your knives are crap and blunt already then go for it.

It's not just fairy liquid in those tablets. Why would want to leaving your prized santoku blade corroding for 2 hours in a bath of chemical surfactants, detergents, alkalis, bleaches, biosubstances and salt. And think of that nice wooden handle. You're no samurai.  

I always put knives face down against instructions, because I'm terrified of acccidents. 

I wouldn't know about "high end" knives, as I'm not a complete ****. 

I got my parents some decent, not fancy, but respectable kitchen knives a few years ago as a gift. They are all blunt now. My folks were enthusiastic about them in the beginning and agreed that it makes a big difference in cooking. But ultimately I suppose it’s just not important to them. 

Laz, you should have seen the (pretty cheap) kitchen knife 'Zzette's father gave us once.  That was proper hard. Worked ok for a while but when it did go blunt it was absolutely impossible to sharpen.

RR has it. There is a difference, in a decent steel knife, between the body of the blade and the sharp edge. A mix of the treatment of the steel and, of course, the fact that it is worked back to wafer thin on a stone and therefore the edge can easily be abraded. A Damascus steel number will have two grades worked together - not cast together but wrought (i.e. heated, hammered, rolled, flattened), so there will be hard and softer grades and the accomplished damasc maker will work the piece to ensure the softer metal is aligned along the thin edge for grinding (which is blonder than the harder silver stainless if you are interested). That softer steel is much more easily blunted by impact and attacked by chems. Really one should wipe it straight after use, not let anything dry on it.

Then you need to wax it with carefully scraped ball sack sweat from the nads of a Sensei from Hokkaido Prefecture, bow, and put yourself in the dishwasher as a penance for thinking of doing otherwise.

unless your entire knife is metal (some are one piece) then the other obvious issue is the rivetted black handles just get fu cked in the dw. The rivets split, the handle delaminates. 

one that goes up or down a hill, clubbo, so the ground floor at the back is higher or lower than the ground floor at the front

characterised by having series of half-staircases inside rather than one staircase

I inherited a collection of Global japanese knives from my Dad.  He spent a fortune on them, used to keep them in a knife roll in a cupboard in his study, hand wash them every them time and put them back - with the result that they were used approximately 3 times a year and the rest of the family was stuck with the shit ones in the drawer.

 

Since inheriting them, all of them are in the knife drawer, used every day and put in the dishwasher daily.

Its true that they lose the edge more quickly, but a quick rip und and down the global ceramic knife sharpener and they are back to a razor edge.  

 

Will they last only 15 years rather than 25 or so, yeah maybe. But for fvcks sake - life is too fvcking short not to use and enjoy good things.

We use a decent high-end set of knives - but they are for use, not staring at. Keep them in a knife block, use the sharpening steel when you pick them up, and definitely do not put in the d/washer or, worse, the general cutlery drawer. I had to berate 3.01am and 3.02am a few times before they got the message.

Ona separate note I genuinely thought I was the only person in the UK to have purchased a ladder house, but now I find I'm in a club with ... Laz.  Great.

What Geoff Leopard said. 

If they give up eventually buy new ones. fook standing round washing up your precious knives every day when there's a dishwasher there .

Bought myself a decent 7" Santoku in the Black Friday sales last year as it goes.  On my first use of it 'Zzette was a little concerned given the frequency with which I cut myself while cooking.  Tried to explain to her the the most dangerous knives  to use in the kitchen are the blunt ones as they slip when cutting and that's when you end up slicing yourself. 10 seconds later I'd taken off a good 2mm from the tip of my right thumb and there was claret everywhere. 

Heh - almost the same story for me. First use of my first proper japanese knife and I got distracted and sliced completely through my finger nail and into the flesh without noticing. Then blood, but surprisingly little pain.

How much does a "high end" set of knives cost?  Never done anything except chuck ours in the dw but then they're probably not what you lot are talking about.  The fact that I have no idea where the steel is from tells you everything

It's part of the samurai code. A warrior brings great dishonour to his family if he unsheathes his blade without drawing blood. Put it back in the knife block in the drawer when you're done.     

Unless you’re going for silly hand made Japanese stuff, which is just for show tbh, a high end chef knife / santoku / nakiri will cost 150 to 200 quid. Anything north of that is more money than sense territory. 

A good utility knife is about 80 quid and a top end paring knife about 60.

I don’t buy knives in sets but I’d assume say a 15-20% discount for buying a set of three 

Loved and revered by chefs and home-cooks alike from all around the world, the collection of MAC knives and cookware are a must-have for anyone who loves to cook. Not only are the MAC products unbeatable when it comes to quality, but they perfectly blend classic style and modern edge. With the right care, they will last a lifetime.

Some of these high end ones won't work properly if you're left-handed. They have to cut vegetables with their arm upsidedown with the tip of the knife pointing towards their face. Very dangerous. 

I suspect that there is a very high overlap between blokes who obsess in minute detail over watches, and those that get all precious about feckin kitchen knives...

As Mutters has noted the only real reason not to DW stainless knives (carbon steel is another matter) is that it will fvck your handles to irreparable oblivion. 

 

 

But seriously, people, how hard is to give it a bit of wipe when you are finished, eh? 

It is much easier to clean a knife straight away and then it is ready to use again. Wacking it in the dishwasher means you have to wait until you run the contraption until you can use your now dull and corroded knife again.

Eh? Why would someone who is willing to dispose of a reasonable amount of their substantial income to support social justice be unwilling to part with some of the rest for a moderately expensive set of knives?

“But seriously, people, how hard is to give it a bit of wipe when you are finished, eh? ”

100% agreed. I usually use the curtains, at least if she’s a posh bird

bought a sharpener for my knives recently

sharpened all the knives and managed to only cut myself two or three times.  Where did all the tinkers go?

If the steel can't handle the dishwasher, it's not quality steel.  I reckon the handles are the issue.

I've got a block of mid range knives. They go in the dishwasher. I've got some naice, wooden handled Damascus style knives (made by Dick, fnar). They do not. 

If I knew how much "washing and drying my knives so they retains their edge and are available when I need them" would wind people up I would have posted about this ages ago and frequently.

with a sharpener

I of course plan to clean it in the manner you describe rather than in the dishwasher. You appear at some points to have been under the impression that this thread was advocating putting knives in the dishwasher.

a whetstone takes skill, I don't have that skill.  My dad tried to teach me but I just kept taking chips out of the blades and then getting a thump for damaging his knives.  

No, I am under no such impression in your case, but others on this thread appear to be in the dull knife / dull wife brigade. You asked a question, I answered it comprehensively upthread. I am sure you will now take care of your MAC from a cleaning perspective. 

A whetstone is a better tool for keeping your blades sharp though. Jelly gets it.

By sharpener, do you just mean the steel rod? Or do you have one of those awful wheel contraption things? The steel rod only deburrs the edge, you will still need to sharpen once in a while. Whetstones are best, but indeed it takes a bit of practice. The wheel things are a disgrace. 

Heh at Marshall Hall re the overlap with watch enthusiasm. I bet you’re totally correct. Good craftsmanship should be supported and it’s nice to have nice things. 

I have a ceramic sharpner - tip, dont drop the fvcker.

I have a mate who was a butcher - he give me the tip that you can sharpen a knife on the unceramised ring underneath a dinner plate - I tried it, and it works a treat 

Knives go blunt because the sharp edge bends over. The steel rod simply straightens the edge back out. 

You don't really to do much more than that every few months even with the cheapest knives.

Once the handles go dishwasehr ruined you can either put up with the aesthetic or replace ththem.

I wouldn't put a wooden handled knife in  the dishwasher so would not buy one in the frist place.

You don’t HAVE to do more than using the rod every now and again. The knife will still work, kind of. But if you want razor-sharpness so you can do cool stuff like slice a tomato horizontally without holding it in place then you need to use a whetstone sometimes. 

“By sharpener, do you just mean the steel rod? Or do you have one of those awful wheel contraption things?”

Very much the latter. Who the fook knows how to use a whetstone fgs

normal people.

I use a stone. In fact I've used the same one for so long that it's probs time to get another as it has developed a bit of a bow on it because I've used the middle more than the edges.

Key with a stone is to have an oil stone and a waterstone.  The oilstone is rougher and absorbs a lot of oil but when topped to the max it lubricates as you grind so you don't find chips coming out of the edge of the blade. AFter a while you do need to use that rougher one to ensure you maintain the shape of the cutting edge. If you don't, you turn that eliptical blade in a chef's knife (which allows you to rock on the chopping board) into a flat carving knife, ruining one of your knives.  THen a finer waterstone, sharpening under running water to flush the finer steel dust away, gives you a new edge.  If you want to go one step further still, you want a leather strop. 

 

A knife steel is usually misused. It has a spiked end so you can put it pointy end first into a wooden butcher's block then hold it vertically. They you simply rub the knife, blade pointing down, a couple of times either side to straighten the edge which otherwise turns over. You still need to sharpen after doing that.  A steel will not really sharpen the knife.  That Terry And June swish swish swish Sunday carving knife blade scraping is not what they are for or how to use them. 

 

All this is knife law. Anything else is cock.

Muttley has provided the definitive whetstone primer. I don't have an oil stone, that's beyond my needs and the quality of my knives. I have two right handed knives that are a bugger to sharpen because you have to use a different angle on each side of the blade. 

Good knife chat everyone. 

top tip for that bugger factor is to do the "action" side in the ordinary way, knife slid on stone using your eye to judge angle, then the other side you hold the knife upside down by the handle and hold the stone in the other hand, position for angle then move the stone not the knife.

when it's knife on stone, the hand not on the handle lies flat on the side of the blade of the knife, controlling the slide over the stone like you are massaging a muscle

Definitely good knife chat. I have a set of Zwillings as my everyday beaters. Plus a few single-bevel Japanese knives. They are a total pain to look after but very nice. 

All right, I suppose that goes on the left then. Don’t deride me too much please. I am a very keen and quite good cook. I think I can allow myself a few modest extravagances in this department. None of the knives I bought are extremely high end and I believe in buying stuff that lasts and then taking care of it. Vs buying the cheapest shit you can find and then replacing it every couple of years. 

Don't worry about marsehole, fritzy, he's lost his teeth and can only consume what can be sucked through a straw these days. He has no need or understanding of knives. 

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