Chef Steel

Captain Spaulding said:
I saw those a week ago but the store here is discontinuing them for lack of sales...I guess Rachel Ray has a line with them as well.
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Yeah she does, but hers have Orange handles, the Pro Series are all Stainless. She had something to do with the design of the pro Series too and her Photo is on the box.

They cut like a laser through just about anything and are quality Japanese steel.
 
Well, the boys in the butcher shop at he Sam's club by me all use the NSF Mundial forged knives they buy at one of the butcher's supply houses, or the F. Dick knives from Germany.

They told me they use both a lot depending on what they are doing. They like the Mundial knives because they have good geometry, and have pretty good edge holding capability. They sharpen nicely, don't rust, have a very user friendly handle, and they won't get damaged from rough treatment. I found mine at a restaurant supply house, and while I won't let my good chef's knives leave the kitchen, I will take these knives anywhere. They are a great bargain.

For a bit different blade geometry and slicing ease, they use the F.Dick brand knives from Germany. The told me that they held an edge a bit longer and had better slicing characteristics, but that was about it. At the restaurant supply house, they were about 3X as much as the Mundials.

I cook a lot at my own house but also cook at friend's houses as well. I know that isn't the same as restaurant work, but I wouldn't buy really expensive knives until I knew exactly what I was going to be doing. I never cease to be amazed at how badly people treat knives. Another reason for my "traveling" set of big white plastic handled knives.

Robert
 
Anthony Bourdain uses a Global. Read his book "Kitchen Confidential". It's my choice too. Not crazy-expensive, well balanced , and takes a great edge.
 
The Wilkin's Ryback is the Finest chef knife that I ever used.
1983 CIA grad.
 
Globals are great for taking an edge easily and holding them. Shun is the same way. The only draw back to Globals is on the smaller knives (IMO), where the handles are not round, but a strange diamond/triangle type shape.

I have Shuns here at home. I love them. I have the 8" chef, 6" utility, and 3.5" paring. These hold a great edge and are very thin. The only draw back I really see to them is the edge is so thin, that they tend to chip or roll when you hit a hard object. I've had a few guys bring their Shuns in to get them sharpened at my Brick and Mortar knife store, and that was the only complaint they had, otherwise, they loved em.

Both Globals and Shuns can be brought back to life on a Spyderco Sharpmaker with only using the medium and fine ceramics in my experience. The edges get shaving sharp and work great.
 
amroc said:
Globals are great for taking an edge easily and holding them. Shun is the same way. The only draw back to Globals is on the smaller knives (IMO), where the handles are not round, but a strange diamond/triangle type shape.
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Depending on the Shun class you buy, you may find D shaped handles for right handed use or reverse D shaped handles for left handed use. :)
 
I own a D-handled Shun santoku and it's a great knife; that having been said, there are a number of Japanese companies offering equivalent products for less money. It may pay to shop around a bit.

Clad VG-10 is a veeeeeeeeeeery good thing in the kitchen if you ask me.

Captain Spaulding, I'd like to direct you to another source of information that I can't discuss here but I can't email you through BF. Feel free to send me an email if you'd like.
 
I'm not an expert by any means but it seems there are basically two sides to the spectrum. There are hard steel knives that are meant to hold an edge and be treated with care and should be sharpened properly with a refined edge. Then there are soft steels that are designed to be abused and sharpened with a steel. If you plan on using a steel to maintain the edge I would definitely not get a hardened steel/Japanese type knife. If you don't mind sharpening it properly and stropping occasionally to maintain the edge then I think a Japanese type hard steel knife would be a good choice.

Austin
 
capt spaulding,

You are making a classic mistake by getting too much into the "gear" and not recognizing it will be knowledge and technique that will make or break you as an aspiring chef.

Keep the Japanese knives at home for the dinner parties when you want to show them off. Stick to the cheap and easily sharpened knives for the commercial kitchen. Your superhard damascus knives won't mean squat when you spend 4 hours every morning prepping chickens and chopping thru bones. You want good (inexpensive) knives with rounded handles that will touch-up with a few strokes on the steel every so often. One day for a restaurant knife will equal months of home knife use. Your work tools will get scratched, gouged, whacked and nicked, maybe even burnt.

Nobody will see those fancy knives of yours back in the kitchen, keep them for home, or when you open your own place.
 
My father-in-law's owned restaurants and now that he's getting on in age, he's a chef for the staff (i.e. feeding owners, owners' friends, waiters, etc.) at a very respectable catering hall.

His knives at work: Forschner Fibrox (don't touch his knives)
His knives at home: Forschner Rosewood, with one Wusthof Santoku for the bling factor - my MIL made him buy it (don't touch his knives)

Though he keeps borrowing my Fiddleback Nessmuk w/o asking for skinning and breaking up chickens
 
HELLO CAPTAIN ... i have been a professional chef fro about 15 years now and have gone through trial and error on a good many knives .... when younger i used the wustof grand prix two ... great knife the handle was severely comfortable but the knife it self lacked ... the two brands i have come to rely on are global i have gf-33 8.25 in chefs knife ... its there top of there two forged models and a gs-3 utility knife which us by far the sharpest and most useful knife i have ever used in a kitvhen or anywere else for that matter ... filling out the rest of my knife kit i use a company called MAC knive from japan ... they have many different series ranging from nice cheap knifes to a 300 dolla 8 inch chefs knife ... mac knives have never once let me down ... come sickeninly sharp and stay that way and are truly one of the best values in kitchen knives today ... a good site to look over is japanese chefs knives .com ... im not sure of the exact url but search for that and it should lead you there ... they have a myriad of good products ... i hope i could be of help
 
Thanks to almost all of you for such great input...I have narrowed my choice down to the G-33 Global which some of you confirmed for me and a few others if I can find smokin deals on them.

For those of you that think I am looking for bling...get over it. I am looking for a knife I will have for years...I want something high quality. If working with cheapos works for you great...god speed. For me I wanted a high quality knife that can be a workhorse and maybe some day I can give it to my daughter after I teach her to cook...If you think I am a tool for wanting a high quality tool to do my job then perhaps you should be in a knife renting forum. I used to do contracting work and I always bought quality tools for myself, I did a more reliable, consistent, and trip to HD free job. Some of us are content to pay for a quality product and we don't feel like elitist snobs for it.

Anywho...anyone have any input about the Henckel Myabi (sp) series?? Or the CMV60 they make them with?

chefknivestogo_2070_6748756
 
worked as a cook in southern calif. for 4 yrs.forchers served us well
get a butcher slick to line up edge,do'nt try to hold slick in left hand vertically as you see in movies; rest slick on top of a flat surface, in a more horozontial position, & lightly stroup edges in altrrnating movements several times dailey.
this will keep you going for a long time between honings
man that broke me in was greatest knife user i've ever seen
he could slice mushrooms in one sixteenth inch pieces so fast you could'nt see his hand move. nothing on t.v. or movies in 50 yrs. hence has even come close.
i've had a charmed life & met many people whose physical & mental capacities border on the miraculous.made myself a humble person. good luck in culinary ventures ;it's hard work.
 
i would stay away from the myabi series if you want dasmascus shun or the kasumi dasmascus series is the way to go ... there are alo alot of dasmascus knives on the site i refered you to before ... and one thing ... being a longtime global user for use in a professional kitchen get a forged global as afr as your chef knife goes its a little more exspensive but the difference in unbelievable
 
Captain,

I don't think anyone was accusing you of being a tool or thinking you just want a piece of cutlery for the bling. I think that everyone here was giving you recommendations on their personal experience and preferences. The more opinions you get, the more info you have to help you make your decision.
 
Hi, I was going to suggest something cheap, but good (ie. forschner, mac, etc.) as well. Not because you don’t deserve to have something better. I just assume beater tasks are part of the job description and don't believe a nicer, prettier, higher performance knife would do well. I'm just a home cook and use gyuto for most everything, but reserve the nasty stuff for a western chef knife or cleaver.

Japanese chef’s knives (aka gyuto) generally have thinner, lighter, harder (~58–65HRC) blades capable of taking and retaining a more acute cutting edge == greater precision cutting & slicing. But are more difficult to sharpen, more susceptible to chipping and not made for striking / impacting hard items (shells, bones, frozen food). Their blade is shaped like a traditional French cook’s knife (more triangular, mostly flat cutting edge and pointy tip); adept at “draw slicing” (pulling the knife from heel to tip of blade back towards you).

European chef’s knives tend have thick, heavy, soft (~52-56HRC) blades capable of handling heavy-duty chores (cutting through poultry / fish bones, splitting lobsters, thick-skinned veggies), and withstanding abuse. Their steel is pliable enough to dent or roll (as opposed to chip), and relatively easy to resharpened, but also easily dulled and unable to take an acute cutting edge. Thier blades have a wide spine, deep / rounded belly and curved tip; for “rock-chopping” (rocking against the belly) and heel cutting.

As far as I can tell, the Henckle Miyabi series has several variations. The 5000 series appears to be nothing more than the traditional softer euro-steel in traditional Japanese shapes. The 7000D & pro series (w/ 60-ish hrc, Damascus cladding) is likely to be VG-10 (or some similar). VG-10 was designed for kitchen knives and the go-to standard for ss. Henckle (like many other brands) maybe getting their blade from the same factory; it’s not uncommon to see a similar (if not the same) blade across different brands, so choose whichever brand has the best price, handle, f&f, etc. The 7000mc with the 66 hrc (holy crap) has to be some sort super-steel (zdp-189 or Cowry Y); probably an awesome slicer, but could be too brittle, chippy for chef knife tasks.
 
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looker said:
Hi, I was going to suggest something cheap, but good (ie. forschner, mac, etc.) as well. Not because you don’t deserve to have something better. I just assume beater tasks are part of the job description and don't believe a nicer, prettier, higher performance knife would do well. I'm just a home cook and use gyuto for most everything, but reserve the nasty stuff for a western chef knife or cleaver.

Japanese chef’s knives (aka gyuto) generally have thinner, lighter, harder (~58–65HRC) blades capable of taking and retaining a more acute cutting edge == greater precision cutting & slicing. But are more difficult to sharpen, more susceptible to chipping and not made for striking / impacting hard items (shells, bones, frozen food). Their blade is shaped like a traditional French cook’s knife (more triangular, mostly flat cutting edge and pointy tip); adept at “draw slicing” (pulling the knife from heel to tip of blade back towards you).

European chef’s knives tend have thick, heavy, soft (~52-56HRC) blades capable of handling heavy-duty chores (cutting through poultry / fish bones, splitting lobsters, thick-skinned veggies), and withstanding abuse. Their steel is pliable enough to dent or roll (as opposed to chip), and relatively easy to resharpened, but also easily dulled and unable to take an acute cutting edge. Thier blades have a wide spine, deep / rounded belly and curved tip; for “rock-chopping” (rocking against the belly) and heel cutting.

As far as I can tell, the Henckle Miyabi series has several variations. The 5000 series appears to be nothing more than the traditional softer euro-steel in traditional Japanese shapes. The 7000D & pro series (w/ 60-ish hrc, Damascus cladding) is likely to be VG-10 (or some similar). VG-10 was designed for kitchen knives and the go-to standard for ss. Henckle (like many other brands) maybe getting their blade from the same factory; it’s not uncommon to see a similar (if not the same) blade across different brands, so choose whichever brand has the best price, handle, f&f, etc. The 7000mc with the 66 hrc (holy crap) has to be some sort super-steel (zdp-189 or Cowry Y); probably an awesome slicer, but could be too brittle, chippy for chef knife tasks.
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Wow..now that's is what I'm talkin about. I know what knives I have, I know what I like...but I have been using shite steel for many years in the kitchen and that is exactly the type of breakdown I was looking for. Sounds like a European in a softer steel will be the first purchase...luckily my buddy will get it for wholesale for me.

As it turns out he has Henckel, Mundial, Dexter Russell, Global and Wusthoff. Any thoughts on rank ordering them and maybe some reasons why?
 
Hi. I’m glad to help.

IIRC, Global and Kai / Shun were 1st brands to offer Western-ized knives with Japanese steel to the US market, sometime in the late 1990’s. The players before them were predominately European. Wusthof, Henckel and Sabatier (now defunct) were the “it” brands. At the time, Wusthof and Henckel were using a type of steel called X45CrMoV15 (named after the formula?) that evolved into X50CrMoV15 tempered to (~52-56HRC). As far as I can tell, the X45CrMoV15 steel in the hand-me-downs that I got from my parents is no different than the X50CrMoV15 steel that I got. They’ve been pumping out different models with a similar (if not the same) blade for themselves for quite awhile and probably for other brands as well.

The differences (if any) in the X50CrMoV15 blade used in various models and brands (F.dick,Wusthof, Henckels, Lamson, Caphalon, Messermeister, Victorinox , etc.) may be a little thinner or thicker, harder or softer, but the net effect is insignificant. The blade itself will likely sharpen and perform similarly. Ignore the marketing hype, get the cheapest one that feels most comfortable to you, and put an obtuse “beater” edge on it. Use it for butchering, breaking down, going through fish and poultry bones, lobster shells, acorn squash…anything that could damage a high performance blade, but shy of heavy hacking tasks (ie chopping though beef / pork bones) meant for a cleaver. And, when you ding, roll or dull the blade to near death; steeling it sufficient enough should get you back in the game.

The Global and Henckels w/ Japanese steel are more befitting of everything –except the hard impact tasks. I’ve used my friends’ Global numerous times. The blade is very thin, made from Swedish steel and iirc is tempered between than the average euro and japanese steels. The knife is very light, agile, and cuts very well, but the handle (being metal and uniquely shaped) doesn’t work for me. I find metal handles in general slippery (when wet) and although the globals’ pimples and dimples helps a little, never the less slips and twist in my hands. I tend to hold them much firmer than normal, but can’t do so for long periods. If possible you really should try to handle them or anything else before deciding.

What knives have you’ve tried (likes and dislikes)?
 
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