Quote :

"I wouldn't buy a set. I'd go out and just get the knives you need / want and a knife block. Don't feel tied down to a set, or even one brand."

Second that, but I don't like blocks. I prefer a magnetic strip mounted to a wall or cabinet door. It frees up counter space and keeps the knives handy.

Quote :

"The blades are fine in the dishwasher. The only reason you can't run them in the dishwasher is because they try to make the handles impressive. There is no reason not to use a synthetic or metal handle to create knives that are nearly indestructable and will last a lifetime without having to handwash every one that you use."

Are you sure about this? I always assumed dishwashers would dull the blades.

1/2/2008 11:54:17 AM

It's not the dishwasher itself, it's anything you may have in there that can knock against the blade.

1/2/2008 12:12:56 PM

Why would you risk it anyway? It takes 5 seconds to wash and dry a knife.

1/2/2008 2:15:52 PM

My parents bought Wusthof's back in the early 70's


We still have them, and they're still perfect.

1/2/2008 2:37:34 PM

Wustoff and Henckel are pretty sweet. But I settled for a cheaper brand from Bed Bath and Beyond. We got a bread knife, paring knife, 9" utility and a santoku for around 50 bucks (minus 20% with a coupon). I use the santoku and paring knife constantly. The utility knife just sits in the cabinet all day. I also got a sharpener. After 4 months of moderate use, they are still the best knives I've ever had.

1/2/2008 3:19:14 PM

Cutco sucks. They are stamped, not forged. You can usually easily tell if a knife is forged by looking at it if the blade metal thickens where it meets the contour of the handle.

Forged knives go through a process that makes the steel much more dense and harder. Hence, the edge stays sharper longer. They also tend to feel better in the hand because they are heavier.

I'm sure Cutco and most other stamped knives are razor sharp out of the box. Just about all knives are. If you were to test a Cutco knife against a decent forged knive, the forged knife would stay sharper longer.

As for the dishwasher argument, I don't put my good knives in the diswasher mainly because I use them a lot more often than I run a load of dishes.

1/2/2008 3:43:21 PM

Wustof and Henckels are NOT worth the money unless you find them at a store like TJ Maxx

they're just the most expensive ones people see in the cases at Bed Bath & Beyond and Linens & Things, so people assume they're awesome knives.....

If you don't mind dropping the cash, the Kyocera ceramics are phenomenal..........the edge is honed to a finer degree than steel can be and is actually considerably harder than steel. If you take care of them they technically never need sharpening as well

the only down side is that they are brittle and the chef's knife is ~$100

1/2/2008 4:27:16 PM

^$100 for a knife that breaks easily sounds like a waste of money to me

1/2/2008 5:45:05 PM

My wife and I were recently looking into this.
A pro-chef friend of ours said Wustoff was good (their mid to high range sets). He said that Cutco really wasn't that bad either.

1/2/2008 8:08:46 PM

Compared to average kitchen knives none of these are exactly "bad"

1/2/2008 8:22:18 PM

^^^well of course it'll break easier than steel, but i wouldn't quite say they'll "break easily"

my point though, was that the ceramic is considerably harder than any steel commonly used for knives and can thus be ground to a finer edge

1/2/2008 8:49:28 PM

I like the Pure Komachi knives that Sharper Image sells (and I don't like about 80 percent of the stuff there).

http://ncane.com/bc9

would run you right at $200 after tax

[Edited on January 2, 2008 at 9:07 PM. Reason : link shortened]

1/2/2008 9:06:28 PM

Calphalon and Cuisinart both make pretty good forged steel knives that are about half the price of Henckles and Wustoff. If you dont want to drop the money on a name brand, go with one of those.


Either way, Spending a couple hundred bucks on knives that could very easily last the rest of your lives is, in my opinion, a fine investment.

1/3/2008 1:30:26 PM

I was at Costco yesterday and they had a full set of Henckel's for $160. This was the Fairfax, VA store but would imagine that the Raleigh store would feature the same.

1/3/2008 2:51:25 PM

someone please remove these cutleries from my knees

1/3/2008 4:16:53 PM

Quote :

"I was at Costco yesterday and they had a full set of Henckel's for $160. This was the Fairfax, VA store but would imagine that the Raleigh store would feature the same."

hmm, i wonder if thats an international set or one of the nicer lines. anyone have more info on these knives?


so it sounds like the consensus on sharpening is, i don't need to buy a stone/sharpener of any kind? just hone each knife before use, and take them to be professionally sharpened every now and then...because becks etc willl do a much better job than i could do with some device from a store?

1/4/2008 9:29:17 AM

How much does Beck's charge?

I use a Chef's Choice 3-stage sharpener and it works great for larger knives, they turn out razor sharp and the edge lasts a while:


It doesn't work well on small paring knives because it can't sharpen part of the blade closest to the handle. It's also difficult to do a boning knife which has a concave blade contour.

1/4/2008 10:53:17 AM

looks badass but 194 bones

1/4/2008 10:58:40 AM

^^Becks charges 1.50 - 2.00 per knife. And they come back fucking razor sharp.

Just be sure to tell the guy not to grind the heel of the blade off. He does it because he thinks most people accidently cut themselves with the heel. I told him hes an idiot

1/5/2008 9:57:28 PM

The Chef's Choice sharpeners do the trick but they grind away a lot more blade than a pro would. There is a $5 hand sharpener that I picked up at Overton's that does the job in a pinch (America's Test Kitchen/Cook's Illustrated rated it the "best buy" of the manual knife sharpeners). If you are careful with your knife and you hone it regularly then it will hold its edge for quite a while. Oh, and don't do stupid crap like slice something that is sitting on a dinner plate, always use a good cutting board.

Here is a very extensive thread on eGullet about knife sharpening:
http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=26036

The set from Costco is probably just a smaller version of this (International):
http://www.costco.com/Browse/Product.aspx?Prodid=11222737

1/6/2008 3:48:48 AM

^^^ looks tacky as shit.

1/6/2008 5:13:35 AM

yeah wtf is up with faux wood grain on steel??????

1/6/2008 11:59:28 AM

thats actually replicating the folds in the steal, not wood

1/6/2008 12:18:06 PM

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pattern_welding

sometimes called "Damascus steel". Sometimes (like the Calphalon Katana line) it's totally fake.

1/6/2008 1:18:09 PM

so i ended up getting this:



does wusthof have multiple lines..certain ones i should prefer or watch out for? i did see some of their knives have emeril's name on them...

1/6/2008 2:24:26 PM

yea they have walmart lines, same with henkel, avoid those

stick with the forged blade classics, not the stamped blades

[Edited on January 6, 2008 at 2:36 PM. Reason : as a home-user, you will never need a knife sharpener. get a honing steel instead]

1/6/2008 2:34:59 PM

which line is which tho?

1/6/2008 4:38:51 PM

With Henckels, I like their 'four star' and 'professional "s"' lines

With Whustof, I like their 'grand prix II' and 'classic' lines, but stay away from the 'gourmet' line

Go to bed bath and beyond and check out what they have behind the glass case there, bring your 20% off coupon with you

1/6/2008 4:49:22 PM

Quote :

"Sometimes (like the Calphalon Katana line) it's totally fake."

i dont know about the calphalon line, but those are actually made from folded steel. google shun knives. theyre made (or owned, not sure) by kershaw. i dont like that weird handle, but the others are pretty sweet. however awesome as they are there definitely not in the 'economical' class. most of them are well over a hundred bucks.

[Edited on January 6, 2008 at 5:21 PM. Reason : "those" referencing the picture posted by lionheart.]

1/6/2008 5:21:04 PM

i finally got around to buying some Henckels tonight.



went with

http://usa.jahenckels.com/434henckels
http://usa.jahenckels.com/177henckels
http://usa.jahenckels.com/175henckels

there was a set with the three and a steel.



[Edited on March 1, 2008 at 7:59 PM. Reason : they feel damn good]

3/1/2008 7:50:12 PM

dont put them in the dishwasher

these are good to clean knives with:



[Edited on March 1, 2008 at 10:06 PM. Reason : ]

3/1/2008 9:59:17 PM

When I worked at a department store I was always getting Wusthoff and Henckel knife sets for free. I kept a block set of Henckels and a set of Wustoff steak knives (with some stupid pretentious presentation case). Though they are all excellent knives, it's only worth having them if you do some serious cooking. They are tempermental as fuck. You have to sharpen them all the goddamned time, can't use a dishwasher, fully dry them, all this shit.

Anyway, don't get pretentious and buy a hatori hanzo chef knife just to show your friends and post on the internet you spent 2930438 dollars on some shit you don't need when you can go to Walmart and buy something that works just as well for 1/238938th of the price and can conveniently wash them in the dishwasher, etc.

Nobody gives a shit what kind of FORGED STEEL you have.

Mine are in storage, btw.

3/1/2008 10:17:29 PM

^ want to sell them?

3/1/2008 10:19:56 PM

Even if I did, it'd take too long to find them. Have no idea where they are.

Quote :

"I've got a set of henckel's knives and they need professional sharpening, any recommendations for places to go? "

That's probably the most pretentious thing I can see in this thread and quite possibly on TWW in general. Man, that is damned ridiculous. How do you call yourself a "republican" spending money like that? ahahahaha. I'm just giving you a hard time, but damn. Get your mind right.

3/1/2008 10:29:27 PM

Laugh if you want, but the best knives I've ever had came from K-mart...the Wolfgang Puck block with the 3",5",7", and 9" santoku blades. They are well balanced and are still razor sharp after almost six months of (almost) daily use.

If you want to have a blast making salsa, get some roma tomatoes and a 3" santoku blade.

Also, consider investing in good cutting boards and maintaining them. A hundred dollar knife will not stay sharp on a $3 acrylic cutting board from wal-mart.

3/2/2008 12:11:02 AM

seth is back.

3/2/2008 12:27:47 AM

Yeh...

long time no post?

3/2/2008 1:01:04 AM

When i was working as a chef i purchased my knives from http://www.korin.com and http://www.knifemerchant.com

I started with a wustof classic 8"chef, then moved to some globals, then graduated to some traditional Japanese single sided Masahiro($85). Also got a Misono($70) for my lil sis. The latter two must be sharpened manually over a wet stone.

They hold their edge an incredibly long time and are some of the sharpest knives I have ever encountered. Unless you go really high end like Glestain or Neonox.

Quote :

"The oldest known Japanese chef knife is over 1200 years old. However, even 1200 years ago, individual knives and special cutting techniques were employed for cutting different types of food. Today’s Japanese chef knives are fashioned by techniques that were originally developed for making katana or traditional samurai swords. The shift from sword-crafting to knife-crafting began in the mid-nineteenth century in response to Commodore Perry’s forced opening of Japan’s borders to Western trade. After World War II, General MacArthur totally banned Japanese sword-making, which forced large numbers of highly skilled craftsmen to turn their skills and attention to the fashioning of kitchen knives. So, for inspiration, the dedicated sword craftsmen began to look to the ambitious creations of creative chefs. In this way, they soon elevated Japanese knives to a state of universal renown. Many centuries later, the "unforgettable sharpness" of the katana is still the distinguishing mark of the Japanese knife."

[Edited on March 2, 2008 at 2:04 PM. Reason : Read more at http://www.korin.com/knives/index.php ]

3/2/2008 2:01:49 PM

I've spent a bit of time around knives and sharpening all sorts of edged tools.

IMO the essentials are:
-The bigget chef's knife you can afford from Henckles or Wustof
-8" chef's knife from Kiwi
-Paring knife from Henckles or Wustof
-8" two sided sharpening stone

The Henckles/Wustof chef's knives are the best all around. They do few things really well, but will do anything pretty well. I think their most essential for cutting through chicken bones and slicing meat.

The Kiwi knives look like cheap pieces of shit made from stamped steel...and they are cheap and made from stamped steel.
BUT, they're THE best for cutting veggies/fruit because they are so thin. They're also the easiest to sharpen and only cost a couple bucks from asian markets.

Paring knives are nice to have for delicate work.
IMO I could get by nicely with just a Kiwi chef's. A european chef's knife helps.
Santokus are basically like the Kiwi chef's...but they're not my go-to knives because they're not thin enough to slice as nice as a cheap Kiwi and their profiles are too blunt to be as good all around as a european che'f knife.
Bread knives....are for people who can't keep their chef's knives sharp.

In the end the most important thing is to learn how to sharpen. You can make any shitty knife cut well if you can properly sharpen it. An expensive knife isn't worth anything and is dangerous if it's dull.
Those sharpening gadgets are worthless. They sharpen at large angles and take off too much material.

3/2/2008 4:08:59 PM