Henckles knives - help please

i'm not particularly set in stone on henckels.. however i really don't want to spend more than $300...

what kind of deal can I get at Knives Plus?
if i order at cutleryandmore.com i get a free carving fork :D also free 8 steak knives and no tax/free shipping.

I wouldn't mind ordering wustof, but not sure how much I can get for $300 or less..
 
I have an expensive set of Wusthof kitchen knives I've had for about 15 years or so. They work great, and hold a decent edge.

However, I find that I do 90% of my cutting with a cheapie Spyderco Santoko that I got at a gun show about 10 years ago. And I do most of the cooking.

I don't think you need to lay out the big bucks here. I'd recommend you think about the type of cooking you do, and get 2-3 knives that work for you, instead of wasting money on a whole pre-packaged set, half of which won't ever get used.
 
Yes I have thought of that too..

i wouldn't mind buying open stock to get a few nice ones that I would use more often.. but for nice knives.. even open stock the price adds up quickly.. just the price of a few knives can already be a couple hundred dollars and that is getting close to the price of a set.. also with the set you get some freebies... steak knives etc..

I want to get nice knives.. that is very important..
after that my next concern would be value.. what i get for my $$.. not as important as getting nice knives.. but if i get a little more steel by getting a set.. i may just do that.. (because I do think i would use the free carving fork and free 8pc steak knives as well as some of the others)

I would like at least:

8-10" Chefs knife
8-10" Bread knife
8-10" slicing/carving knife
6" boning knife
3.5" paring knife

maybe a utilty knife or something tossed in there to round it out..
does that sound like too much, too little?
 
Well, as I say, I use very few knives for cooking. I don't eat red meat or poultry, so my needs are limited. Sounds like you're on the right track for a minimalist set if you deal with critters with bones.

Here's what gets used in our kitchen:

1) 90% of all my cutting is with the Santoko - doing prep work on veggies, mostly. I also have a nice Chinese cleaver that I almost never use - the blade on the Santoko is tall enough to work for most things.

2) A decent bread knife

3) For slicing and carving, I have a nice Laguiole carving knife and fork. This gets used only a few times a year, for very formal occasions or dealing with Really Big Fish. It was a gift, and I wouldn't bother with it if I had to buy it myself, I'd buy a Japanese sushi-style knife.

4) A vegetable peeler - I almost never use a paring knife, as a good peeler is so much faster and easier. If you have a handful, your guests can make themselves useful. Spend the money you would have spent on some fancy knife set on an extra prep sink :-)

5) Oyster knives - here's where I went wild. I've got half a dozen good commercial-grade ones. I live next to an incredible oyster bed, so when I have company over, and have oysters, I issue everyone a knife, and we get to shuckin'.
 
I wouldn't let myself be swayed by the idea that kitchen knife X is forged...

I saw a display showing how Sabatiers are made (I think it was Sabatiers.) Forged means a piece of metal was heated up and put in a large power hammer/stamt. BAM BAM! A few seconds later, the steel is flat. Another machien stams out the balde shape. Then the other jobs are done. it sin't as though there are a bunch of guys around anvils at the Wustof/Trident shop banging away with hammers. Murray Carter probably makes his kitchen knives this way, but not the big factories.

As far as which knives to get? Well, my advice is to get the pieces you want. You won't use the "extra steel" you get. You'll love all the freebies for a month, and then wonder how much performance advantage you could have had getting the few pieces you need in a higher quality brand. Free steak knives? Nah... if they have to give you 8 knives so that you buy a set, then the quality isn't as high as others. As said before, write down your knife needs, and then from that list write down the knives that would cover your needs. Don't get fancy here... just make sure you cover your needs on the list. I bet 4 knives will cover those needs. Get 4 quality knives, and enjoy cooking for the rest of your life.
 
Crayola is right. Having a block of knives is pretty cool -- I have a full set of Four Stars -- but I really only use three or four of them regularly.

The common wisdom is to get an 8" to 10" chef's knife, a parer and a bread knife. And that's exactly right. Those three will cover 90% of your kitchen work. But I personally couldn't live without my Santuko. It has the length of the chef's knife with a nice wide, thin blade that is perfect for dicing veggies. And the flat of the blade can be used to crush garlic like a cleaver. Pretty versatile knife.

A line of knives that has not gotten much attention is Global. Some professional chefs have switched to these high-vanadium knives because they hold an edge really well, are pretty cheap and don't require the TLC of a high-carbon knife. If you're not into the cool factor of the Solingen knives, Global is worth taking a look at.

And as somebody said, don't get too hung up on "forged" vs. welded vs. sintered vs. made by Japanese sushi elves. You probably won't notice any performance difference. The Wusthof's are harder and hold an edge a little better than the Henckels. Doesn't make a damn bit of difference if you steel regularly. Personally, the handle of the knife and the balance are the determining factors for me. If it doesn't feel good you won't use it, even if the steel was hand forged from a blazing meteorite.

And if you don't mind funky-but-damn-functional, take a look at Spyderco's kitchen knives. They cut like nobody's business and are pretty comfortable in the hand. They just look like a science experiment gone awry :D.

Take care,
Chad
 
I'm still not sold on the "welded, therefore inferior" argument. Mainly this is because I know that it is possible (although not usually the case) for a weld to be stronger than the original material. I'd like to see some actual data.

Personally, I don't forsee ever doing anything to my chef's knife that would break it, particularly not down where those welds are (but see below).

My Henckel Pro-S held a beautiful edge with nothing more than occasional steeling for 4 years until my roommate, in a fit of extraordinary drunken stupidity, decided to use it as an icepick and broke off the tip, then proceeded to do me a "favor" and took the knife and had it severely reground and it has never held a decent edge since.

So, my opinion would probably be, pick the knife that feels best in your hand and don't let drunk people near your good knives.
 
So, my opinion would probably be, pick the knife that feels best in your hand and don't let drunk people near your good knives.
Click to expand...

This advice applies to more than kitchen knives!
 
I used to sell them, we had so many returns they rust and pit on the weld lines. I have seen a bunch break there as well.
that said I have a henckels parring that is just fine.

I would go with wusthof before henckels. you should give seattle cutlery a call they had some of the lowest pricing on wusthof around. 206-441-8988
 
I have a henckles chip carving knife, which is a different animal entirely from a kitchen knife, so take this with a grain of salt.

It might be part of the international line as it has a funny looking symbol stamped on the handle below the name, and they may not even make them anymore. But its nothing short of a piece of ****. It will not take a sharp edge at all. The heat treat is so poor in fact that you can put side pressure on the blade with your thumb enough to slightly bend it, and it doesn't spring back to center. The only thing thats stopped me from getting rid of it is that it makes a decent pick/scraper for some stuff.
 
I'm still not sold on the "welded, therefore inferior" argument. Mainly this is because I know that it is possible (although not usually the case) for a weld to be stronger than the original material.
Click to expand...

If you've taken a course in Statics and Dynamics and passed, then you have been sold. Welding introduces residual stresses and creates a point where there is an abrupt change in material. The common failure point is not the actual weld seam but in the base metal NEAR the joint.

But the main point of it all is that Henkels charges relatively high prices for knives that are very cheaply assembled to appear to be something they are not. That is what makes them a poor value, even if they don't fail in use. Frankly, calling them forged should be false advertising but for the technicality that they are welded forged pieces.

For the same price (Much less than $300) you have the choice of buying quantity or quality. That's a choice you have to make, not anyone else.

Good luck, and enjoy whatever you decide to buy.
 
Happy Camper: I thought it was clear that I was looking for an argument other than from authority, but if you want to play that game, I have a graduate degree in physics from Caltech and I say that things are not so open and shut. As I said, you can make welds that are stronger than the original material. There are adhesives which will hold beyond the limits on the materials they bond. There are knots that are stronger than the rope in which you tie them. Joining materials usually, but not always, creates a weak spot. Thus I would like real data.

Unfortunately, no one has come up with anything here which isn't a small numbers game. I could throw in my small statistics, but there's no point. Give me some objective data.
 
I bought some Spyderco knives for my mother and that is all she uses in the kitchen. She has tried Henckels and the other major brands. I also bought Spydercos for my sister and grandmother. My mother bought me the Spyderco kitchen knives for Christmas.

The Santoku is a must have knife. It is great for vegetables. The whole line is great. They are not very pricey. Give them a try and you will not go back to another brand.
 
Lots of bad information here. Let's see if we can fix it up.

1. Henckels Pro S is a full tang knife with riveted scales. 4 Star and the newer 5 Star are stick tang knives with ergonomic handles. The blades are the same.

2. The lines mentioned above are made in Solingen, Germany and are so marked. Henckels International lines are not made by Henckels but rather made for Henckels in other countries. None of them are made in Germany and none of them are marked made in Germany. No Henckels knife is made in China and marked made in Germany.

3. Strictly speaking Henckels knives made in Germany are not forged, they are sintered. Not a big deal. Some of the International lines that are made in other countries, however, are forged and are so indicated in the literature. As an example, the International knives made in Taiwan as well as those made in mainland China are forged for the most part. The ones made in Germany aren't (strictly speaking.)

4. To have an opinion that Henckels is inferior to other brands is just that, an opinion. We have conducted blind tests using proper scientific methods to compare the top names in the industry (at least the top names as defined by chefs.) As it turns out, people can't tell one brand from another in a controlled test. They are all the same in terms of performance (cutting, steeling and sharpening.) People have preferences and those showed up in the test. Blind, however, the testers (which included a chef) couldn't tell which knife was their favorite. Henckels is not inferior to any other bolstered stainless bladed knife of it's type and price category. It is, in fact, the same. Those are the facts, not the opinions. Sure there are knives that are inferior to Henckels and there are different kinds of knives that people might prefer to bolstered European forged (or sintered) knives. A Japanese forge welded knife is one example. But, in its category, there aren't any better knives. I have a preference also and it is Sabatier but I like it because of fit and finish. I don't kid myself into thinking it's better than Henckels because it isn't. It's the same in terms of performance. So is Wusthof and so is Global.

Hope this helps. Take care.
 
My wife and I started with a small block set of the Henckels 4 Stars four years ago, and have made a few single knife purchases to try and complete are set. I love to cook(I am not Emerilyet:( ), but the knives hold an edge very well and have worked great. No complaints at all. These are great kitchen knives. They will last for quite some time.


Dan Huff
 
KScaldeferri, didn't mean to step on anyone's toes too hard, but I thought it was open and shut so that's how I proceeded. I understand it's good to question everything and not fall into scientific dogmatism, so I respect that. Do note, however, that although the weld is stronger, the failure often occurs in the base material itself, not the weld or seam. Any time there is a spot where a material unergoes a dramatic change, such as density or curvature, a critical stress point is created. It can be overcome, and it can be engineered for, but inruduction of a stress point at key junctures is less than an ideal solution, and one that is born of cost savings persuit. That was the point I tried to make. -Even if you yourself didn't want to hear it from another text book chucker! :)

Knife Outlet, you bring some good points to the table. I think the pros and cons in the "Henkle debate." It's all a matter of perspective, and which issues take priority to the individual.
 
Can someone take an objective view and list the pros/cons in the same post?

The only thing i have heard bad about them is that they are three seperate pieces.. and may break..

of course price is an issue.. but they are less expensive than wustof knives..
 
Go with the Wusthof Trident stuff. All high quality stuff. You may want to send an e-mail over to [uel]www.cutlery.com[/url] This company has gone from beign very small to VERY LARGE in only 5 or 6 years. I am not sure how long htey have been around but I ordered from them 5 years ago, and their catalog is HUGE now. they have a great selection of ALL top end kitchen cutlery and even pots/pans. Good prices and they run specials all the time. I got a couple really nice $40 (their reg price) steels a few years ago for only $15 each. Drop them an e-mail.


JC
 
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