Henkels, Wustolph, etc... What's the best kitches knife?

A

AnthonyD.Hamilton

Joined
Aug 17, 2000
Messages
28
Hello again,

I could hardly beleive my ears today, but my wife asked me to research Henkels kitchen cutlery for her. She actually suggested that I spend time on bladeforums asking which kitchen knives are the best! She thinks it's unfair that I spent $200 on my daily carry a couple of months ago while she is using a set of six knives that only cost 50 bucks. Can you believe that! So, even though I've been spending hours at a time on this forum, I'm forcing myself
smile.gif
to again log in and ask a question.

What is the best production kitchen knife set? I need at least these:

paring
utility
8" chef
bread
carving

I really like the looks of Henkels but they don't tell a damn thing about the steel they're using. Are Henkels good or do they just look like good knives?

Wustolph seems very similar but the price is a little higher, why?

Is there anything better out there? If so, please point me in the right direction.

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"Paranoia is simply a state of heightened awareness"

"Chance favors the prepared mind."
 
I can't comment on Wustolph cutlery since I have no experience with them, but, as for Henkels I can say that they are exceptional performers. They hold an edge good and are easy to sharpen.

Here is a little tip from a local cutler:
If you go in that direction, spend the money on at least the four star line. Look for the "DoubleMan" symbol on the box and block. These are made in Germany and are better quality. The "SingleMan" symbol is made in Japan. They are suppose to use a lesser quality steel.

As for which steel they use, I couldn't say. They only advertise that it is a high carbon/no stain steel that are ice hardened. They do, however, use a laser to control the edge geometry.

Hopefully someone else here can help you out better. I wouldn't mind learning a few things about them myself.

--The Raptor--

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Don't be worried about the one that you can see,be worried about the one that you cannot!!
 
I have favorites in all of the categories except carving.

paring - Henkels four star and/or Kyocera ceramic (get both you never have enough paring knives)

Chiefs - Wusthoff Trident

Utility - Hattori 150

Bread - Victorinox or Spyderco if you can find it.

--Ben
 
I have a 10" Sabatier chefs, not stainless. It gets, and stays , sharp sharp sharp.

For bread...anything with large scalloped serrations.

I use a Global utility knife that I think is great. It's sort of a mini-chef, but it flexes. Global is from Japan, great stuff, all stainless, light and good ergonomics. Don't know what the steel is, but it's good.

I do own a paring knife...but I only use it for deadheading flowers on my deck.
smile.gif



Steve-O
 
You might want to check out Gerber kitchen knives, I have them and I have some Henkels, I much prefer the Gerbers.

Jake
 
A question just for me. This just happens to be my field.

Forschner _ good quality stamped knives, very sharp and very affordable.

Messermeister - Their forged knives are exeptional, good weight, nice lines. Messermeister also makes a nice stamped line.

Wustof - comparable to messermeister in every way.

I personaly do not like henckels as they are not a truely forged knife and are just as expensive if not more.

Wolf
 
I have tried several different brands of kitchen knives (alphabetical order):

Cutco - 440A steel. Too expensive for what you get.

Gerber - 440A steel. I tried the wood handles and Balance Plus. They are OK.

Global - AUS8 Steel. I liked it.

Henkels 4 Star - 420 steel(I heard). The steel in the old knives seems much better than the new knives. The new knives are very soft.

Pack River Knives - ATS-34 Steel. I bought a santoku from Steve Mullin three years ago. It is the best kitchen knife in our house. Check out Steve's knives. They are an incredible value. http://www.mullin-custom-knives.com/

Spyderco - MBS-26 Steel. The handles are rubber and my wife used to hate them. Now I can't pry the Santoku out of her hands. The mini paring knife and Santoku are my favorites.

Victorinox - ??? Steel. Soft steel but very inexpensive.

Last year I tested some of my "using" custom knives against our factory knives. Our hands down favorite before the test was the Spyderco paring knife. The Spyderco is made from MBS-26 steel, the blade is kind of a plainedge wharncliff shape but it slightly curves down, the blade size is about 2.5" x .5" x 0.0625. This knife works better than anything we have
tried from Gerber, Cutco, Henkle or Victorinox. We buy these knives a dozen at a time because every time a friend comes to the house for dinner and uses the knife, they ask where to buy it and we give them one.

Tomato skins take the edge off knives surprisingly quick. With the Spyderco I usually dice about 24 cups of tomatoes before the edge starts to drag. I then touch up the edge on crock sticks.

The knife that did the best is a Phil Wilson 420V skinner. The blade is almost three times thicker than the Spyderco so it did not slice as effortlessly as the Spyderco but after 48 cups of diced tomatoes the knife was still not dragging. I then prepared two boxes of peppers for the food processor and the knife was still sharp. Even my wife was impressed. I'm having a custom paring knife made by Phil Wilson with 420V for the steel and ironwood for the handle. I gave him the mini paring knife to use as a pattern.

Fallkniven - VG10 Steel. I have not seen or used the Fallkniven K1 or K2 but I'm planning to buy the K2. I have a Spyderco Calypso with VG10 and I'm very impressed with the steel.

Bottom line:
Factories have trouble competing with the best steels with proper heat treat of custom knives. If I'm going to buy a factory kitchen knife I buy Spyderco.

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Chuck Bybee
titanium.man@gte.net
http://www.titanium-man.com

[This message has been edited by Chuck Bybee (edited 09-18-2000).]
 
I love to cook (and eat
wink.gif
) many of my family are great cooks, and we have several close friends that are sushi chefs locally as well as internationally. I asked around.
For off the shelf brands, almost all favored Wustoff Trident with 3 going with Henckels. The pro sushi chefs all have custom sushi knives with between 7-12" blades and a cost of between $1100-3400CDN each.
Hopefully your wife doesn't want one of those.
wink.gif

Hope that helps.
 
There are several excellent brands of what I refer to as bolstered, forged kitchen knives. I'm not going to make value judgements about whether or not you should buy bolstered, forged kitchen knives but I'll tell you that the top brands all perform about the same. Henckels, Wustoff and Sabatier are the big three in this arena and comparable in terms of performance and price so you'd do fine with either. Some of these brands are available in other forms than bolstered, forged and, of course, there are all kinds of other brands that perform admirably that are not bolstered and forged. I don't know if this helped but at least it kept my personal biases and preferences out of it. Take care.

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Fred
Knife Outlet
http://www.knifeoutlet.com
 
Originally posted by Chuck Bybee:
Fallkniven - VG10 Steel. I have not seen or used the Fallkniven K1 or K2 but I'm planning to buy the K2.
Click to expand...
They haven't reached shops here in Sweden yet. Me, I'm first getting a K1, as early as possible.



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Urban Fredriksson
www.canit.se/%7Egriffon/
Latest updates:
Schrade Lake & Walker
Calypso Jr Lightweight
A handmade Russian hunting knife

"I've always been 1fascinated by Scandinavian knives [...] they're simple, in an advanced way".
- Bob Loveless
 
For off-the-shelf knives I recommend Spyderco & Forschner kitchen knives. They just plain cut better than the much more expensive German brands. Plus, it's easier to maintain a razor sharp edge on them.

AJ
 
I do most of the cooking at home(when the Army doesn't have me assigned to some foreign country)and like most folks on this forum, I love high-end, ergonomic, tough, exotic-steel knives. However, sometimes you gotta know when you don't need to spend $200 on a blade when a $5 blade will work just as well.

Though I don't have a recommendation for each of the knives you are looking for, I'll tell you what I use and it may give you some ideas.

- Spyderco Santoku (6" blade): The one I use 90% of the time. Broad blade cuts, chops, and slices easily, then I use the blade to scrape the cut-up stuff into the pot. Cleans, fillets, and slices fish far better than any fillet knife I've ever used.

- Cold Steel K7 (7" serrated blade): Good for cutting through tough stuff and meats. I "lost" this one for a while and when I found it, half the teeth were corroded too far to salvage. I simply sharpened it on a normal stone pretending it didn't have teeth. Now the edge is irregular but it still cuts through meat, tendons, and bone just like it was brand new.

- $5.50 chef knife from Wal-Mart(thin 8" blade): Good for splitting big watermelons or cabbages. That's about the only time I have to use it.

- $1.99 Forschner paring knives (1 serrated, 1 plain edge, both 3"): Good for detailed work (slicing olives, deboning, jack-o-lanterns, post-hunt venison surgery).

- $2.50 "carving" knife from Wal-Mart (7" blade, serrated fine needle-like teeth): Though sold as a meat carving knife, upswept tip and fine serrations do better on crusty or soft breads than those "bread" knives with the scalloped edges. Can cut thinner slices and with less effort than traditional "bread" knives due to thin blade and fine teeth. You can't sharpen these but because of the needle-like teeth, you won't have to for many years. Then you can just buy another one for $2.50.




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Danny
aka "kuma575"
 
I have a set of Wustolph trident kitchen knives I recieved as a wedding present. they are fantastic. Henkels used to put out forged blades but were bought out some years ago and the newer owner went to some sort of lamination process as i understand it. Anyhow, Wustolph makes great knives, nice feel, with wood or synthetic handled series, depending on what you like. They are expensive but then...most good kitchen cutlery is. Whatever you get, make sure they are forged blades. good luck.

Scott

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Indeed, if thou hurteth in thy efforts and thou
suffer painful dings, then thou art Doing It Right
RW
 
The wife wanted Sebatier, so it went on the wedding list. Eight years on they have not done well. Not dishwasher safe, but they went in anyway - modern living. Stored in a pile in the draw, not the way to do it I know, I'm forever having to sharpen them. One has a large dink on the edge.

Think I will go the Professional Victorinox way next. The big names keep changing the specks, and even differ from one country to another.

My best knives have been old, now black, high carbon blades. What cutting ability! But they look odd in white modern kitchens.
 
I'm not a professional cook but I do spend alot of time in the kitchen preparing dinners at home and Church (120 in the past week) using my old (over 20yrs) Henckels chefs and new Forschner boning and paring knives. If I had the $$$ and were buying today I would get the following:
8" Chefs- Messermeister E3686-8
carving- Granton M24650
paring- ?? Henckel, Wusthoff ect.
which ever fits my hand best
utility- see paring
I know how Messermeister fits my hand compared to other German and Japanese Chef knives and that is the most important factor to me in the high use knives (Chefs, Boning, and paring for me). For a carving knife the Cranton edge is considered the best by many profesionals and the genuine Granton the best of the bunch. For a bread I don't know.
If I wanted to impress everyone and have the "best" matched set I would get Eberhaard Schaaf. Good Luck Jerry
 
We've had a set of 4 star Henckels for almost 15 years now, and while they've served us well I still like trying out other knives. Whatever knives you get be sure to get an F. Dick steel as it was a big improvement over the coarse Henckels steel that came with our set. I like a polished one that I picked up at a restaurant supply company for about $20. We also have a few of the Victorinox paring knives that can be had for $4 to $6, and while my wife prefers them over the Henckels paring knives they're kind of soft. The sharpest kicthen knife that I have is a Herder Windmill paring knife, a thin, full tang, carbon steel sheepfoot pattern, that trims fat much better than the Henckels, maybe because it also shaves hair smoothly and is thinner. I also have a $6 Russell carbon steel paring knife that takes a nice edge, and a Thiers Issard carbon steel Nogent that is like a razor as it has what appears to be a bit harder steel than others, but is a more fragile design with the rat tail tang and ebony handle. I'm also eyeing a Japanese blue steel dojo. a laminated knife.
 
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