Hello bladeforums community,
first time poster on this forum and English is not my mother language (that's German), so please bear with me if I accidentally overlooked some forum guidelines or end up with some strange and long-winded sentences.
I'm a student in Germany and I only cook for myself, my family (live at my parents home until I finish university, which will hopefully happen in Q1 2015) and any friends visiting us. And since I have finished most of my courses and recently started on the groundwork for my thesis, nowadays most of the evening meals prep work and cooking is solely or majorly done by me. Which I'm really fine with, because I do love to cook. Right now I'm in the process of building my small own knife and sharpening tool collection.
Whats my budget and what Im looking for?
Im looking for a slicer/sujihiki. I can do pretty much all my prep work with the knives I have, except for processing fish. My 210 gyuto just isnt flexible enough for tasks like filleting a smaller fish (like a atlantic perch or a gilt-head bream) and its a bit too short for cutting of the skin from a whole salmon side.
I would prefer something from the 80-110 $ bracket (shipping costs not included). If I really gain a lot by going a bit beyond that I would do so, but please keep in mind that this will most likely be the least used knife in my arsenal. We do work with fish often enough to justify buying a dedicated fish knife in my opinion, but not often enough to spend a ton of money on it.
In terms of length I thought about a 270 and the blade should have enough flex for filleting. That should give me enough blade for the salmon sides and I do have the cutting boards to support that size.
Steel-wise I think I would like to stick with carbon. Im not going to use it on very acid stuff like pineapples or onions, it will come out of the drawer for fish and thats it basically. For me ease of sharpening is the most important factors. Given how infrequently I most likely will use it, I guess superb long time edge retention shouldnt be that much of important factor At long as it doesnt get noticeably dull after a single side of salmon, I'm fine...and those knives I have my eyes on wouldnt get all those good reviews all across the web, if they couldnt hold their edge decently enough for home cooking usage.
Given the lower shipping costs I would prefer ordering directly from Japan (<10$ compared to 30-40 what most US stores bill for shipping to Europe) took some time looking around the web a bit and what I came up with were those 3 line of knives, who all offer 270 carbon suhijikis for about 80-110$.
1. Fujiwara FKH-10 270mm sujihiki from japanesechefknives. Would cost me 90 bucks incl. shipping and comes with SK4 steel and according to the webpage hardened to 58-59 HRC
2. Minamoto-Kanemasa KC-713 suhijki from japan blades. ~110 incl. shipping costs, the steel is 2N and advertised as hardened to 59-60 HRC ( http://japan-blades.com/recommend/1824.html )
3. Honsho-Kanemasa E-16 Sujihiki, also from japan blades. ~116 incl. shipping, SK4 hardened to 60-62 HRC. http://japan-blades.com/chef-knives/370.html
What irks me a bit about the later two is the "marketing lingo" used on the page and the lack of data on edge ratio, weight, width and blade thickness. They advertise the steel -which from my knowledge is not on par with white, blue and super blue- as finest grade on the market, which doesn't really improve my trust into their products. Found a German store that sells some of the Minamoto Kanemasa, incl a 240 version of the sujihiki and that is roughly on par in terms of weight with the Fujiwara, but also doesn't offer any information about edge and spin thickness.
Is there anyone who can give me some hard performance data on those knife brands?
Cheers from Germany
first time poster on this forum and English is not my mother language (that's German), so please bear with me if I accidentally overlooked some forum guidelines or end up with some strange and long-winded sentences.
I'm a student in Germany and I only cook for myself, my family (live at my parents home until I finish university, which will hopefully happen in Q1 2015) and any friends visiting us. And since I have finished most of my courses and recently started on the groundwork for my thesis, nowadays most of the evening meals prep work and cooking is solely or majorly done by me. Which I'm really fine with, because I do love to cook. Right now I'm in the process of building my small own knife and sharpening tool collection.
Whats my budget and what Im looking for?
Im looking for a slicer/sujihiki. I can do pretty much all my prep work with the knives I have, except for processing fish. My 210 gyuto just isnt flexible enough for tasks like filleting a smaller fish (like a atlantic perch or a gilt-head bream) and its a bit too short for cutting of the skin from a whole salmon side.
I would prefer something from the 80-110 $ bracket (shipping costs not included). If I really gain a lot by going a bit beyond that I would do so, but please keep in mind that this will most likely be the least used knife in my arsenal. We do work with fish often enough to justify buying a dedicated fish knife in my opinion, but not often enough to spend a ton of money on it.
In terms of length I thought about a 270 and the blade should have enough flex for filleting. That should give me enough blade for the salmon sides and I do have the cutting boards to support that size.
Steel-wise I think I would like to stick with carbon. Im not going to use it on very acid stuff like pineapples or onions, it will come out of the drawer for fish and thats it basically. For me ease of sharpening is the most important factors. Given how infrequently I most likely will use it, I guess superb long time edge retention shouldnt be that much of important factor At long as it doesnt get noticeably dull after a single side of salmon, I'm fine...and those knives I have my eyes on wouldnt get all those good reviews all across the web, if they couldnt hold their edge decently enough for home cooking usage.
Given the lower shipping costs I would prefer ordering directly from Japan (<10$ compared to 30-40 what most US stores bill for shipping to Europe) took some time looking around the web a bit and what I came up with were those 3 line of knives, who all offer 270 carbon suhijikis for about 80-110$.
1. Fujiwara FKH-10 270mm sujihiki from japanesechefknives. Would cost me 90 bucks incl. shipping and comes with SK4 steel and according to the webpage hardened to 58-59 HRC
2. Minamoto-Kanemasa KC-713 suhijki from japan blades. ~110 incl. shipping costs, the steel is 2N and advertised as hardened to 59-60 HRC ( http://japan-blades.com/recommend/1824.html )
3. Honsho-Kanemasa E-16 Sujihiki, also from japan blades. ~116 incl. shipping, SK4 hardened to 60-62 HRC. http://japan-blades.com/chef-knives/370.html
What irks me a bit about the later two is the "marketing lingo" used on the page and the lack of data on edge ratio, weight, width and blade thickness. They advertise the steel -which from my knowledge is not on par with white, blue and super blue- as finest grade on the market, which doesn't really improve my trust into their products. Found a German store that sells some of the Minamoto Kanemasa, incl a 240 version of the sujihiki and that is roughly on par in terms of weight with the Fujiwara, but also doesn't offer any information about edge and spin thickness.
Is there anyone who can give me some hard performance data on those knife brands?
Cheers from Germany
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