▲ 33 r/japaneseknives
Forcing Patina with Protein Powder
I'm probably losing sleep over this $20 secondhand knife. So I looked into what actually causes patina when slicing pork and turns out it's sulfur-containing amino acids like cysteine, methionine, and cystine reacting with the carbon steel surface to form iron sulfide.
To my surprise, all three of these are found in common protein powder. So I made a protein powder putty, spread it over the blade, and let it sit for 30 minutes.
Thoughts? Is this a legit method or did I just waste my time and a scoop of protein powder?
PS: I had to sand down old patina because rust developed (forgot to oil the knife for storage) so this was really about forcing a fresh patina from scratch
u/NothingBurger555 — 2 days ago