Advice on Kitchen Knives Please

originally posted by: DBCowboy
"Yeah, I, uhhh. . . I once cut myself pretty bad, umm. . .I'll just stand over here now. . .

A good tip - when slicing something and you're using one hand on the handle of the knife and the other hand to put some pressure above the tip of the knife - don't let your finger slip over the tip because it's pretty sharp and can cut you badly as well. At least, that's what I heard....

Other than that, all I know about kitchen knives is "The Amazing Ginsu."

a reply to: IAMTAT

Always go with ergonomics.

Don't try the Shun classic blades. You will never buy another brand.
..and possibly pull a second mortgage for the entire set.

The cut style is a little different on the thin blades, but I love it.
Cutting tomatoes, onions or sushi is ridiculous.
The hand-hammered dimples and the damascus combined with the ultra thin blade "shed" sticky foods away from the blade.
Probably the sharpest blades I have. Scalpel sharp.
The hinkles and wustof stuff are pretty decent mid grade utility knives.
Both sharpen well.
The Shun steel is far superior imo, just more delicate to bad cutting technique.
You don't want to twist the edge on the board since the blade is so thin, but the tradeoff is worth it, it is effortless dicing and you won't use the other brands after.

a reply to: IAMTAT

My wife got some Pampered Chef Knives without really asking me, and when they showed up, I was impressed with the blades and materials, but not impressed with the details of the finish...the wood seems to have either shrunk since it was manufactured, or they just did a poor job. The rivets protrude a bit past the wooden handles,and where the handles meet the tang, you can feel the the metal sticks out slightly farther than the wood.

That would have been enough for me not to purchase them, but I have been quite impressed with the blades themselves. The blades hold a decent edge, but they're also relatively easy to sharpen, too, so it's a nice balance, IMO.

I would stick with some other brands mentioned, though...just thought you'd like a little review of those in case you came across them or someone else recommended them. And like others say, it's very worth handling the knife first to ensure that the handle is comfortable.

a reply to: Mandroid7

These are beautiful knives...Great customer reviews.

a reply to: SlapMonkey

Thanks. Protruding rivets are definitely something she hates on knives.

How much are you willing to spend? And like Augustus said it is more of an ergonomic thing.

When it comes to just cooking dinner for the family a there's really no need to go beyond anything affordable and reliable. The more expensive knives are usually more of a pride and prestige kind of thing for chefs to impress.

Wusthoff knives are great knives and they do have knife sets across a wide range of prices, and they do look great, and feel great too.

Back in my restaurant hey day I had some hand forged Japanese knives that were super expensive(like $1k-$2k a knife), but beauuuuuutiful and were excellent knives, BUT required a lot of care, and I just did not like the way they felt in my hands.

So, I kept them for private catering events to be flashy, and went with Wusthof for my daily kitchen work. Can't remember which ones specifically, but I felt way more comfortable using them then the Japanese ones I bought.

So, yeah. I recommend Wusthof as well.

I'd be inclined to ask a chef or butcher.
Here, the responses might include Light Sabers.

a reply to: IAMTAT

When I see a thread by one of you three and the title is,
advice on kitchen knives please,why am I worried,what
could go wrong?

I was a sous chef for a fine dining kitchen, as well as a head chef.

I used Zwilling & Henckles forged knives almost exclusively. Stay away from stamped knives. A blade should extend into the handle, and if you balance it into your hand, and let the weight of the blade bounce on a cutting board, the resulting sound and feel will tell you much about the metal.

German steel is very good, and the edge is decent. I don't like Japanese knives, but they serve a purpose. They generally have only one tapered edge cut to an uncut edge.

I spent about 350 dollars on my 8 inch chefs knife, and about 300 on a straight Santoku style knife for chopping. Also get a paring knife, boning, and utility knife for different purposes. A boning knife should have plenty of bend to it without breaking.

As for upkeep, a nice oil stone or Tri stone will serve you well for sharpening. A diamond Steele or a regular Steele is decent for upkeep but it doesn't sharpen, it hones. This means, If you think of the edge as a point, the tip of the point gets kinda worn to a side after use, looking kind of like a Santa hat? Anyway, the Steele will work the edge back to where it should be. After a while of steeling you need to sharpen.


Hope this helps!

Also global knives are decent*

If you guys would like a video about some tips and tricks when it comes to picking out a good knife set, or how to actually use them like you know what you're doing: I've got more than enough time lately, as I've been home with a back injury.

I have some problems with my hands and I have to have knives
that feel good while I'm using them.I like the ones that I am using
but they are a mixed lot.

originally posted by: AutomateThis1
How much are you willing to spend?

Whatever it takes to keep her happy.

a reply to: Iconic

Thanks. All good info.

a reply to: IAMTAT


Henckels Knives are considered to be one of the best, the steel is superb, four man Henkels are for profesionals and one man Henkels are for home gamers.

I own a sharpening business and know quality when I sharpen it. They are made in Germany as well or hopefully still are.

www.zwilling.com...

a reply to: IAMTAT

Its on sale.


www.zwilling.com... t=1

I'm going to make an offbeat suggestion, but first here's the logic:

Since I retired from my day job as an aerospace engineer 5 years ago I took up knife making as a hobby.

After exploring numerous designs and every knife steel known to modern science, I came to one startling conclusion that is probably the same conclusion that every knife maker comes to: it's all about the steel. It takes almost as much effort to make a blade out of crappy steel as it does to make it out of good steel, so why not go for the good stuff?

Ah, but what is the good stuff, you ask? I knew you would ask that. The answer depends on what you intend to use the blade for and how you plan to sharpen it. If you need a blade to cut through sheetrock or open sacks of cement, you should probably go to the local convenience store and buy one of those 2 dollar pocket knives out of the jar, because it's not going to last long under any circumstances and you don't need a particularly good edge to begin with.

In this case, however, your wife is an accomplished cook, presumably takes pride in her work, and wants to do at least a semi-professional job. She needs blades that are going to have dependably keen edges whenever she picks them up. She's going to want to be able to pick up a knife and slice tomatoes paper thin, dice onions and pare vegetables without a dull blade turning them to mush. She probably isn't going to want to continually be fighting rust and discoloration which is always likely if you use straight carbon steel around water. In my experience, there are two ways to achieve that. You can get conventional culinary stainless steel blades from one of the standards like Henckels, or Wusthof, in which case she will be continuously straightening the edge with a diamond or steel hone and frequently touching it up on sharpening stones of some kind. Or, you can get knives with a better blade steel in which case, they will hold their edges much longer, and straightening and sharpening will be relatively infrequent. The knives will be much more likely to have a keen edge whenever she picks it up.

The major brands like Henckels and Wusthof use proprietary stainless steels that are a compromise between sharpness and rust resistance. They're highly rust resistant but end up having a hardness somewhere around 56 on the Rockwell C scale. In culinary applications you've generally not cutting through anything abrasive, so the main factor that causes a blade to lose its keen edge is not the metal wearing away, but the cutting edge bending under the pressure of cutting or running into hard materials like bones or the cutting board. That will make the edge wavy or bent over into what's called a "wire" edge. Straightening out those bends is the main purpose of a sharpening steel.

It has been my experience that as soon as the blade steel hits a Rockwell hardness of 60 or above, magic happens. All the problems of wire edges go away. Wire edges don't form when you first sharpen the blade and they don't happen during normal use. If you do have to resharpen the edge to remove nicks, etc. you will probably want to use diamond stones.

Henckels has a super steel called CERMAX that they offer in their high end knives that achieves this level of hardness, but they are hideously expensive.

A relatively obscure Japanese company called MAC knives offers a series of professional knives in both Japanese styles as well as classic European styles at prices that are competitive with the common German brands. They use a proprietary steel alloy that is reasonably rust resistant but has very good toughness and hardness. They typically come in around 60+ on the Rockwell C scale, so the edges don't bend or roll over. They also use a 15 degree angle edge grind instead of the more common 20 degree grind. That makes them slice much more easily through foods. Unless you live in an area that has Japanese supermarkets, you will probably have to order them online.

You might want to get one and try it out.

a reply to: IAMTAT

a reply to: DAVID64

I'll second Kutara, you really can't go wrong there. They were recommended to me by a colleague who is married to a chef, that's all she uses and swears by them.

a reply to: 1947boomer

Thank you...That was fascinating.
I will definitely look into Henckels CERMAX...although we're leaning towards Wusthof.
Do you know where Damascus steel comes in on the Rockwell C scale?

Cutco knives....look them up, phenomenal, i have a set of steak knives, 20 years old, still as sharp as the day i bought them.
a reply to: IAMTAT