Patina smell and taste...

[jay2pointoh]

Is this normal for carbon steels? I have a custom field knife in O-1 and every time I cut oranges or acidic food the juice starts to smell in a few seconds. I dared to taste it and its bad. Is this normal?

 

[Cpl Punishment]

You mean the juice on the knife, or in the fruit? On the knife, since it's oxidizing the metal to form the patina, it'll form compounds as it goes through the chemical reaction with the metal and will have an acidic, metallic taste. The fruit itself should not have taste transferred from the blade.

 

[squishware]

Wash it with soap.

 

[tknife]

Yeah I have noticed the odor and metallic taste when cutting acidic foods. It seems to go away once the blade darkens more though.

 

[ohski]

Is this normal for carbon steels? I have a custom field knife in O-1 and every time I cut oranges or acidic food the juice starts to smell in a few seconds. I dared to taste it and its bad. Is this normal?

I'm feeling rather old right now... Did you not grow up with a carbon blade in the kitchen? I guess if you didn't then you wouldn't know. So the answer is yes there is a "smell" to it...

Ski

 

[PDE]

Yep, it is as normal as bark on a tree.

 

[neeman]

Some folk are much more sensative to the taste that carbon steel gives to food.

Let a patina form on the knife.
Once the patina forms on the blade the taste will be much less.
An old way to force a patina by sticking it into a potato for a couple of hours

 

[baldtaco-II]

Yeah it's acid induced corrosion. Some steels are worse than others and it also depends on what is being cut – Opinel on onions smells distinctly of sulfur. As above, the corrosion can be reduced to some extent by letting a patina build up. Then you only have the cutting edge being corroded and not so much of the flats, so less smell. When the reaction is really bad it will leave a visible dark residue on foods. That smells like some acid based rust removers.