whats a "yang" knife?

LMAO @ "Love Bone"

It's a western handle deba.  You-Deba 洋出刃.  "You" 洋 ("western") sounds exactly the same as 陽 ("sun" or "Yang" as in yin and yang) in Japanese, so if the website had it in Hiragana rather than Kanji characters, translation software is liable to make that mistake.

Also LMAO @ "Muscle Pull" and "Cowpox" (Sujihiki and Gyutou respectively)...  But "Love Bone" (badly translated Honesuki) definitely takes the cake there. :D

Funniest translations ever! I can't decide which is best.  To me, maybe "Cowpox" wins!

I just looked at the Japanese website.  It was almost exactly what I thought.  But You was actually written as 洋 which makes the "Yang" error even less forgiveable.

That's what you get for trusting a translation software I guess -- even Google has yet to build a good working one.  How the hell do you get "cow pox" from "beef knife"?

Western debas are not a "real" traditional category among Japanese knives, and I have seen anything with a western handle and that is thicker than the typical Gyutou labeled as such.  Some are just full tang Japanese debas mounted on western handles, and some are just very thick gyutous, almost like an extra hard German-style knife.  Some are single bevel, some are double.  Some have Gyutou or Santoku profiles, some have Japanese deba profiles.  You don't really know what you would get by that name, so you have to check the photos and descriptions very carefully.

However, if you LIKE the weight of a German-style knife or like the profile in a bone breaker knife, but wanted it in Japanese steel, it might just be the way to go.  But know that it will wedge just like the Germans because it will be thicker than the average Gyutou.

Oh yeah just be careful -- if you asked someone in the kitchen to borrow his "love bone" because you didn't want to work your "muscle pull" too hard, he might end up giving you his "cowpox." :D

A "true" deba is sharpened only on side.  A "western deba," aka yo-deba, is sharpened on both -- although the bevels tend to be very asymmetric.  With the yo-deba, the "yo' neither refers nor is confined to the handle.  As per the catalog, you can buy yo-debas with wa or yo handles.  Tadatsuna, for instance, will happily sell you a wa-yo-deba (my name, not theirs) as part of their wa-handled European knife series (exceptionally nice knives, by the way).

Compared to the "regular" debas, a yo-deba edge is more durable and doesn't require as much skill to use.  A yo-deba is another name for a chef de chef, pretty much, and gets put to the same uses.  It's a go-to for portioning meat with big bones, cutting through cartilage, splitting poultry, cracking lobsters and crabs, that sort of thing.  Because it's edge is shaped like a gyuto, you can also do some light chopping (the scallion tops for instance) while you're at it.  It's too thick, heavy and awkward to be an efficient or comfortable all-around knife for all but the insane. 

Like chef de chefs, yo-debas need a lot of maintenance in the form of frequent steeling.  No matter how thick the edge, it's just the nature of the work.  Their thick geometry will also have you thinning nearly every time you sharpen, at least if you care about maximizing sharpness.

For my own use, I've moved away from the chef de chef to specialty butchering shapes and generally prefer western makers -- mostly Forschner -- to Japanese manufacturers for butchering knives.  And FWIW,also  prefer western makers like Sabatier, Wusthof, Lamson, Forschner, etc., for those chef de chefs; although most big, Euro chef knives are more than adequately tough to do all the chef de chef stuff.   Another thread, maybe.

BDL

Hi BDL -- apart from meats... where are you on supremely hard winter squashes?  i.e., some people say to use a heavy knife you can lean on (and I've used -- primarily -- a Wusthof classic 10" as a "chef-de-chef"); and some people say it's much better to use the laser, so long as you don't twist the knife. I dunno... a Cimiter makes some sort of sense to me in theory.  But just not banging a laser on the board, a very thin gyuto makes just as much sense.  I'm currently using my CarboNext for kabocha.  (Thanks, Jon).  Seems quite ok.  I don't have a true laser-gyuto yet. But that's next on my purchase-list, other than stones, perhaps. And if I get a 270mm Konosuke HD gyuto, the CarboNext gets "gifted" to my sister or my dad.

Or is this just a silly question?  That is, I still have the 10" Wustie in a cupboard with an edge-guard on it.  But I barely use the thing.  I don't crack lobsters or butcher primals at all at this point, though.  (If I want a large deba, it's only because I've looked at and held Jin debas and thought them excessively "cool" -- not practical at all for me! But really excessively, overwhelmingly, stupidly, ecstatically freaking COOL).

So with the Wustie, I don't really need a chef-de-chef or a Cimiter, I'm thinking.  I can pull out the Wusthof classic as-needed.  For someone who cooks veggie 90% of the time, the Wustie in a cupboard and thinner gyuto and petty in the block is pretty much ideal, yes?  ANY reason for a 300mm suji-laser? (Like I said, I want one because you've planted that seed in my head... but I think this is just silliness given the differences in cuisine and my relative tyro-cook status. Beyond needing proper technique for knuckle-protection, I mean).

When a person goes and buys one of these "Yang" knives, isn't it also important to also buy the accompanying "Ying" knife to go with? I would think a lot of bad Karma would be in line for breaking up matched sets. I can't at all afford that. I'd end up cutting off fingers and such. 

*?    Ying-Yang = Yo handles     Wing-Wang = Wa handles

LOTS of yin- from the girlfriend or wife who at least sometimes shares the cooking with you.  No need for balancing with a yin- knife!