Recommendation? Santoku / Sharpening Question nad Recommendation

[Epicurious]

Hello! New here and happy to find this lively forum.

I'm an amateur home chef. I don't have professional experience but i grew up in a house with a very active kitchen. My grandmother lived with us growing up. She grew up on an Irish potato farm and was one of 22 siblings. Food and cooking was an every day, day long activity. Clearly it rubbed off on me.

I know there are a lot of professional chefs on this board. I have no real professional experience, but I've been cooking for 20 years nearly every day of the week (albeit for for me and my wife, not 22 siblings...). So here I am.

Just thought you dear reader might appreciate a bit of introduction. Now onto my question!

For many years I worked with a standard chef knife until I discovered the 6" Wusthof Santoku. I don't generally cut through bone and I just found the size, weight and balance more appealing and oriented for more detail.

I worked my first santoku down to the grantons after a few years so I decided finally to replace it. I bought a new one just about a year ago. The tip is already chipped (I think it fell onto the pine kitchen floor. But I also can't get it to sharpen. I use one of those small grip countertop 2-stage sharpeners. I sharpen it pretty much every night.

Question #1: Is the problem is the blade or the sharpener (please don't say it's the chef!)?

Question #2: How long should a knife like this used daily last for (making dinner 6 nights a week)?

Question #3: Is it worth repairing?

Question #4: What is a good, practical sharpener for this kind of knife?

Question #5: I am interested in replacing it with a new 6" sontoku. But I'd like to try s different brand. I see Misen is getting a lot of exposure. Great aesthetic but I question the quality. I'm willing to spend money if it means a better quality knife. And I just don't know much about MAC.

Question #6: Are the grantons really that effective?

Thanks so much in advance! Looking forward to any replies.

 

[Eli Chaps]

First, welcome. Not sure there are too many pro-chefs on here but I know of a couple and lots of us foodies. There are other forums with a heavier chef presence and more oriented toward kitchen knives but for sharpening, we can take care of you.

Second, no the dimples in commercial blades will not help food release. They were designed for meat slicing blades and work there but are just a gimmick on regular blades. Glestain makes knives that actually do promote food release.

Thirdly, by "small grip countertop 2-stage sharpeners" do you mean a pull-through type? If so, go find it, take it firmly in hand and toss it swiftly into the garbage. Those things tear up knives and will never provide a lasting edge.

So not only are they terrible for sharpening but you're probably not hitting the proper angle as you don't have options.

For Wusthof, a Norton JUM-8 paired with a Fine India will give excellent edges and won't break the bank. You'll need to learn how to do it but it isn't terribly hard and there's lots of folks here who will help. This thread will likely be moved to the Maintenance, Tinkering and Embellishment sub-forum so go there and read through the stickies at the top of the page.

 

[KenHash]

Welcome to the forums. This should really have been posted in the Kitchen cutlery sub-forum section.
But responding to your questions:

1) It is likely the sharpener.

2) It should last at least just as long as your first one did. You didn't state how long that was.

3) Depending on the extent of the tip chip, yes most likely it is worth repairing. If the chip is so large that a repair would mean losing too much of the blade or changing the profile to an unacceptable level, then no. However most tip chips do not fall into this category. But without photos I can not give an absolute answer.**

4) I do all my kitchen knives, which include Wustoff and Henckels along with several Japanese brands on waterstones. I use several but one can get away with a rough and medium grit, often available on one stone. With stones you can remove chips in the cutting edge as well as repair most broken tips. It's not a huge investment with synthetic stones and because it's a manual process there is little chance of errors. At least any that can't be corrected. Brands for stones I would recommend Naniwa or King, but there are others.
I have used power sharpeners like Worksharp and Paper Wheels on a grinder in the past but have settled on stones.
Sorry to be direct, but those "pull-through" type sharpeners are basically junk in my opinion.

5) The German brands all use Krupp 4116 Stainless steel variants which are not hardened as much as Japanese brands. This is probably the biggest difference between them. Even Aus8 (Molybdenum Vanadium) Japanese knives from my personal experience are harder than 4116 ones. Knives using VG10 will show better edge retention than either. Powder Steels will give even more but the price will go up.
As to blade profile, while there is a distinct difference in Gyutos, with Santokus there is not as much of a difference. Recommending any knife is always difficult but first I would avoid brands which are not long established Kitchen knife makers.
Misen is a kickstarter brand marketing a knife contracted with a factory in Yangjiang China. Again, sorry to be direct, but those are garbage in my opinion. Knife makers from Solingen like Wustoff and Zwilling, as well as Japanese Brands like MAC, Tojiro, Shun from Seki, Sakai, and Echizen in Japan are real long established makers. There are of course many many others. MAC knives made in Seki Japan are used by many professional chefs and regarded highly.
MAC Corporation (mactheknife.co.jp)

6) I can not answer about grantons because neither I, nor anyone I know uses them. Professional chefs I know seem to ignore them.

Hope this helps somewhat.