Sal, if it's not too late -- sorry, I missed this one. I use almost exclusively single-beveled knives, and while I'm no super-expert sharpener, I can give you what I know.
If I understand correctly, the question is whether to back-bevel the inside (non-beveled, hollowed) face.
On the whole, I would advise against this. It can be done, but it's very tricky to do well.
There are two crucial things, when doing the back side of the knife. First, be sure that the knife has been set up by someone who knows what she or he is doing. Second, use minimal pressure and only go edge-trailing.
The trick about edge-trailing with minimal pressure is important. At base, the tendency when you grind is to have the leading edge press down harder than the trailing edge. This is irrelevant with double-beveled knives, obviously, because the leading edge is up in the air, but with single-bevels you have a tendency to grind the spine unduly. In a perfect world, you'd grind so gently at the spine that it simply does not abrade at all, but let's be reasonable. As you draw the knife toward you across the stone, have your fingertips resting as close to the blade edge as possible, and think about not putting pressure on the spine. That'll pretty much do it. And don't deburr all the time, either: grind the face until it's done -- no scratches from a previous stone, constant burr all along (as little as possible, really), and then deburr on the next highest grit. Just rub gently on the back, just barely enough not to have a noticeable burr, in a series of gentle draw-strokes. Then back to the face again. If the knife is set up properly, I doubt it would take 10 strokes on the back to remove the burr, unless you are using exclusively a very fine stone, which is doable if rather slow.
Once you are up to your finest polishing stone, whatever level that might be, you can think about burr-flipping and stuff, but it really should not take long at this level. Those burrs are very, very thin, because of the shape of the grind.
In the end, grinding knives like this isn't easy, but it is simple. Do not complicate it.
There is one important exception, which I don't think is what you have in mind, but I mention it anyway.
If you are grinding a 210mm or larger deba, as a principal-use deba in a more or less traditional kitchen, you should steeply back-bevel the heelmost third of the edge. When I say "steeply" I mean like 20 degrees or so -- steep. Just lift the spine right up and put that bevel right on there. The thing is, a traditional kitchen has no knife that can mince, especially under force. The heelmost third of the biggish deba is used for this purpose, and so it is back-beveled to produce an extremely strong blade section. If you are using a smaller deba, like a 180mm or so, exclusively for fish, do not do this -- you don't have enough blade to waste a third of it as a chopper, and a 180 doesn't really weigh enough to make a great chopper anyway. And if you use a gyuto for mincing, skip this whole process regardless -- it's completely pointless.
Hope this helps.
