Alton Brown

C

cpmsteel

Joined
Dec 6, 2011
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Alton Brown is a confessed "blade head" he is the Guy who got shun blades for the kitchen going. Now that I have blown my 500 a month budget for eight consecutive months, I might as well make it nine by buying myself a nice set of shuns. To go with my new house i move into tomorrow! BTW I only use three knives in the kitchen. A large usually 8" chefs knife, a smalller santuko (messed up that spelling) and a smaller chef's type knife. I am looking for either a santuko or chef's knife, I will spend 1k but no more. What are your suggestions?
 
Shun is very good for kitchen knives. There's also Wustoff, Global, etc. There's actually a kitchen knife subforum here you could search through, and if you don't find anything ask there.
 
cpmsteel said:
Alton Brown is a confessed "blade head" he is the Guy who got shun blades for the kitchen going. Now that I have blown my 500 a month budget for eight consecutive months, I might as well make it nine by buying myself a nice set of shuns. To go with my new house i move into tomorrow! BTW I only use three knives in the kitchen. A large usually 8" chefs knife, a smalller santuko (messed up that spelling) and a smaller chef's type knife. I am looking for either a santuko or chef's knife, I will spend 1k but no more. What are your suggestions?
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i'm a little confused:

are you looking to spend 1K on a santoku or chef's knife?

are you dead set on shun knives or are you open for suggestions?
 
1K for a chef's knife I would get a custom carbon steel 240mm from Randy at HHH Custom Knives.....
 
I would suggest a large chefs knife, a nakiri, and a parer. That's it! For 1k, there are a ton of options and you can get a great knife. HHH is awesome, Dave Martell, Butch Harner, etc.
 
deal spot removed

If you wanna spend 1k go for it but for 300$ you could be done.
 
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With a budget of $500 to $1000 for a set of kitchen knives I'd go screaming right past the Shun's and get something else.

Have a look around websites like [deal spot removed] or [deal spot removed] or [deal spot removed] ]

Knives like Tadatsuna, Suisin Inox Honyaki, Devin Thomas Mid-Tech series, Stephan Fowler, Hiromoto, so on and so forth would be a lot better choices IMHO.

Shun's are not bad by any means, but they would not be my first choice with a budget like that.
 
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I understand RONCO makes a fine set of kitchen knives. Some will even cut bricks!

But seriously,for production knives I think Shun outshines the others and I got my Ken Onion/Shun collaboration after seeing Alton talk em up. Best chef knife I

yet used.
 
watercrawl said:
With a budget of $500 to $1000 for a set of kitchen knives I'd go screaming right past the Shun's and get something else.

Have a look around websites like ... *snip*
Knives like Tadatsuna, Suisin Inox Honyaki, Devin Thomas Mid-Tech series, Stephan Fowler, Hiromoto, so on and so forth would be a lot better choices IMHO.

Shun's are not bad by any means, but they would not be my first choice with a budget like that.
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+1 Thats a pretty nice budget. Id figure out exactly what kind of knives you want and whats more important of those and go from there.
 
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Having owned and used three Shun knives I can say they are good, but over priced. There are so many others that are as good, or better, for the same or less money.

Go to the sites Adam recommended. Take the time to call and speak with Jon at Japanese Knife Imports and he'll guide you in the right direction, even if it means sending you to another retailer.
 
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You should also look at Murray Carter kitchen knives. He uses the Hitachi White #1 and Super Blue steels that are great for kitchen use.
 
tomsch said:
You should also look at Murray Carter kitchen knives. He uses the Hitachi White #1 and Super Blue steels that are great for kitchen use.
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Alton Brown is a fan (and avid user) of Murray's knives, as well. He even mentions them in his book, but over the last few years he's been in contract (until recently!) with Shun and hasn't been able to openly talk about his appreciation of Murray Carter's fine hand-forged kitchen knives.
 
I love the Shun sandwich knife. It's the only Shun I own, but it really shines in cutting overripe fruit and tomatoes and stuff like that. It spreads mustard and mayo and stuff like that, but I can do that with a butter knife. I think it's main strength is in cutting the delicate skins of fruits and vegetables that would otherwise tear.

Other than that, I do most of my kitchen work with knives that cost me $20 or less. I have a "Japanese" Kendo brand knife that said Forged on the bubble plastic that's worked very well for me for years now. Even my lousy Spyderco Sharpmaker has kept it sharp enough to slice dangling newspaper for years.

I just bought a $9.99 Oneida 4" boning knife that I'm going to use on a couple of chickens this week, we'll see how it does. Update: Just tried it on my cable TV bill and it sucks, so it looks like I'm going to be working on it for a while to get an edge on it.

If you go to the Tinkering forum, they're all going crazy over a belt sharpener that does a nice convex edge. The whole shebang should be less than $120 and then ALL your knives can be as sharp as you like for the cost of your labor. I'm looking forward to that much more than any given kitchen knife. I bet it even puts an edge on my Oneida junk.
 
Oh snap, I just broke out my Sharpmaker with the diamond sticks and sharpened up both the Oneida paring knife and the boning knife. I think it took me about five minutes, and both shredded that cable bill almost as bad as my credit.

I keep that pseudo-Japanese knife nice and sharp, and it does the job for me.

The Chicago Cutlery steak knives though, those are just a travesty. What is wrong with those things. It seems like no amount of work will get them sharp enough to cut a pork chop.

Now I don't have a bone to pick with people who spend more on their knives than their maintenance equipment, but how do you expect a quality knife to keep that edge forever without regular sharpening? I remember visiting a friend of mine who had some nice forged knives from Surfa's, but he never sharpened them. Ten minutes with a Sharpmaker had them stroking through two feet of newspaper. Nice stuff, much better than my pedestrian knives.

Before that, he could barely hack through a mini-sized box of Rice Krispies for his daughter.

It ain't a knife if it ain't sharp.
 
Peak,
C.C. steak knives are easy to put a razor edge on. DMT diamond stones.
HOWEVER, they won't keep an edge worth a damn, but freshly sharpened
they'll cut a steak like a laser. You betcha, fer shure!
Bill
 
The Shun Chef's Knives are great, but if you want the absolute best hand-made in the USA chef's knife......look no further than Bob Kramer. You may have to save up for a few months, but well worth it IMO. One of my best friends' is an executive chef at a high end restaurant in D.C.. He has a few of Bob's knives, and I have "borrowed" (wanted to keep), his Damascus 10in Euro on a couple of occasions. It was an absolute joy to use.
 
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