Preventing sticking potatoes.

weo

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Sep 21, 2014
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Hi all. I've yet to solve a problem that's been bugging me for years and looking for design/grinding help.

When making Bear's and my favorite breakfast of potatoes and sausage gravy, I can't prevent the slices of potatoes from sticking to the blade. How can i prevent this? Does the fact that i use pattern welded knives play into this?

Thanks
 
Maybe make a designated "spud slicer" with a 36 or 60 grit finish on the bevels?
May want to skip the pattern welded steel on it though!
 
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Cheese knives have holes in the blade to prevent sticking -
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MahoganyHandleCheeseKnifeSHS16


I have a Cutco cheese knife and it works really well on things that stick -

Just a thought - not a bladesmith here at all - just a user.

best

mqqn
 
A lot of it is technique too. Take a knife that is shorter from spine to edge and slice instead of chopping. If you must chop, add a tiny bit of push or pull motion so pieces offset and push each other off and out of the way. Very slight deviation of angle from exactly vertical can help too. Also try cutting faster or slower and see what results you get.

S-grind (concave above the initial bevel grind at the edge, the ridge and concavity help release the cut food) and diamond grind (instead of full flat, grind to part way up then also grind slightly to thinner spine so cross section is like a diamond, the ridge can help release pieces of food). Look up chef's knives from Takeda hamono in Japan and Robin Dalman in Sweden for concave/s-grind. Below is a picture of a Dalman looking at the heel of the blade to see cross-sectional geometry.
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Another strategy is to follow Japanese chef's knife geometry. They are usually right handed where the left side of the blade is relatively flatter compared to a more convex right side (though both are often convex). The cutting edge also tends to be offset to the left as well. The effect is that the blade tends to push food off the right side. An example below of one I've made.
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I let the next potato slice push the last one off. I suppose if you made a blade with spine to edge corrugated bevels it wouldn't stick, but I never saw the need to re-invent the wheel.

Grantons ( also called gratons) are scallops on the side of a blade designed to keep food from sticking to the bevels, but potatoes seem to stick on most everything. I think there is some disagreement on how much help they do.
Grantons is a registered trademark for a very old English cutlery company who uses the scallops on their blades. They were the originator of the idea .. about 100 years ago. IIRC, the company is around 400 years old.
 
as said by the others taters are just about the worst thing to cut as far as stiction is concerned deepely etched damascuss would help but the S grind or slightly offset convexed edge are about as good as you are going to get. i say skip the holes and grantons. this is one of those times that tradoffs have to be made for how much wedging in the cut you are willing to deal with
 
Good thoughts, all.

Perhaps it would help to clarify that I'm cubing the potatoes into ~3/8" square, and my potatoes are the size that I first cut them into 4 slices, then put the halves down on the board, cut into quarters lengthwise, then into quarters again for the cubes.

diamond grind (instead of full flat, grind to part way up then also grind slightly to thinner spine so cross section is like a diamond, the ridge can help release pieces of food). Look up chef's knives from Takeda hamono in Japan and Robin Dalman in Sweden for concave/s-grind.

Another strategy is to follow Japanese chef's knife geometry. They are usually right handed where the left side of the blade is relatively flatter compared to a more convex right side (though both are often convex). The cutting edge also tends to be offset to the left as well. The effect is that the blade tends to push food off the right side.

I'll probably try the Japanese geometry first as I have one of my first blades that's pretty thick and heavy for a slicer and I want to grind thinner.

I'm going to try to forge one of each and then do a test. I'll try to remember to post results. (But don't hold your breath because I'm in the process of selling my house and don't know where I'm going to end up.)

I've been planning on making a 40" radius platen, maybe i should finally do this. Does the concave go on the slice side or veggie side?
 
I've been planning on making a 40" radius platen, maybe i should finally do this. Does the concave go on the slice side or veggie side?

Some people do both sides so it's not left or right handed, but it should go on the side that the slices are coming off of if you do an asymmetrical geometry. The mechanism at work is that the pieces encounter the concave and fall off because they're no longer in contact with the blade face at that point.

For example, go to the thread from the kitchen knife forum post Scott posted and you'll see some examples. I tried to repost but it wouldn't appear here. Some video there too.
 
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