Knives

What I kinda wonder is, is a Swiss quality product like what victorinox produces measurably worse than an expensive japanese meme knive? I really like the look of japanese knives especially the one that aren't completely polished or even matte looking. But I think prices on those are a fucking choke when you only consider performance and not simply think it's cool that some old dude handcrafted it.

>the only thing that really matters is the handle
The handle is really among the least important aspects. Since you should really be using a pinch grip anyway, the handle should just sit under your palm for balance.

The blade is the most important part of a knife.

>Convex blade grind
Promotes food release when chopping.

>Distal taper
Makes the knife very rigid (important to avoid steering when cutting thick foods) while simultaneously giving you a thin tip (important for delicate slicing), which increases the knife's versatility. Also promotes food release at the completion of a push cut.

>Thinness behind the edge
Allows the knife to glide through foods like they're not even there.

>Hardness of 60+ Rockwell
Allows for apex stability at very acute sharpening angles, which also promotes the knife gliding through foods with minimal effort.

>High quality knife steel
Some steels are better than others at their ability to even be sharpened, and then their ability to maintain that sharpness. If you ever wondered why cheap knives seem to go blunt after using them one time, it's because some steels just aren't very good to use in knives.

If you get a cheap knife, you'll likely end up with a knife-shaped piece of (flat, not convex-ground) stamped steel that food will stick to as you're cutting, which won't hold an edge very well, and which won't have much delicacy or glide through food with much ease at all.

If you ever wondered why people like Japanese knives so much, I hope the above criteria explains it well. Granted, there are good German and French knives, but they don't tend to have the same thinness behind the edge or hardness of steel to achieve such a narrow apex geometry at the edge.

> only consider performance and not simply think it's cool that some old dude handcrafted it.
what japanese knives are you looking at? it's like you think the only options beyond a fibrox are handmade hand forged knives. have you never heard of tojiro or misono?

dont you think you are diving too deep here?
we are talking about a midrange chefsknife, there arent a million choices and its a pretty specific ask.
I use a wüsthof (which i can recommend to op)for everyday tasks that require force+chopping and a misonoUX10 for delicate vegwork as my main knives, i am happy with both but i really think its all about the handle, if you know you want a westernstyle chefsknife in this specific pricesegment.

I think most Americans are only familiar with the knife brands that are carried at Sur La Table or Williams Sonoma, which would be Wusthof, Henckels (usually the cheaper lines), Global, Shun, Miyabi, and I don't think they carry MAC, but those tend to pop up on people's radar as much as the Globals.

The Shun and Miyabi knives tend to be more on the expensive and ornate side of things, and while the handles are totally distinct from Japanese or Western, the damascus cladding on the blade makes people think that the (core) steel has been folded over a thousand times in order to achieve their purported sharpness, which gives the illusion of quality. MAC and Global tend to be more utilitarian, in the Wusthof price range, albeit that's still relatively high for a lot of people.

When most people think about handcrafted Japanese knives, I think they might often be looking at the higher end Miyabi and Shun, which sell for extreme amounts of money, and ironically are often not handcrafted, just really, really ornate. They'd never suspect that for the same $150-200 that they would spend on a Shun or a Wusthof Classic, they could get a really special, handcrafted knife. For example, this Sukenari 210mm (8 inch) gyuto with gingami (stainless) core steel and wooden sheath for $145.

Define "midrange."

>What is a good all around knife I can use for just about anything cooking related. Preferably one that isn't super expensive, does that exist?
to quote the op
sure he should have given a pricerange, but that is pretty much the definition of a good midrange knife that holds the edge and lasts forever if taken care of, since i assume he wants a western knife, because he didnt specify, we are looking toward a good, sturdy western knife that costs no more than 100$ like a wüsthof/henckel/zwilling.
Japenese knives arent really what someone thats getting his first knife should be looking towards

If it's going to last him a lifetime, then what's an extra $50, or an extra $100?

Agreed. I have one for about 2 years now, hasnt lost sharpness by sharpening it regularly

because jap knives are easier to missharpen and you need to develop some sort of respect for your knife, its the same as buying your child an expensive car, what he needs is something that does not break/chip/rust and is easy to maintain, not a highend knife whichll be dull and difficult to sharpen after he throws it around for a week, he can always upgrade again when he feels he needs something even more delicate

I wasn't looking at anything specific. I basically just know Victorinox since I am from Switzerland and it's what you get for a reasonable price with reasonable quality. Aesthetically I really dig japanese knives, probably the ones you call "really ornate". I'm just not sure if they really are worth the price, this is such strange market where it's hard to tell what is science and what is just advertisement. Probably there isn't even a good answer to, what is the best material for a knive. I would think that it's probably best if the whole thing is made out of one piece and probably folded like flaky pastry. But maybe this is just a meme and a cast one or simple forged one is just as good. I don't intend to split wood with it, so there are other things to consider.

I personally like stuff like this, but I know there are way cheaper ones just as good:
youtube.com/watch?v=5L14XPDqL7c

You can find much more expertise on this subject over at kitchenknifeforums. Warning: There is a strong bias there toward Jap knives, but IMO, it's totally justified..

Well does any knife loose sharpness when sharpening it regularly? I would prefer a knife that doesn't need sharpening for years while cutting on a granite chopping board. I'm sorry but I hate sharpening and I'm a complete noob at it.

Perhaps you'd be better buying pre-cut foods.

thanks, I might give it a try. Have been on the edge of buying a knife for years. I'm using pic related for basically everything (sometimes even hard bread), I know any professional cook laughs at this. But I developed a particular expertise at handling those and I'm considerably fast with them. Only real downside is cutting big vegetables like cabbage in one go. I have a cheap chef knife, but I'm really bad at handling it (way slower) and I have nothing to sharpen it properly.

please no bully

Who /Chinese cleaver/ here?

>I would prefer a knife that doesn't need sharpening for years while cutting on a granite chopping board
I would prefer to pee down emma watson's throat while hungrily tonguing her butthole, but it's not happening in this reality

buy 10 of the cute kuhn rikon plastic pieces of shit. I'm serious

see just get one of these and a $15 dexter, and some cheap ass wood cutting board, and you're 70% of the way to a fancy weeb sword finished on natural stones and kanayama horse butt, with 5% of the work effort you'll grind through the knife a bit faster this way but it's a $15 knife so who cares

buy Chef'sChoice™ now with more Trivox

b-but the Victorinox I mentioned here is currently 50% at Migros and costs only 1.55$. I usually use them for about 2-5 years and I'm pretty fine. I'm not even kidding I cook everyday and I cut tons of veggies. Oddly enough this is pretty common in my family and probably even in my country. Might be a cultural thing but I haven't seen many people using chef knifes except for real cooks.

>granite chopping board
>doesn't need sharpening
do you expect a very thin strip of metal to stay standing upright while constantly pushing it into fucking granite? honestly the only parameters you can change are how hard the blade is, its thickness and how how hard your board is. since thin blade means sharpness you dont want to twitch that one, also good luck finding a steel harder than granite. you only option is to switch to wood asap. just learn to sharpen at least once a year, it literally takes a few minutes.

Sharpening or?

I was obviously joking with the granite thing, I don't even think chopping on granite is a thing. I just wanted to make the point that I would like a knife that stays sharp while using it considerably without needing to sharpen it all the time.

This might be a solution, but common that ChefsChoice is clearly more than anybody would need. What's the idea there, that I can sharpen three knifes at once? I'm not planing on opening a chipsy knife sharpening business with this meme machine.

I got this one:

amazon.com/Global-G-2-inch-Chefs-Knife/dp/B00005OL44/ref=sr_1_1?s=home-garden&ie=UTF8&qid=1490050645&sr=1-1&keywords=global chef knife

I am not an expert by any means but Anthony Bourdain's book recommended it and I didn't feel like doing more research. I really like it so far.

>that I can sharpen three knifes at once?
No, it's 3 stages, you go from highest to lowest (or maybe lowest to highest) on your first run, and then you only do the highest (or lowest) for maintenance. Same principle as any other system, but it's fully automatic other than just running the blade through the slot.

I don't know what you mean by "more than anyone would need", you are looking to buy results, right? This is buying results.

ok thanks for the explanation, I really consider it. At least that way I can't really mess things up. Buying a knife for that price and then sharpening it the wrong way really be the worse option.

Not sure what you mean by "that price", I am suggesting the chef's choice for something like a dexter or a fibrox knife, I'm saying like $40 max, not anything on the level of a UX10 or even a Tojiro DP

If you're buying a fairly nice knife like a Misono or Tojiro you should get an edgepro, it's about as undemanding as possible while still making the extra knife quality worthwhile . Some years ago Shun offered a powered wet grinding wheel gizmo that was around $250 that I might have suggested if it was still around, but it's off the market now, so you're stuck with some kind of manually operated piece

But an edgepro is still *some* effort, it's not high effort by any means and it's mostly idiot proof but it's certainly more effort than a Chef'sChoice™ now with more Trivox

Keep in mind here the rationale with the Chef's Choice is that you're making it super easy at the expense of final quality. The edge is not going to be sperg-perfect, but it's good enough for practical purposes, and much better than what most people do (which is either nothing, or sending it off to an chump with a dry power grinder who will do the exact same thing as the Chef's Choice but your knives will get dull until you get fed up with them and eventually drag them to the sharpeners)

This way, you can sharpen as often as you like, without thinking about it, and so you have a sharp enough knife every day, whenever you want it, without taking it somewhere and all the annoyances that sound like nothing until you've procrastinated for six months and you're still smashing food

After running one for 10 years in a professional kitchen, I can not recommend it. ESPECIALLY for a first knife.

Edge retention is good, as is the lack of dirt traps. But the edge is too hard to use an automatic sharpener on, or get any feedback when free hand sharpeninng.

But my biggest gripe is that choking up on the blade with a pinch grip (which is the best grip to use) will give you nasty badass callouses.

The back is just too sharp to be comfortable to use in heavy prep (such as peeling a pumpkin). Maybe you could get th spine rounded, and some of the later models of globals do not have the same issue, but I deeply regret not buying another knife sooner.

>misonoUX10
Good taste, I've used one and they feel absolutely amazing to cut with. Beautiful ergonomics and very nice blade profile. Shame they're so expensive, if I was cutting food all day I'd totally get one but I can't justify one for the amount of cooking I do (which is for one person, myself, at home)

oh boy, and thats exactly why you need a decent western chefs knife, if you cut up 1 bag of patatoes into fries youll be already at least 3 times as fast in basically any chopping/cutting task than you can be with these knives. believe me sepp, im from germany and i was also brought up on these little shitty blunt knives and it was probably the single most important thing to make cooking fun for me getting a real knife,it just speed up the process of cooking a meal by about x2, 1 great chefs knife and a wetstone will be around 120€ and lasts you manymanymany years, a lifetime if you are careful not to fuck the knife. a good friend of mine just started cooking a year ago and the first thing he did, on my advice, was going to a store and picking a good knife and it changed the way he looks at cooking completely. for sharpening on wetstones there are hundreds of tutorials, youtube+wetstone and you know what you got to do in like 2min, you can also practice on a shitty knife first

thx man, its a great knife but its not significantly sharper (though it keeps sharp longer) than my wüsthof and some other crappy knives i inherited. I gotta say i still grab the wüsthof for most everyday things since it has a larger variety of uses and i dont want to switch knives while prepping. Both knives get blunt after 1-2 months of heavy use, the real breakthrough for me, more than the knife i own, is to take better care of them and sharpen them properly on a whetstone. if you got a good knife that can hold an edge it is just so worth it to take the 10-20 minutes per knife sometimes, a shitty 20€ knife comes out sharper than the factoryedge on the misono, though it obviously doesnt last very long on bad ones

Thanks guys, really awesome advice, also from all the other people on the thread. I will really think about it all and tomorrow I'll go to my local knife store and just get my hands on them bitches. Wether I buy a cheaper knife and use an automatic sharpener or buy directly some nice mid range knife and try my luck as a sharpener will probably decided on how much I like the feel of the more expensive knifes. But it's probably really time to switch to a real chef knife.

Ikea 365+

Poor man's global

I just got one made by Misen, through a kickstarter. It seems pretty solid so far. More expensive thenh my Victornix, but also seems to stay sharper longer.

Pic Related.
My parents got them about fifteen years ago, still going strong. Excellent knives.

A Dexter-Russell Chinese chef knife.

Yes, I am a Chinese knife shill. Yes, I have worked in a kitchen. No, they are not dangerous or hard to use/sharpen.

>buying a kickstarter knife
>a fucking kickstarter KNIFE
What went through your head when you did this? I'm genuinely curious.

surprisingly, not everything on kickstarter turns into a fucking mess that ends up being a rip-off or outright theft

There are degrees of ripoff. Kickstarter is good for bringing niche gadgets to market at a realistic per-unit cost that don't exist IRL or would take an inordinate amount of personal effort that most people are unwilling to do

What exactly about a kitchen knife requires a kickstarter, when there are already thousands of excellent mass produced knives out there and hundreds of reputable custom makers that will cater to every wish and budget?

Did they just use some knife words you had never thought about before, and you got sucked into the hype of NEVER BEEN DONE BEFORE and threw money at it so you could have the privilege of bearing the risk for someone else's not-particularly-necessary new knife business catering to an already saturated market? And on top of that, waiting as long as you would have waited for a custom knife, but getting something made to someone else's specifications?

Can anyone recommend a cheap chinese cleaver that i can order in europe?

I have no idea if they're available in Europe or not, but CCK (Chan Chi Kee) is fantastic and very reasonably priced.

Unfortunately, a lot of the places that sell them will mark up the price to an absurd degree.

I have purchased a couple CCK knives from "ChefsMall.net" because my local CCK dealer didn't stock the models I wanted. They were quite a bit more expensive than what CCK sells them for but it was the only option I could find to get them shipped to the US. I think they ship worldwide.

Yes, I had to wait, but it was $45. A custom knife is going to cost much more then that.

The reason it had to be kickstarted was because it was a new company who realized that good knives are fucking outrageously expensive and wanted to undercut the expensive brands but didn't have the startup money to do it. I backed it because I liked it's design, and because it was well reviewed by other chefs who got to use the prototypes. Now that I have it, I have no regrets. I've had $100 knives that don't work as well. This knife holds an edge well, and is designed in a way that is easy to use. That's about all I look for in a knife.

> it was a new company who realized that good knives are fucking outrageously expensive
And you fell for this. Enough said.

>And you fell for this.
And I received a good knife that I have used daily to cook dinner that is better then my old wustof. So yes, they deceived me into paying them less then I payed for my old knife for a better knife.

Yes, you paid $50 for a poorly heat treated Chinese knife with a Japanese sounding name because you fell for a huckster's blatant anchoring sales pitch (comparing the product to unspecified very expensive knives)

spring.org.uk/2013/05/the-anchoring-effect-how-the-mind-is-biased-by-first-impressions.php

You could have bought a legit knife from a real company with real QC and no wait time, for what you "payed" (sic)

But you genuinely believed that they weren't selling you a bridge with their "we figured out that the knife industry is a hoax!" line

Since you seem allergic to checking forums here's a nice mainstream website that explains what you fell for

wired.com/2016/10/review-misen-chefs-knife/