British BBQ Society Forums

Toby wrote:All of my knives go through the dishwasher, havent seen any ill effects as yet and have had some of my Wustofs for 10 odd years..... I must be a typical bloke and not read the instructions

It's normally the handles that suffer the most, lost rivets and they often discolour and eventually crack, it also tends to dull the edge but if you sharpen regularly you probably wouldn't notice that.

Well, where do I start? I have a lot of knives and keep buying more.

My favourite is a Hattori Santoku 64 layers of steel and sharper than a scapel when delivered. After that
it would be my I.O.Shen Oriental Slicer (which is just about to be sent back to I.O.Shen for a repair - excellent
customer service). Day to day I tend to use either a large oriental cleaver and some ceramic knives.

Weirdest knife is a Solingen chef's knife that was a present from a German work colleague - it is huge! with a
serated part on the base of the blade. Really unusual and definetly a Crocodile Dundee knife!

Gary

I put a global in the dishwasher once, it came out rusty.
My brother put my wusthof through the dishwasher once and the handle (wooden) swelled.

Rubbish!

The cheap sabatiers go through the dishwasher regularly and the metal tang isn't made out of stainless steel its made out of something else - the metal has gone dark grey and you get black marks on your hands when you touch it (does that make it aluminium or galvanised steel or something?). The blades themselves are fine.

And Steve - I agree with a whetstone the evil, polished edge you can get on a global is pretty special.

Very odd about the Global, completely understand about the Wusthof with a wooden handle, i dont have wooden handles on any of my knives, dishwasher your job is safe!

One thing worth noting with Globals is that there are a LOT of chinese knock-offs going around and there have been for several years. I had a colleague buy some from an online shop that looked kosher but the knife set was a knock-off.

Never put one through a dishwasher myself, horrible caustic things that they are. Wouldn't put my WMF cutlery in there either. In fact I'm surprised the Global didn't fly out of the dishwasher and stab you in the face for subjecting it to that But I wouldn't expect one to rust, the alloy Yoshikin uses should have good corrosion and stain resistance properties, have you been buying knock-offs from Fleabay Ben?

Dishwashers will pit and oxidise any stainless steel eventually, some alloys may be more resistant, but equally corrosion resistance may compromise hardness, ability to hold an edge etc. I don't claim to be a metallurgist so can't comment specifics but I know there's a lot of skill in manufacturing steel with particular properties. I don't put any of my knives through the dishwasher, I clean them quickly straight after use, that includes my cheaper knives.

As an aside, best edged knife I ever tried was an old single edged carbon steel sashimi knife. A friend of a friend owns a sushi bar in Hiroshima and he was showing me how to slice sashimi, that thing was cack-your-pants sharp.

I try to hand wash all my knives though on occasion some have slipped through when being helped in clear-up. THANKFULLY NOT my carving set. I have some mild staining on 1 of the Furi's but this doesn't cause any problems.

I did buy a sushi global knife off ebay once and it was suspiciously cheap and less good than the other knives - but the one that rusted was from John Lewis.
I say rusted, it developed a small rust patch which i had to rub off with the whetstone. Either way I'm implementing a zero tolerance regime on things that don't want to go in the dishwasher.

Incidentally one of the nastiest cuts I have from a knife was from washing the wusthof. On the side of my thumb, straight through to the bone!

Did it rust again in the same patch after you rubbed it?

No it never rusted again, and it never went in the dishwasher again.

My main problem is the globals lose their edge quickly, and my wife can't operate the steel so doesn't keep them honed, and I tend not to use them - so they need sharpening. Which I can't be bothered to do! The upshot is that the cheap sabatiers and the wusthof are sharp and the globals aren't.