Knife thread

They are also far sharper than metal knives

Lately I've been recommending this video for basic sharpening advice. It's quite solid advice.

youtube.com/watch?v=ozZF2EgnYm0

He has more full on sharpening videos, but I found this one first.

What knife you have isn't as important as maintenance. You can use any knife effectively if you know how to sharpen. Once again, this blacksmith has a video of shaving with a sharpened spoon. Of course, he also sells knives worth thousands of dollars.

This is something that I've noticed as well. I've noticed that different makers have more or less reactivity. I assume it has something to do with their heat treatments. Could be coating, but then again, my nakiri and my new takeda are both kuro-ochi finish and have very different reactivity levels.

Any suggestions for knife covers?

Saya, Magnetic edge guard, plastic, etc?

Sayas are good but can break easily if you try and carry em around. They are also expensive and can be difficult to find ones that fit.

Yoshihiro makes good and beautiful ones. They mostly fit knives with the same type of profile as the ones they sell though so if your blade has a lot of knuckle clearance they prob wont fit.

Magnetic edge guards will magnetize your blades so that is something to consider. Probably fine though

Victorinox bladesafe is the best for plastic covers. Knifeguards suck and will break a lot of the time.

11" Shun Premier and a 9" Messermeister Oliva. Damn lovely knives.

Retired the Messermeister to my girlfriend while I use the Shun at work. Slices through brisket, pig neck, belly, etc like a dream.

Eyeing a nakiri for fun, though. They're too pretty, and seem practical. And, you know, I just really want one.

Nakiri's are nice since they function similarly to chinese cleavers(i.e easy to scoop stuff up with the blade)

How was the Oliva? It looked nice but messers have been nothing short of shit in my experience.

It got me through the first year and a half of my apprenticeship really well. Taught me to respect my blade, how to maintain it (and how not to). But that's more of a personal evaluation.

It's a little harder to maintain than the Shun, but it's not too troublesome. Held a nice edge. A little too short for my needs. But a good all rounder.

My anus

post pics of some food you have cooked pls

after owning actual japanese knives i can say that shuns are kinda shit by comparison. but, it really depends on the sharpener.

I'm happy enough with it. Stands up to the work I put it through every night on the block. I'm sure there's better out there. But I stand by it happily.

it's true. i think that they hold edge better than a lot of other japanese knives i have. shuns are like wusthofs of the japanese world.

Thanks, I'll give him a look.

So I wanna get the girlfriend a nice kitchen set and I want it to be really nice quality. /k/ poster here so I am aware of steels. How much should I pay and what brand should I get?

>knives

fuck off with this shit, this is a cooking board, not a weapons board

Fuck off faggot. I came here FROM /k/ to talk about this. There is a distinct difference between kitchen COOKING knives and other kind of knives like outdoor fixed blades and pocket knives. So please pull out your eyes with a rusty spoon newfag.

>what do knives have to do with cooking?!?!?!?!?!1

Don't you have a tendies thread to be shitposting in, kiddo?

>in Japan.
You went to japan ?

As a rule of thumb, most professional chefs will say to never ever get a knife block set as they are usually inferior quality

Assuming you are going to be sharpening and maintaining them for your girlfriend, You could mix and match a small set of japanese knives off chefknivestogo that looks good. They got a variety of fancy steel types that you can make a judgement call on. Most professionals favor VG10 or White Steel #1 for cooking.

Alternatively, just grab some wusthofs or shuns. They work fine for home cooks and would be considered qualify by many.

Knives are very much cooking related and a lot of industry chefs enjoy discussing their tools of the trade...Shit part of Masaharu Morimotos fame comes from his blade skill alone if that tells you the importance of them in the kitchen

So fuck off pleb

Any recommendations for whetstones?

I don't have the money to go natural.

Any suggestions for a good brand and if I should go with a two sided stone?

i bought the cheapest stones on amazon, they do well enough. got a 400/1000 and a 3000/6000 stone

Just the thread I was looking for.

I want to invest some free time improving my cooking, since I know just basic stuff, and I'll need some knives for that, since I have just the usual dull home shit that I can't stand using.

What are some good starter kits that I can find in EU (or get them shipped)?

Also, from my /out/ activities, I really prefer carbon steel, is it considered apropiate for cooking?

Thanks.

Well carbon steel is great in an indoor cooking area... I wouldn't suggest using it out camping and whatnot, since even a little humidity will completely rust your blade. Outdoors, imo stainless is king

all these Knives are over priced garbage. nothing can cut as straight or smooth as my pocket knife!

Gr8 b8 m8

just a home cook here, so i'm mostly curious to hear other people's responses. I've got a set of calphalons that I'll use a sharpening steel on once a month (at least the santokus, chef, or utility). After 4 years I'm pretty sure this can go on until I die. They stay sharp and when they aren't it takes a few minutes to resolve.

Re OP's whetstone, I don't know but for my bailey plane (woodworking) i use a diamond sharpener and those things get it wicked sharp very quickly. I wouldn't use a whetstone on an expensive (longish) blade for fear of nicking it, though professionals will and do so on the regular.

I was referencing the one fat neckbeard who said in a thread a couple months back that his pocket knife was tempered Damascus or something like that and he knew it was cuz he knew metallurgy. and that his pocket knife was better than professional cooking knives for cooking and then got all butt hurt and started posting webms if him slicing through paper. sorry you missed that thread. you must be a summerfag

I remember that thread, you save any webbums?

Diamond stones are not good for kitchen knives. They tend to not be available in fine enough grits, and leave deep scratches as they are significantly harder than steel. For culinary uses, diamond stones are used to flatten whetstones.

Find a good 1000/2000 combi. Something like this
chefknivestogo.com/megrst70.html
Any 2 from here. The Aotoshi for a finishing stone, and traditional 1000 will serve you just fine for home use. If you're a professional, these will do fine while you save for more durable stone

Tojiro is a great starter high carbon brand(it's not steel without carbon). Zakuri, kanehide, khotetsu would be the next step. After that point it becomes more personal preference. My own in the 200+ category are. Goko, Gesshin, Aritusugu, Moritaka, Takeda, Masakage Yuki, Glestain.

Another option is a CCK cleaver. Great knives, will do everything you need doing in a kitchen.

I just got a Shigeharu... Haven't taken it out for a spin yet.

>he's a knife smith in Kyoto, actually the shop has been in his family since the Kamakura period (mid 1100's).

>still makes knives
>definitely cheaper than Aritsugu for the same or better quality ($120-$200)
>i ended up getting one of his knives which is a gyuto/santoku hybrid (basically shaped like a gyuto but with the length of a santoku, which he said in broken English was the best fit for my hand)
>location wise it's near the Nijo castle

Don't listen to anyone who tells you you don't need a coarse stone

If you don't have the skills to use a coarse stone you don't have the skills for a fine one either, and every new knife needs the primary bevel set. No exceptions

I know someone did because I saw at least one webm reposted once. but I sadly did not save any

source? genuinely curious

>and leave deep scratches as they are significantly harder than steel.

That is true of any sharpening stone. If it wasn't significantly harder than the steel then it would be useless for sharpening purposes.

I agree with the rest of your points but that one was just absurd.

>>Glestain
Mah nigga. They make some great knives. 2nding the CCK recommendation as well.

Are Shuns shit or not?
I'm reading conflicting opinions.

I'm a home cook, who will stay a home cook. I just want something sharp as shit, that will last forever if I take care of it. I'll get some proper stones too.

As a home cool will I ever really notice an appreciable difference between Japanese or German steel? Someone recommended Wusthof but they seem similarly priced (amazon), and they don't seem they'd be as comfy in the hand.

>that will last forever if I take care of it.

That's most knives, to be honest. I have a shitty santoku in my kitchen. I bought it about 15 years ago because I was on a picnic with friends and we needed a knife, so I bought the cheapest one I could figuring it would be one of those "use it once and throw it away" scenarios. I paid $5 at an Asian supermarket; I have no idea what the brand is (No, it's not Kiwi). Since then it's seen all sorts of abuse: opening boxes, unskilled kitchen use, used directly on stone/ceramic with no cutting board, it's been through the dishwasher at least a thousand times (no, not an exaggeration). Yet despite all that, it holds an edge very well and the handle is still tight.

>>difference between Japanese and German
Yes, you will notice this.

The Japanese knives are usually lighter and thinner. The steel is harder and sharpened to a steeper angle. This makes them sharper, but also less durable. If you get a really high end Japanese knife you need to be careful how you use it, as unskilled use can chip the blade. (Sort of like how you shouldn't give the keys to a Ferrari to a beginning driver).

The German knives will be heavier and require more frequent sharpening but are more tolerant of abuse.

I'd say it's not a matter of one being better than the other, but more like they are different. I started learning with a French style Chef's knife. The blade shape is a little different than German but the steel is similar. What's nice about those is that you can take the same chef's knife and use it for both fine work and also for chopping through smallish bones. I started learning about Japanese knives later. By comparison, they slice like a goddamn laser beam. On the other hand, take most Japanese knives and chop chicken bones with it and you're probably going to chip it. The Japanese method is to have different knives for different jobs, whereas the French or German style is more of a "jack of all trades".

That's fair. The only time I've used diamond plates for sharpening, has been for repairs(low grits). I've found the deep scratches way too time consuming to take out once they are made. I should have elaborated the deep scratches are in comparison to scratches left by a composite synthetic stone. I'm not aware of any fine(1000+) diamond plates.

>Glestain
One of my favourite brands in stainless. When I need a "german" style knife it's what I use. I know it's Japanese, but the weight, balance and style is much more western.

I feel the need to warn people buying a Glestain though. The bevel is 90/10. If you need to consistently make straight up and down cuts, this knife will take some getting used to. I recently worked with a sushi guy who found out the hard way. The knife pulled hard at the bottom of his rolls leading to some wonky looking cuts.

It's not that they're shit, it's that you can find better quality for the price. If the shun classic 8inch chef's knife was 100$ as opposed to 180-200+ it would be a more recommended knife. However, they are a business trying to make money, and since most chefs know nothing about cutlery, they can sell what is basically a drop-forged german knife for almost double the price because it looks japanese and is made in a city of factories that is associated with knives.

From a professional standpoint. The handles tend to loosen within 2-3 years, obviously results may vary. The factory edge is very shallow for the price, although the steel is capable of taking sharper edges. The height and geometry is not ideal for my own personal preference, although I understand some people enjoy it.

What do you guys think of king?

Also pic of the Shigeharu knife I got. It's a 7inch gyuto/santoku (shape is a bit weird).

Anyone recommend a saya or edge protector to get for it?

The Shun composite tang construction looks fucking shit to me. I haven't seen any other reports of pic happening, still shit.

They do have full tang knives too though.

Ouch. The handle to tang, isn't sealed correctly... That rust...

Shun/Messermeister user here. Just pulled the trigger on my nakiri.

Super excited. Just have to wait on that international shipping now.

That is sexy as fuck

Bamp

Very good value for money as far as stones go.

I use a Smith's triple stone and lanskeys honing oil for my Kramer. Works nice.

>Crazy expensive knife
>wal-mart tier stone

What an odd combination

People who buy Kramer don't really know what a good stone is

It's basically the trek of knives

Finally decided on my new knife. Kurosaki Shizuku - Nakiri.
Amazing blade. Should have committed long before now.

Stainless clad, powdered steel core, hammered finish, zebra wood handle.

If it's bad I just go.to sur la table honestly

So hard to choose a Nakiri. They all seem so amazing. I spent a solid couple of weeks before I pulled the trigger on the Nishida above.

Yours looks beautiful.

>Stainless clad, powdered steel core, hammered finish, zebra wood handle.

dudes on Veeky Forums talking about knives sound like Patrick Bateman and co. talking abut business cards.

That's the joke, Ellis was making fun of materialistic obsession over trivial nonsense

Also stainless clad a shit

It appears you don't know much, then. Stainless cladding & a different core is very important information. The wood of the handle and the finish are certainly Bateman-tier.

The fact that you colluded them all together tells me you don't know much about knives, but feel compelled to post anyway.

There's nothing wrong with Shun, it's just that nothing is ever new and obscure enough for knife neckbeards, and Shun was considered "high end" in like 2001 when the only other option was Global.

Then everyone thought the "it" knife was masamoto, then it was nenox, then it was aritsugu, then your knife was completely shit unless it was shigefusa, then someone discovered watanabe, then doi, and a bunch of others in between. I have no idea what's even considered 'cool' anymore and it's not worth keeping up. Shun is fine.

> I'll get some proper stones too.

I seriously would not bother with freehanding unless you want to go full neckbeard. Just get a modern infinitely variable jig system with some decent abrasives. The edgepro and some shapton glassstone inserts, for example. Everyone pretends freehanding is something everyone needs to learn but the reality is unless you're doing it on a daily basis (and you won't be unless you're working in a restaurant kitchen or sharpening knives for a living), you won't get enough practice to be anything better than mediocre at it. Yes, "that guy" who's reading this. Even you, but I can hear your labored breathing as you type up your 4 paragraph reply.

and they like to leave out the "by Zwilling JA Henckels" part

>Yes, "that guy" who's reading this. Even you

got pretty much all of this for free from a family member that works at williams sonoma. Only paid for the $15 chinese veg knife and cheap stone. Don't use the three on the left at all.

I'd like a nice boning knife, suggestions? I guess I could use the fillet knife instead if I had to.

Sup Veeky Forums pros

I've got a question about knife sharpening. I've got two knives I use most of the time, a 20cm or so Victorinox fibrox as it's cheap and we'll reviewed, and a smaller more paring knife (all I know is that it says sabatier and has been abused for 3 years and is holding up pretty well). As I'm only a home cook without huge aspirations atm these should cover me, but how do I sharpen them? I know I need a steel for honing but what about stones? I've seen recommendations in this thread for high end stuff for pro chefs, but what about you average Joe like me? And would I have/be able to get the skill to sharpen well? Apologies for the spoonfeeding request, I know I can Google it as well but I wanted to see what you guys thought as well

See

I disagree. I think people greatly overestimate the difficulty of using stones. Even being "mediocre" at using a stone freehand is plenty good enough for the average cook. The jig systems are overly complicated and quite expensive. Why bother with the expense or the hassle when a few passes on a stone will do the job perfectly well?

ffs dont go to Sur La Table they don't know what the fuck they're doing over there

Former coworker of mine had a mercer I bummed that was dull as shit so I told her to go get it sharpened

She took it there and it somehow came back duller and she was out $5.

Just find a good local sharpener or learn to do it yourself

>the reality is unless you're doing it on a daily basis (and you won't be unless you're working in a restaurant kitchen or sharpening knives for a living)

Unless you're a sushi chef or just plain crazy you probably won't be doing that daily working in a restaurant even.

Since is a homecook he could also just pay his local sharpener $5 once a year and be done with it. And I mean an actual sharpening business. Not fucking Sur La Table or some shit where they just run it through a pull sharpener.

you are completely, completely wrong

as i posted earlier in the thread i have dmt stones and using them is not simple or easy. i am an intelligent person who is very exacting with everything i do.

it is not easy whatsoever, and for most people we are talking about SHARPENING DULL KNIVES not maintaining an edge on sharp knives

I have JA Henckels knives from germany from the 70s. those are good, right? the chefs knife is heavy as a goddamn motherfucker

Yeah they're fine knives, a real kramer knife is not made by henckels though and can go for $10,000+

>pay his local sharpener
I would not advise this, 99% of those guys are using a dry power grinder, fine if you're using Dexters but the point of a shun is edge retention, $5 will turn your $100 knife into a $15 knife

The places that do it right (water cooled power grinders or water stones) charge a lot more than $5, you're better off getting an edge pro and doing it yourself

It won't do as good a job, I guarantee anyone saying they just started freehanding and claiming to get good results is cutting on the burr

Internet slang for this condition is "mount stupid"

>i have dmt stones and using them is not simple or easy.

What do you find difficult about them?

I learned to sharpen knives using a literal stone--not a sharpening stone, but a fucking rock I picked up off the ground--back when I was a kid in boy scouts. We were too poor to afford to buy a fancypants sharpener so I had to make do. If I--and I don't consider myself particularly intelligent or gifted--can learn to sharpen a knife to "shaving sharp" using a literal rock, then surely anyone can--especially these days with all sorts of online tutorials.

What do you find that's difficult or "not easy" about using your DMT stones? Honest question.

>It won't do as good a job

Oh, I agree with that 100%. The edge pro will certainly work better than a noob freehanding. But is that degree of "better" actually needed?

Fuck, my grandmother used to sharpen her knives using the bottom of a ceramic mug. It was plenty sharp enough to cut with. I'm talking practicality here, not gearfag-tier dickwaving.

there is no way to know whether you're using the correct angle so there is no way to know whether you're doing it right or making the knife worse.

"just eyeball 20 degrees" isn't good enough for people with analytical minds. I need a tool. You can't just eyeball 20 degrees.

>If I--and I don't consider myself particularly intelligent or gifted--can learn to sharpen a knife to "shaving sharp" using a literal rock
Not the DMT guy, but "shaving sharp" is a very poor measure of sharpening proficiency because it tells you nothing about the quality of the edge. It's easy to raise a huge ass burr on an otherwise shitty edge and take off some arm hairs but the cutting performance will go to shit very quickly compared to a proper edge. Once you take the blade past this superficially sharp condition, it won't actually seem all that sharp (and it isn't). It takes some skill to progressively bring the edge up to real shaving sharpness, and unless you're Murray Carter you're not going to get there without a progression of different grit levels

Keep in mind the context of the discussion here. We're not pro sushi chefs. It doesn't matter if the angle is 18 degrees or 22 degrees. It will cut up the food for your meal just fine.

>>isn't good enough for analtyical minds.
I beg to differ. I am very much an "analtyically minded" person, and that makes me realize that 20 degrees isn't some magic number. Why 20 instead of 19? Because 20 is nice and round? Surely you would realize that it doesn't make any practical difference. If I gave you two identical knives--one with a 20 degree bevel and the other with 15, I doubt you would be able to tell the difference doing normal cooking tasks.

>>You can't just eyeball 20 degrees
And you don't need to either.

>But is that degree of "better" actually needed?
Maybe, maybe not. My grandma is a fine cook and her knives are like butter knives

But the convo started with talk of shun knives, what a huge waste of money if you're going to scrape them on a mug regularly to raise enough burr to slash through one onion at a time before you scrape the mug some more

What does Veeky Forums think of this knife? It's sold by those 18th century cooks on youtube. It's cheap (~$60), but the description says its "high-carbon steel", but doesn't give any specifics. I really like the way it looks and when he uses it in the videos it looks really sharp (and I know that says nothing to how long they maintain the knifes between videos)

That's beautiful

>It doesn't matter if the angle is 18 degrees or 22 degrees
It matters more than you think

If you're holding either angle with superhuman consistency then sure, I might agree

But the angle has to be consistent with EVERY. SINGLE. STROKE . otherwise you're rolling that 17 degree edge, where it exists, and doing nothing to the 20 degree edge, where that exists

I'm not talking about raising a burr, I'm talking about actually developing a good edge. It's easy to feel for a burr and thereby correct your method to avoid producing one.

>>different grit levels
Agreed. And if you pick up a literal rock and look at it closely you will see that some parts of it are rougher than others.

Honestly, I'm not suggesting that OP sharpen his knives with a literal rock, but the point is that it is not very difficult to do it with a little observation on your part. Personally, I use Japanese waterstones for my sharpening purposes. But even that was rather educational. I bought 400, 1k, and 5k stones. I had budgeted for the famous Chosera 10K, but I was so satisfied with the results from the 5k alone I didn't bother to buy it. I use my knives for work, I need them to be practically sharp but I don't sperg out over going to crazy high grits, stropping with chromium oxide, etc. I am not knocking that for people's hobbies, but it's absurd to suggest that a home cook needs hundreds of dollars worth of sharpening gear.

I'm not crazy about the hammered finish but dat handle and dat steel. R2 is the only powdered steel I've heard of. Is that what yours is made of?

>It matters more than you think

I disagree. I own a lot of cooking knives, and whenever I buy a new type I try out as many as I can (borrowed from fellow cooks). I've compared different angles with nearly identical knives and while I can tell a difference it isn't enough to practically matter. To make an analogy, a Ferrari might be faster than a Corvette on paper, but given 99% of drivers they are both more than fast enough.

>>But the angle has to be consistent
Yes, I agree. What's hard about that? If you need feedback on consistency then the marker trick works just fine.

Gotta know the specific type of steel mang. Like the amount of tungsten etc

Also... Shigeharu user. I ended up getting the 1000/6000 King KDS model.

Right? I think I'll just suck it up and find a better knife with known specs elsewhere.

>It's absurd to suggest that a home cook needs hundreds of dollars worth of sharpening gear.
And it's not absurd that they buy a $100+ knife to do a shitty job of keeping sharp?
>I'm totally not cutting with the burr trust me
I don't trust you. It's very easy to overestimate your own results unless you have some standard to compare them to. Yes, you can do a shit job and it's good enough for most people, but there are too many people on the internet claiming to be sharpening gurus (and that is exactly what you are claiming if you expect anyone to believe you're creating a legitimate shaving sharp edge with a rock you picked out of a river somewhere). Unless you're going to post SEM images of your edges at 3000x zoom, your claims are bullshit

If someone is going to freehand at home they should start with an 800 jis stone at the very finest and they probably never need to go beyond that because their skill level will never reach that point. And they're better off with a cheap, soft, $15 knife

You hurt my eyes. learn2photography

>And it's not absurd that they buy a $100+ knife to do a shitty job of keeping sharp?

Of course they ought to keep it sharp. But keeping it sharp doesn't require a $300 edge pro.

>>If someone is going to freehand at home they should start with an 800 jis stone at the very finest and they probably never need to go beyond that because their skill level will never reach that point. And they're better off with a cheap, soft, $15 knife

And I agree 100% with that.

Looks nice.

High carbon steel usually refers to non-stainless and googling Jeff White indeed uses that a lot. It has it's advantages, in that it's generally tougher at same hardness. Will generally not chip like VG10 blades do at the same hardness.

On the other hand, rust.

He has knives on Amazon where he says :

High carbon steel blade (ANSI 1095) hardened to Rockwell 59

Probably the same for this one.