no love for the kitchen knife?

bearcut said:
The size and design may be the most important consideration when buying a kitchen knife. The most common mistake I see is people buying a knife that is too big for them, 8 inches is about max for most people. The other bad trend I see is the marketing of chisel grind designs, so beware, ...
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I agree with generic statements about the importance of the kitchen knives, etc.
Although, occasionally you do make dramatically radical statements those are hard to comprehend sometimes.
Length of the chef's knife is highly personal, and as people pick up more skills 8" is nothing close to the max.
As for your warning about chisel bevels. The same Japanese, were using them in the kitchen and outside of it for centuries. And they do have their place and their advantages for certain tasks. Just have to know when to use them and how. And a lot of people swear by chisel grind chef's knives. A lot of experienced Japanese chefs use chisel grind Yanagibas practically for everything.

bearcut said:
The Euro brands get bashed a lot on this forum because they use softer steel.
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Rightly so, and not only on this, but any other knife centric forum too. Why on earth you'd make 54HRC vegetable knife.
I know you like bolsters, but many view them negatively...

bearcut said:
They usually handle well though, and don't chip.
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No, instead, they roll, bend and tend to loose whole chunks of metal form the edge after a while ;) And they hold the edge a lot worse.

bearcut said:
However, the Euros still offer the biggest selection of design specific knives.
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To the contrary, Japanese offer largest selection of the kitchen knives, I have well over 100 different types and styles in the Japanese Kitchen Knives Types And Styles Database.
Bunch of them have no counterpart in Euro kitchen knives.
 
Gator97 said:
Rightly so, and not only on this, but any other knife centric forum too. Why on earth you'd make 54HRC vegetable knife.
I know you like bolsters, but many view them negatively...
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Dear god. That's soft.
 
gator calls it pretty much spot on

My entire career has been in the kitchen I have used all sorts of kitchen knives. There is a reason the only non japanese knives in my knife roll for work are forschner paring knives....they are just plain inferior atm.

ignoring traditional stuff and niche makers

just set a ux10 (an avg run of the mill knife now) next to any german knife the only knife that will go toe to toe for edge retention is the new henckels which has a renamed zdp 189 edge and is manufactured in japan in a factory henckels bought. Not much else on the market is competing right now performance wise other than customs.

The euro makers need to get with the program and upgrade their steel. Hell they are getting thrashed by kershaw shuns atm in sales. They need to make some drastic changes to make a resurgence in the market place. The bulk of the euro knives like wusthof that get sold are in block sets as gifts. People gift that crap and buy shuns for themselves it's apparent as the germans lose shelf space in the major retailers to shun, mac and global. The wusthof reps are trying to tackle it at least by gathering information from vendors and knife users.

for the record the alloys being toted by the big euro companies is a 440a equivilant steel if I am not mistaken and the avg hardness is from 54 to like 56. Aka they are selling inferior junk on aging reputations.
 
www.korin.com

they have a sextion that describes the different japanese knives and what the uses are...the different steels and everything. And as far as production japanese knives go you can't beat the selection or the prices. pretty much any other US supplier gets thier knives from Korin to resell.

That said, I just bought an 8 inch chefs knife and a bread knife from AG Russell and am very happy with them. I work in a kitchen so I out them through more than your dad will (hours everyday of prep)

$ for $ I don't think much out there will match it.

AGKDM-10.jpg
 
Excellent thread!

And yes, this forum is sadly lacking a kitchen knife section/folder. Any idea why the powers don't create one???
 
Patience, grasshopper. :)

We had a long discussion about that in Service & Support. A new forum is not something Spark likes to do without some thought. We are now coming up on 1) installing a new version of the software, 2) pruning many old posts, and 3) rearranging and making changes to the subforum structure.

We may see a kitchen forum soon. :D
 
The Shun series is great, and like others have mentioned, the makers here will whip you up a nice custom. I have a Koster Santoku, and its a great knife.
 
i have a set o henkels that ive been using for 20+ years, just last year i picked up a bark river chef and chefs utility and they are da bomb. theyre much easier to touch up on a strop with much greater results than any edge i can aquire on the henkel. i want to add a santoku and carver soon.
 
Gator97 said:
I agree with generic statements about the importance of the kitchen knives, etc.
Although, occasionally you do make dramatically radical statements those are hard to comprehend sometimes.
Length of the chef's knife is highly personal, and as people pick up more skills 8" is nothing close to the max.
As for your warning about chisel bevels. The same Japanese, were using them in the kitchen and outside of it for centuries. And they do have their place and their advantages for certain tasks. Just have to know when to use them and how. And a lot of people swear by chisel grind chef's knives. A lot of experienced Japanese chefs use chisel grind Yanagibas practically for everything.


Rightly so, and not only on this, but any other knife centric forum too. Why on earth you'd make 54HRC vegetable knife.
I know you like bolsters, but many view them negatively...


No, instead, they roll, bend and tend to loose whole chunks of metal form the edge after a while ;) And they hold the edge a lot worse.


To the contrary, Japanese offer largest selection of the kitchen knives, I have well over 100 different types and styles in the Japanese Kitchen Knives Types And Styles Database.
Bunch of them have no counterpart in Euro kitchen knives.
Click to expand...

Go get 'em Gator. That's the spirit.
 
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