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Chef Knife Buying Tips?
Looking in the market for a chef knife that will not drag me down in basic food preparation for a culinary course, any tips or specific knives to look for?
Tips I got so far:
German knives = sturdier = better for basic food prep
Japanese knives = sharper = better for delicate cleaner cuts, but aren't as strong as German
Non-stainless carbon knives = can be sharper
Stainless steel = dulls easier
Cutco = Crap
Slick non-serrated blade is better for chef knives
So, what is best for me to buy???
Any good chef knives/tips?
I think you got some bunch of things right, here's few more tips.
Don't take anything really expensive to the culinary school. I've never gone there, but I know several cooks who went through that and sadly, good knives tend to "get lost" in those schools. Unlikely that you can keep an eye on them all the time...
Minimal set would be Chef's knife, 3-4in paring knife and serrated bread knife, longer better. Plus boning knife if you expect to work on bony meat. That covers 99% of cutting for you and you can stay under 200.
As for the German vs. Japanese knives, it's more complicated. For starters, it's a lot more like Western vs. Japanese knife making style.
Western chefs knives tend to be thick(4-5m spine), heavy and also have thicker edges, average angle is 40deg.
Japanese gyuto knives are thinner(1.5mm-3mm spine), lighter, with more acute edges, 20-30 deg.
if the knife is properly used for the right job then there is absolutely no reason to go with the western knife. The only thing you get is extra weight which contrary to the popular knife myth- "let the heavy knife do the cutting for you" doesn't help with cutting that much, thin, sharp edge is far more important.
So, the strength and toughness western knives have are good when you use chef's knife, which is designed for soft food cutting to do something much harsher, like splitting lobsters open or coconuts, chopping bones which is clearly meat cleaver job...
If that's the possibility, then go with western. If not, then Japanese knives a) cut better due to thin edges, b) hold edge a lot longer due to harder and better steel c) cause less fatigue in prolonged use due to less weight.
Not all Japanese knives are delicate, Debas for example are designed for heavy duty work and have no problems cutting hard stuff.
It's just about using the right tool for the right job.
But if you want to use your chef's knife for everything, then Japanese chefs knife a.k.. gyuto isn't the one for sure.
On the other hand, western knives that owe their toughness to softer steel will dull much faster even on soft food, let alone coconut workouts. So, you choose.
Stainless Steel vs. Carbon - To begin with, there is no Stainless steel, the term is incorrect. These days, if you search, you'll find that manufacturers started using more correct stain resistant. All steels rust if neglected.
So called stainless steels contain chromium that fights staining. Other steels have no chromium in them, theyr'e called carbon steels. It is also not quite correct, as all steels are carbon steels, stainless or not.
Anyway, carbon steels get sharper edge, but to get that edge you need to sharpen those knives way beyond what commercial sharpeners do. Factory knives you get are as usual 1200 grit finished. And the difference between carbon and stainless steel sharpening levels needs sometimes all the way up to 100 000 grit. Which is 5-8 level sharpening process. That is I'd have to change that many sharpening stones, gradually increasing the grit.
Cutco is crap, outrageously priced and with very misleading marketing.
Stay away from Furi too, same thing, just cheaper, but metal is even worse than cutco.
Few more tips when buying knives:
As knife marketing tells us good kitchen knives have to be forged, and have full bolster and tang. NONE of that is true. E.g. Stamped Globals are much better performers than most of the forged mainstream kitchen knives. Stamped Forschners are made from the same steel as forged Wusthoffs and Henckels, and even if I specifically test knives for edge holding ability and cutting performance, there is no difference.
BTW, Forschners would be my recommendation for the culinary school.
More on kitchen knfie steels here - http://zknives.com/knives/kitchen/misc/articles/kkchoser/kksteelp2.shtml
I bought Forged and stamped versions of the same chef's knife from Global, and I didn't get anything but extra weight and spent more money on forged knife.
Full tang - Another BS, Katana swords and bowie knives are not full tang, yet they can cut through armor and leather, so I really doubt you need more strength than that in the kitchen.
Bolsters make sense only on narrow boning knives to protect your hand from slippage, but on other wider knives blade choil area does the job, bolster just makes sharpening a nightmare.
There's a lot more about choosing kitchen knives here - http://zknives.com/knives/kitchen/misc/articles/kkchoser/index.shtml
including western vs. Japanese, stainless vs. carbon and many other topics.
P.S. Stay away from ceramics. For most of the people they're impossible to sharpen and even for those good at sharpening they're major pain. Besides time spent on their sharpening doesn't justify extra edge holding you get. What's worse, they're very brittle. I've had ceramic blades chipping on end grain wood cutting boards while cutting fresh veggies, all because of small particles of dirt that didn't wash out...
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