Mutsumi Hinoura Shirogami Kurouchi – Vegetable Knife 16.5cm – Nakiri

The Nakiri

This Mutsumi Hinoura Nakiri knife allows for effortless vegetable chopping that professional chefs and home cooks can admire. The natural curve and depth allow you to effortlessly rock the blade when needed to cut through every vegetable in your path. And, the hollow blade doesn’t hold onto sliced foods like other knives. Instead, sliced foods easily slide off of the blade into your dish. Forged with a thinner blade, the knife is lighter than its counterparts and allows for a faster overall chopping action to be performed.

The blade

The blade is made from shirogami with a carbon content between 1.05% and 1.15%, also known as White Steel #2. This is a very pure carbon steel, very popular among high end Japanese knives. The blade has a very good edge holding and very high working hardness. This means you can grind it to exceptional sharpness, which retains it for a long time. This steel is particularly suitable for the gentle preparation of foods but due to its high carbon content, it is prone to oxidation, which means your knife will rust if not taken care of (e.g. if left wet for longer).

The blade’s Kurochi finish is a traditional and rustic Japanese blacksmithing finish where the knife keeps the black scaly residue from the forging process. It gives the blade a rustic charm and character. This also means that no two blades’ patterns will ever be the same, making each Kurochi finish one of a kind.

The handle

The beautiful handles are made with extremely limited European maple burl dyed in a green and blue colour. The wood is dried for two years before it undergoes the process of stabilisation and colour dying. This ensures the wood is completely waterproof to avoid bacteria growth and is able to last generations.

The stabilised premium-cut maple burl is cut into the octagonal shaped ambidextrous handle, giving you a firm grip on the knife. Not only are the handles aesthetically pleasing, they are also light. This allows for maximum precision and more controlled movements during use.

Please note that no two handle colours or patterns are ever the same as the natural properties of each wood block are unique and will absorb the colour dye differently. This will give each knife a beautiful unique look.

The blacksmith

The Hinoura family is a well-known Japanese family of blacksmiths that have been making knives for over 120 years. After years of handcrafting knives, they have developed unique skills and knowledge, which have been passed from generation to generation.

Mutsumi Hinoura has been training and working with his father, master smith Tsukasa Hinoura, since 2001, in Sanjo. Hinoura’s unique bladesmithing techniques allow producing knives that will keep fine edges longer than any other knife on the market. His knives have good distal tapers and wide kiriba style bevels, and really wonderful heat treatments. He has a lot of experience with hunting and outdoor knives, and their kitchen knives carry some of the same qualities of toughness.

Maintenance

Shirogami #2 is very responsive to sharpening stones, taking an extremely fine, biting edge easily. As shirogami and iron are both reactive, keep these dry when not in use to avoid rust. Please remember that the core is not stainless and should be dried after use (check our maintenance tips here). The blade will develop a dark patina with normal use, but any orange rust should be removed with a light abrasive or sharpening.