Stained High-carbon blades

Hi everybody! I've had a question bopping around in my head for a while and realized asking all of you is the best route to go.
When working with your high-carbon blades, what foods have you notice cause the darkest and quickest staining on your blades? Thank you in advance for your input.

Cheers!
Mareko

 

Definitely onions for my carbons.

 

Red? White? Yellow? Sweet? Cocktail?

Just kidding about that last one.

 

For me, warm cured meat, like a salumi, and second place would be onions. Onions almost take off the other patina and create their own, rather than building it up, in my experience, however.

 

Can be pretty variable due to variations in food. Someone told me to cut up a pineapple to put patina on my Shigefusa...and when I did, there was no patina formation at all. Strawberries, onions, and hot protein seem to have a pretty strong effect for me. Makes a very strange meal too.

 

One of the winners for darkest staining that I have seen (although not the fastest formation) is lemon juice. I had someone slice lemons and put the knife back on the board with a lemon slice still stuck to the blade, facing downward so the knife actually looked clean. When I found it 20-30 minutes later there was a black circle on the blade (that particular knife was white steel).

Agree with Lefty that onion juice can seeming wipe off the patina that is already on the blade (if it is not yet fully established) and replace it. This was an issue on a couple carbons I have, but particulary a shigi.

 

White onions, especially older over stored ones and red cabbage.

 

Mareko , from experience I found raw and cooked proteins giving nicest patinas along with onion or potato . Only problem with onion is it tends to wipe down previous patina and create it's own .
When you talk about darker patinas I found the melons ( honeydew , cantaloupe etc ) and pineapple are the strongest ones although not pretty . They make the blade look old with the tone of the gray . I have a blade that I cut 100lbs of melons not long ago , can provide pics if like . The Darkest and ugliest patina came from cutting eggplants and peppers , it was borderline black

 

I'd like to see it, to be honest. Haha. I just like knife pics, methinks....

 

I second @Lefty, lets see some pictures @chefcomesback. Thank you all for your awesome input! To help clarify, I'm not looking for stuff that's helping to establish a nice pretty patina, I'm looking for the kind of stuff that's turning you knives black when you're cuttin it or letting it sit for a little while. Thanks! -Mareko

 

Ok , here are few pics .
First I had cut 120 ribeye steak portions that left a nice blue patina from the tip to the end of the blade , then I cut about 10lbs of onions using the mid section most and after washing the blade I started working on the fruit . I have used the mid section and the tip of the blade to clean the melons and pineapples then sliced them all using just the tip of the knife , this will help understanding different patina formations better I hope . The blade is 52100 , not polished at all , 120 grit from belts


Did you notice that dull dark gray at the tip?

 

Ya, much darker at the tip. Thanks for the explanation and sharing you pics.

 

You are welcome

 

Strawberries give the darkest the fastest for me. I get this much blackening after cleaning a bowl of berries this size:




But it fades pretty quickly after several uses. Unless berries are good and in season, then it just stays black.

 

Oh I'm so sorry you have that terrible issue with the strawberries constantly staining you blades! Thank you @Lucretia! That's great to know! BTWs was hangin' out takin' shop with Rader the other day at Dave Lisch's and BK showed up! So crazy and cool to be hangin' with such great talent!

 

Cool thread!!! :cool1 Lets see: Rader, Lisch, Kramer & Maumasi, boy would I like to be a fly on the wall in that room!!! ump

 

None of us thought to take a picture. We were just hangin' out with beers in hand and good food in our bellies. I'll try to snap a shot next time that happens. Probably be hangin' out with Bill Burke and Dave in the next week or so.

 

Yeah, I'd say throw a bolt on the door and charge them each a blade to get out again!

@Mareko, we really suffered eating all those strawberries to get you a picture of black on a knife.

 

Hahahah! Lucretia, I really appreciate your sacrifice! I hope they made a dangerously delicious compote or the like!

 

JEALOUS!!! :cool1