Why are Japanese knives sharpened at a 15 degree angle and European knives sharpened at a 20 degree angle?
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Why are Japanese knives sharpened at a 15 degree angle and European knives sharpened at a 20 degree angle?
You can check the answer of the people under the question at Quora “15 degree angle knife sharpener“
About Anna
A2A: though Japanese knives would traditionally be sharpened at a more acute angle than Western knives this is actually becoming less and less true. However the reason for the difference is the style of grind used.
The first is a sabre grind (sometimes called a chisel grind) and the second is a compound grind, which is actually the most common form cutlery takes the world over. Obviously an additional bevel obliges one to sharpen at a steeper angle even if the primary grind is identical. The benefits are that softer steel will hold an edge longer and the small working edge can be abraded very easily making sharpening and minor repairs much faster. The former was popular in Japan as their steels tend to be tempered harder than in the West. Often compensated for by using differential tempering to marry a very hard steel edge to a softer spine and or high-flat.
The problem with having such a hard edge with a very acute grind and large burr is that it leaves the edge vulnerable to chipping and flaking. Though if the steel isn’t hard enough it won’t hold the edge in the first place. This can get serious when you’re dealing with even finer grinds, like the urusuki grind used on high-end Sashimi knives (an asymmetrical chisel and hollow-grind) and traditional Japanese razors. Some people cut a secondary ‘micro-bevel,’ into the working edge to make it more robust, but using natural abrasives with a wider, shallower scratch-pattern also addresses this issue without compromising the edge geometry.
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I have tried various angles, when sharpening knives.
I have found that the softer the steel, the greater the angle needed to avoid stressing the blade to failure. It is always a balance, and the angle is partly chosen with the material to be cut in mind.
Now that machine production is a thing, the tendency to use 15° or 20° may be purely convenience. As parts wear, the angle may drift off of the nominal angle. Even hand sharpening using guides produce a more consistent edge that freehand in most cases.
I don’t sharpen my knives in order to shave. I have found that a little tooth to the edge is best for me in food preparation.
This is a closeup of one of my knife edges. Good enough for me. It has a hardness rating of HRC60±2. It could be in the ballpark, but I have no direct way to test it. The ruler in the picture is to give an idea of the magnification involved.
Look closely and you may be able to see the teeth. While sharp, it can’t beat a scalpel blade that is finished to a higher degree of precision. I would even use an actual razor blade for some precision cuts, if I am too lazy to clean up my knife edge.
Also, a thin edge tends to curl when being sharpened and the edge folds over and points backward.
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Japanese diets are rich in seafood where a slicing motion is most useful. Fish offers little resistance. European knives are used for everything from meats to butternut squash and such. That makes a very fine edge more of a liability as you’ll need to spend more time maintaining it.
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I would think that it is because of the way Japanese foods are prepared and presented. Very often vegetables, fish, and sometimes meats are sliced very thinly, appearing almost translucent. This requires an extremely keen edge that offers little resistance to cutting. However, the slender angle of the edge (12–15°) makes it more fragile and susceptible to damage. Heat treating the metal to a greater hardness (60–62 HRC) helps to prevent rollover, but makes the edge more brittle. European and U.S. knives are most often heat treated to only 56–58 HRC and ground to 20° to provide a tougher, more durable edge that is suitable for the coarser chopping and dicing of their cuisine.
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Knives are sharpened at whatever angle the maker wants to sharpen them at, which depends on the application.
Japanese kitchen knives are traditionally sharpened at a more acute angle than western kitchen knives, but that is more a function of tradition than a technical limitation.
The more acute the grind the sharper it the edge is, but the more quickly it gets dull. A 15 degree grind is very acute, it’s razor sharp but wears out quickly. A 20 degree angle isn’t quite as sharp but it holds it’s edge much longer.
Japanese cooking is as much about presentation as it is about flavor. The main things a Japanese chef is preparing are fish and vegetables, which aren’t as hard to cut as beef and pork. The Japanese chef probably needs to be cutting food with more precision than a western chef, again for aesthetics vs practicality.
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