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Ask HN: Share your favorite YouTube channels focused on mastering a skill/craft

212 points by hubraumhugo ↗ HN
I've just discovered channels with restoration videos on Youtube and these guys are true masters at their craft! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2jNeObHnZY

Any other authentic channels I should check out about the mastery of a skill or craft?

132 comments

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brodywolverine
"peaceful cuisine" for vegan cooking. The videos are also so aesthetically pleasing
LesZedCB
I also like The Pot Thickens
f0e4c2f7
Not sure if this is the kind of thing you're looking for but I found this channel / series of videos to be a pretty great introduction to poker. I wouldn't call it mastery level but I'd say these videos plus a little practice is enough to become skilled enough to beat tourists in Vegas.

https://www.youtube.com/@jhupoker4850/videos

tanseydavid
For guitar, try TomoFujitaMusic for something different than the rest.
hamandcheese
I've really enjoyed Wintergatan on YouTube (you've perhaps seen the viral music video of a steampunk one man band powered by marbles). He is working on the third iteration of the marble machine, and his process is incredibly thorough.

Don't read the comments, half his fans seem to hate him now for turning an art channel into an engineering channel. But that's why I watch!

https://youtu.be/lC_oLb1pfqU

GuB-42
Interestingly, I didn't have the same experience from the comments, I find it rather good by YouTube standards.

When I followed the MMX saga, I saw a lot of technical criticism that ultimately turned out right. The most criticized idea I remember was about "kinetic fingers", a non-functional "art" part. The rest is mostly unsubstantial and vaguely entertaining comments that make up for the majority of what you see on YouTube comment sections.

zachwill
Frank Howarth is an absolute gem: https://www.youtube.com/@frankmakes

I've been following his woodworking channel for 10 years — and I have no interest in woodworking myself. I've never come across someone who is 1) 99th percentile at the craft, 2) probably better at videography than the craft itself, and 3) will literally walk you through his line of thinking while including all the dumb mistakes he thought along the way.

Hikaru has a similar way of explaining high-level chess and coming off as human, but the quality of Frank's stuff is nearly unparalleled, in my opinion. It's like watching an absolute master of his craft have a beer with you and explain his 4D chess moves in an Explain Like I'm 5 years old format.

Highly, highly recommend watching him.

roey2009
I like Hikaru, though I find GothamChess easier to watch, and more to my level. Also helps he is absolutely excellent in maintaining viewer attention. He is an excellent story teller.
acjacobson
Thanks for the recommendations - here's a few of mine that are related:

For woodworking I am a big fan of Paul Sellers - though he is primarily a hand woodworker. His videos are very accessible.

For chess I like John Bartholemew. He's an IM, so lower in the rankings than someone like Hikaru, but has a lot of videos geared towards people looking to improve their overall game.

ge96
Hardware stuff is interesting to me/not what I do for a job (would like to). I like watching people who work with it naturally like it's easy.

Ben Heck Hacks

Curious Marc

Great Scott

There's more idk if it's what you're looking for but yeah I try to watch more useful content but I still watch let's play type stuff.

mitthrowaway2
Ben Heck helped me through hard times when I was struggling to remember why I ever was interested in engineering in the first place. He reminded me that it's not just about skill grinding and solving hard problems and business applications. There's also fun to be had.
birdymcbird
scotty kilmer.

does not teach ‘mastery’ but he teach much about what to look at when buying car..have car issue..avoid get scam by mechanic.

his speaking style like old grandpa. very enjoyable and improve my ability to understand spoken english too so not use chatgpt when doing work

ravenstine
Scotty is entertaining and informative, but you gotta be careful with that guy when it comes to actual car repair because he's very opinionated and overly willing to play the algorithm game. It's a true rarity for a car brand to actually be "junk", but Scotty doesn't think so, and it would be a shame if people bought cars based on his opinion. He thinks Hyundais are all bad, but I and countless others love our Hyundais. Relying on the suspension as safety when jacking up a car is also pretty dangerous advice. Even if Scotty got away all these years without using a full set of jack stands, that doesn't mean other people will have the same sense of how to do dangerous things and live.

I do like his occasional presentation style videos, though. Whether you agree with him or not, the ones on electric cars are well made and entertaining.

_2uwr
I think the RestoMod car scene are the true deciders of what is a good car or bad car. Yet to see a really cutting edge, state of the art, loaded with tech restomod though! Something that would give even Tesla and Mercedes a run for their money and the hypothetical Knight Industries.

General scene overview https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KngtkxrTxuc

Singer - Fulfill Your Potential https://youtu.be/ui4_K3CeTwA?t=1128

Theon Design https://youtu.be/E0v7SAahFSo?t=448

Gunther Works If NASA made a .... https://youtu.be/IxBZsp_-LvM?t=905 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_dz-7N9k_M

Magnus Walker https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHPw3HlcMDQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpsWnOw220o&t=44 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QACYD67akQM

wyclif
He's not wrong, though, that the Toyota Avalon is the most reliable car you can buy.
agumonkey
I watch many of his videos, very dense information wise but something about his tone or pacing makes it unbearable :)
iamben
Very niche, but I think this is a great Ask HN, so Sugarpill Covers - https://youtube.com/@SugarpillCovers - mostly short (usually less than 5 mins) videos on how to produce (/replicate the sound of) classic pop punk. Genuinely clever and great fun.
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skhameneh
I have a number to share, maybe not all quite perfecting craft, but enjoyable for me! I did try narrowing to ones a bit more relating to learning or improving skills.

Sustainable Gardening, Self Sufficient Me

General cooking, Adam Ragusea

Seafood Cooking, Kimagure Cook

Chocolate mastery (demonstrations), Amaury Guichon

3D Printing Tips, Teaching Tech & CNC Kitchen

Everything Coffee Related, James Hoffman

tempusr
Do you have any suggestions for channels that are good for beginner cooks?

I just got my first job in a new city and realized I have no idea how to cook anything other than eggs & chicken

c54
Adam Ragusea is a goldmine of well explained recipes that you could actually cook on a regular basis, even for things like weeknight meals. He tends to emphasize understanding and intuition and using your senses over exact measurement, this is how people are able to cook quickly and with lower mental overhead. Often you have to measure the first time you make a dish to get calibrated, and then can just wing it after that.
skhameneh
Yes, this.

Adam loves to go into various details and explanations along the way. I'll even see comments from experienced cooks saying they learned something new.

Just one exception to this comment, I've found weight ratios to be very important when baking. Recipes that go by weight tend to be of much higher precision and overall quality.

Lastly, as a beginner, don't be afraid to get things really hot! As long as you don't see smoke (especially from oil, oil should never release any smoke), heat is your friend. I ditched nonstick for stainless, using heavy fats/oil (ghee, tallow, olive oil) + high heat — and never looked back. And don't forget, even as Adam would say, better ingredients make for better results!

mdpye
> when baking

Yeah, that's pretty important. Cooking is an art, bakery is a science.

Like, for real, it's significantly more chemistry than most cooking, so the proportions do matter.

weaksauce
j-kenji lopez-alt is great for beginners and experienced cooks alike. very science forward into the why and he generally shows you how to cook what he's going to eat for dinner. https://www.youtube.com/@JKenjiLopezAlt

helen rennie is a cooking teacher and is also good but the recipes can shuffle from esoteric to mundane so you have to pick and choose. https://www.youtube.com/c/helenrennie/videos

https://www.youtube.com/@EthanChlebowski is a solid and practical channel to pick and choose from. though the more recent videos are more of a deep dive into the science. the older videos are more about single recipes with some tangents on technique.

finally pro home cooks is a more beginner friendly format generally https://www.youtube.com/@ProHomeCooks

as an addendum:

serious eats and americas test kitchen are good reliable recipe factories but require a lot more steps and effort generally. but at the end of them you will have a very well tested and usually tasty dish. so once you have your chops from the above you can branch out a bit with some more complicated dishes.

avoid any of the big recipe aggregators as they are so low quality recipes that aren't worth your time. all recipes etc.

imp0cat
ProtoCooks with Chef Frank.
suranyami
"thatdudecancook" (terrible name, I know!) has shown me some amazingly simple techniques that have radically improved my cooking:

https://www.youtube.com/@thatdudecancook

If you're into Chinese cooking, then the Chinese Cooking Demystified channel is excellent. This is not your lemon chicken from the mall food court… They deep-dive into all the regional cuisines and present non-mainland-China-friendly recipes and techniques. It's a real eye-opener.

https://www.youtube.com/@ChineseCookingDemystified

+1 for Adam Regusea and J-Kenji Lopez-Alt.

For coffee, as others have said, James Hoffman, but also check out Lance Hendrick if you want crazy amounts of detail:

https://www.youtube.com/@LanceHedrick

Aaron & Claire regularly produce ultra-simple, fast, imaginative Korean dishes:

https://www.youtube.com/@AaronandClaire

Ann Reardon does some interesting baking-oriented stuff, but even better, her debunking videos are the real gold:

https://www.youtube.com/@HowToCookThat

I'm getting into BBQ & smoking (bought a Kamado) and found SmokingDadBBQ informative:

https://www.youtube.com/@SmokingDadBBQ

For something really out-there, Wilderness Cooking (again, a terrible name) is intriguing. It's this guy living in what looks like a pretty remote village in Azerbaijan doing traditional outdoor feasts. Warning: not even remotely vegetarian-friendly.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCj4KP216972cPp2w_BAHy8g

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cudgy
Chef Jean Pierre
alfl
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLRZePj70B4IwyNn1ABhJWmBPe...

Building a house from selection of land through to selling at auction.

SkyPuncher
In general, Essential Craftsman is fantastic content.

He has a nice mix of "this is the modern way we do it", but "here's an old school trick to help you get there".

loco5niner
My favorite part of Essential Craftsman is actually how he shares wonderful grandfatherly wisdom (or fatherly, depending on where you are in life). The actual content is fantastic too
jsharkey
Phil's Lab is a really detailed channel covering multilayer PCB design skills. He shares a lot of nuance that would be gained only through years of trial/error or an apprenticeship.

https://youtube.com/@PhilsLab

iamflimflam1
Love watching PhilsLab - I dabble a bit with PCB design on my own YouTube channel and the difference between an amateur tinkerer (me) and someone who is an expert in it is amazing.
azefiel
Florian Gadsby is a ceramicist posting videos that show how pottery is thrown, finished and finally glazed and kiln fired. The videos show the processes behind his work, from the throwing to trimming of tableware and more sculptural pieces. He has a playlist dedicated to teaching basic technics, great for beginners.

https://youtube.com/@floriangadsby

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jdgoesmarching
I’ll throw a request in here for channels that cover IT fundamentals a la Eli the Computer Guy back in the day. Especially if they cover more modern topics.

It’s hard to sort out the good teachers from the wannabe influencers. I also don’t mind hearing suggestions for video stuff outside of youtube.

ornornor
Do you know about computerphile?
ChintanGhate
Not a technical skill, but in the self improvement genre - Colin Murray’s channel https://m.youtube.com/@colinmurrayYT/videos is great for people who like exercising from home, without investing a lot in equipments and weight. Has helped me exercise more regularly compared to past years.

And then for one of my hobbies https://m.youtube.com/@idaemonplasmo for building better model kit aircrafts.

Not sure if they are masters of their craft, but they make their craft more accessible/enjoyable for me.

waschl
Plasmo is great, his videos are so relaxing to watch