Tojiro Yanagiba Shirogami 240mm (9.4″)

TOJIRO Yanagiba 240mm (9.4″) is a handy single-bevel knife for preparing meat and fish, and is especially suited for sashimi and nigiri sushi. The 240mm (9.4″) size works well in professional kitchens and is the go-to length for home cooks.

BLADE SHAPE:
Yanagiba knives are primarily intended for long pulls and precise cuts of meat and fish. The long and narrow blade is particularly useful for slicing meat or boneless fish, or for filleting and skinning fish. The long blade allows for the meat or fish to be cut in a single drawing motion, from heel to tip, taking maximum advantage of the entire cutting edge of the knife.

🚩 It’s a single bevel knife, which means only right-handed users can use it. While we usually find yanagiba knives in sushi and Japanese restaurants, there is a growing trend of home cooks owning these beauties to impress the guests at their weekend sushi or BBQ party.

STEEL:
The core of the knife is made of Shirogami steel #1 (white steel) with the hardness 61–62 HRC. This makes the knife very sharp and easy to resharpen but a bit more demanding in terms of maintenance. Shirogami #1 is one of the purest steels, and consequently one of the easiest to sharpen. Its characteristics make Shirogami popular with traditional Japanese blacksmiths and sushi masters. The advantage of Shirogami #1 is that it has a very fine, delicate sharpness, is easy to grind, and stays sharp for a very long time. The blade will acquire a protective patina with use.

LAMINATION:
The hard core of the knife is composed of a hard core (forming the cutting edge) and a softer, external layer of soft iron, a cladding we call ni-mai lamination. Due to the soft and pliable external layer of steel, the sharpening of single bevel knives is much easier. The outer layer of softer steel forms a “shinogi” line along the entire edge of the blade. The shinogi line represents the border between the harder, inner steel and the outer layer of softer steel.

GEOMETRY:
It has a single bevel blade, so only right-handed people can use it.

BLADE FINISH:
The blade features a clean, highly polished (also called migaki) blade finish.

HANDLE:
The blade extends into a traditional Japanese D-shaped Wa handle made of the most traditional wood for Japanese handles – magnolia wood – with a black water buffalo horn ferrule.

ABOUT THE BLACKSMITH:
TOJIRO is one of the top 5 largest Japanese kitchen knife manufacturers. They are renowned across Japan and internationally for their top-quality knives for a reasonable price. TOJIRO’s focus on advanced technologies, together with their insatiable dedication for constant improvements of their knives and materials, makes TOJIRO’s knives a must-have in any kitchen. TOJIRO’s main focus? Sharpness! A big bonus is their great team which we are always very eager to meet and talk to! 😊