Anyone made a bakers Lame ?

Make a dedicated bread lame knife. Put no edge on it besides the last inch at the tip. Maybe even narrow the blade up to the wider tip like Natlek showed.
If it can't be used for anything but splitting the dough, it will always be where you left it and sharp.
 
You know .... I honestly do not know whether to laugh or cry at the absurdity of this thread. I have been making bread for 50 years.....
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and, yes, for all of that time I have used a sharp-tipped knife for slicing the loaves....
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.... and for all those years, I have noted the problems when that knife was not absolutely razor-sharp .... it pulls at the dough, and potentially causes it to deflate a little (or more than a little). I thought it might be cool/interesting to try my hand at making something akin to a sharpenable straight razor, instead of buying a frigging $10 lame based on disposable razors. I asked only about metal, and geometry, I did NOT ask for cooking lessons on something I have done my entire life, and where I have seen the pros/cons of just using a knife). Yes, I am somewhat put-out ... because out of all of the comments on this thread - only ONE (maybe two) persons actually **tried** to answer the actual question I posed.
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So ... just because I want to try it for the heck of it .... I will go ahead and try my hand at making a lame based on the straight razor geometry and steel information I can find elsewhere. thanks for the help. Bon Appetit.
 
AEB-L
Very thin
FFG or hollow grind (probably won't matter)
Edge sharpened to 8000 and polished on a strop.
 
I have been really impressed with edge holding of D2, still didn't need to sharpen so don't know how that will be, but I guess the diamond stone will do the job just fine.

The problem with the sharp tip knife is, that you might go too deep. Cush your bread looks amazing, but you don't need to score as deep as you did in the pic. That's why you want a straight blade. And I would angle the handle upwards like a kiridashi.
 
FredyCro said:
I have been really impressed with edge holding of D2, still didn't need to sharpen so don't know how that will be, but I guess the diamond stone will do the job just fine.

The problem with the sharp tip knife is, that you might go too deep. Cush your bread looks amazing, but you don't need to score as deep as you did in the pic. That's why you want a straight blade. And I would angle the handle upwards like a kiridashi.
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Thanks Freddy. Agreed on the depth ... but I tend (when I have time) to do a cool triple rise (better flavor) ... but that produces more gas and a bigger oven bounce. If you don’t slash deeper the crust bursts at the pan level instead of unfolding at the cut. It also gives more crust ... and my family really likes crust :-)
 
I don't know what else to add but that bread looks amazing! My mouth waters looking at it! Whatever you come up with would be hard pressed to pass what you've done in the past unless you made a specific knife that by it's shape ONLY gets use for this purpose and NOTHING else. So it holds it's razor edge longer. Shape defines it and it doesn't get used for slicing lettuce or pepperoni etc. IDK
 
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LCoop said:
I don't know what else to add but that bread looks amazing! My mouth waters looking at it! Whatever you come up with would be hard pressed to pass what you've done in the past unless you made a specific knife that by it's shape ONLY gets use for this purpose so it ONLY gets used for this purpose and nothing else. So it holds it's razor edge longer. IDK
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The single-purpose blade is the idea :-)

thanks also for the comment on the bread. See ... the idea is that when you let it rise for that final time in the loaf shape ... if you have done things right it is light and airy ... but also very delicate. Just a little nudge or poke or pull, and you break some of the bubble structure, and it deflates somewhat.. if you don’t slice it, the crust fractures too soon down near the pan... and it deflates somewhat. If you try to slice it with anything but a razor-like blade, it grabs the dough in the cut ... and it deflates somewhat (detect a theme here?). With a razor-sharp blade, it slices the slightly sticky dough without pulling ... then when the loaf hits the extra hot oven (425f) the bubbles expand, and the cuts kind of open up and unfold like a flower opening up (and the rest of the crust is not stressed and does not crack).

Added hint: it is always said that you should NEVER cut in to a hot loaf because it causes it to deflate a little. It does. However, there is *nothing* better than bread right out of the oven. With butter. Go for it! :-)
 
"there is *nothing* better than bread right out of the oven. With butter. Go for it! :)"

Amen to that.
I used to bake 40 loaves of bread every Sunday morning for my previous church. We handed it out after church to the elderly members and other families. New visitors were given a fresh hot loaf during the services as a welcome gift. The whole church smelled like fresh bread .. it was wonderful.

The church had a big industrial size kitchen with two commercial Viking ranges/ovens. That gave me four big ovens to bake in. I was the only person who used the kitchen much. Down the center was a 12 foot long prep table that was great for working dough.
I would regularly use a triple rise with the last one overnight in the cooler. I would go over to the church around 8 or 9PM and work the dough by hand in huge dough bowls. I would let it rise in the bowls, punch it down, work it out into a long roll, cut into loaf size pieces and knead again, let rise, work it again and place in the loaf pans, and stick in the refrigerator overnight. By 6AM it was risen the third time and I would put three slashes across the tops, and pop them in the ovens. When the bread started coming out of the ovens, the first loaf was always sliced up hot, buttered, and eaten by myself and the friends who would help me with the baking. The rest were wrapped in plastic after sitting to cool and placed on a big rolling cart to take to the Narthex. Every week I would bake a different type of bread.
 
Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith said:
"there is *nothing* better than bread right out of the oven. With butter. Go for it! :)"

Amen to that.
I used to bake 40 loaves of bread every Sunday morning for my previous church. We handed it out after church to the elderly members and other families. New visitors were given a fresh hot loaf during the services as a welcome gift. The whole church smelled like fresh bread .. it was wonderful.

The church had a big industrial size kitchen with two commercial Viking ranges/ovens. That gave me four big ovens to bake in. I was the only person who used the kitchen much. Down the center was a 12 foot long prep table that was great for working dough.
I would regularly use a triple rise with the last one overnight in the cooler. I would go over to the church around 8 or 9PM and work the dough by hand in huge dough bowls. I would let it rise in the bowls, punch it down, work it out into a long roll, cut into loaf size pieces and knead again, let rise, work it again and place in the loaf pans, and stick in the refrigerator overnight. By 6AM it was risen the third time and I would put three slashes across the tops, and pop them in the ovens. When the bread started coming out of the ovens, the first loaf was always sliced up hot, buttered, and eaten by myself and the friends who would help me with the baking. The rest were wrapped in plastic after sitting to cool and placed on a big rolling cart to take to the Narthex. Every week I would bake a different type of bread.
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Stacy, is there a thing that you didn't do? :)

Cush, I am sure you know this and it is not always easy to plan ahead, but I also do the final rise of my sourdough bread in the fridge and cold dough scores much easier then at room temp.

Please post your design as I am interested what you will come up with, a small kiridashi razor would be really cool.
 
FredyCro said:
Stacy, is there a thing that you didn't do? :)

Cush, I am sure you know this and it is not always easy to plan ahead, but I also do the final rise of my sourdough bread in the fridge and cold dough scores much easier then at room temp.

Please post your design as I am interested what you will come up with, a small kiridashi razor would be really cool.
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Freddy - will certainly post - might br a little while though ... I have something like eight knives ground and lined up to handle... that said, it takes time to heat treat ... so maybe I better get going on it :-)

no ... I don’t do a refrigerator rise - I’m either not that patient or just don’t plan ahead enough. I do try to keep it slow though: start the dough maybe 9 in the morning for a 5:30-6:00 bake. I have a Viking stove that has a small oven with a “proof” setting, so I can control the temperature and rate of rise pretty closely.

for others potentially reading this ... it turns out that the biochemistry of yeast is such that the fermentation by products are slightly different at different temperatures, and we find find the by products produced at lower temperatures to be ... tastier :). That said, I think I have done a truly cold temperature (24 hour) rise only twice ... but you can certainly tell the difference. Only if I am in a real crunch for time will I use the more yeast/ higher temperatures that many recipes teach. The result is technically bread, but definitely less flavorful :)
 
time for a slight update on this thread - this has been sitting on a back burner waiting for weather to get colder - which means soup and more bread to go with it! back in march/april I profiled out and had HT'd several potential profiles. Today I pulled out one of the profiles based on a short straight razor. I tried for the first time ever hollow grinding on my wheel - was pleasantly surprised by the "feel" of it .... in many ways much easier than on a flat platen. Anyway, I hollow ground this 1" razor to ~ 0.006 on the edge, brought the finish to 260 grit, then went to the waterstones. first 1000, then finishing with 6000. Razors are sharpened in the same way you sharpen the Urasuki side of a japanese knife: you lay the blade flat on the stone, with both the spine and edge in contact with the stone - the angle between the spine and the edge thus defines the edge angle - which is really acute - except that on the straight razor, you do the same thing on both sides. looks ok so far... (I was not really concentrating at all on making a nice plunge - just trying to get them even side to side....)
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The weird markings on the edge and spine are from the sharpening technique. I'll need to make some bread soon and see how it performs for that. also not even sure if I will put a handle on this - its still an experiment - and it actually feels pretty good and balanced with just the metal tang held in the hand.....
 
this was my solution to the problem:
tAvfGf8.jpg
MBwCm53.jpg


a little kiridashi style thing, w2 steel. edge is slightly hollow ground.

i think maybe a slight curve in the edge would be better? but yours looks like it should work well.
 
Alex Topfer said:
this was my solution to the problem:
tAvfGf8.jpg
MBwCm53.jpg


a little kiridashi style thing, w2 steel. edge is slightly hollow ground.

i think maybe a slight curve in the edge would be better? but yours looks like it should work well.
Click to expand...
Now *that* is so cool !
 
I got a chance to make bread day before christmas, and try out that razor-style lame. Worked well .... *but* I definitley could feel the thicker shoulder hitting the side of the cut as it bit in. Worked well enough .... but I wonder if a thinner blade, more like HSC made would feel better (if not work better) when digging into the cut. Worth a try though.,,,

HSC - how thin is the stock you used for that lame of yours?
 
Sounds like a good use for a craft knife like an Xacto or a cheap wood carving knife on Amazon for a couple of bucks, I just use a paring knife, they're just a sharp in my kitchen.
 
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