Zwilling J A Henkels Miyabi 5000S Santoku 7

[D2FB]

I purchased a Zwilling J A Henkels Miyabi 5000S Santoku 7 yesterday in a local retail establishment for $30 less than the best online price that I could find. I understand that there may be (or were - is the 5000S line discontinued?) three grades of Miyabi blades and the 5000S is the lowest. The higher end grade is VG-10 I believe but I cannot find anything about steel on the 5000S, other than " forged from high quality stainless steel, with the same hardness of all Twin German steel knives." Another source indicated hardness of 57. Does anyone know what type of steel is used on the 5000S grade?

Any experience with these knives or others in the Miyabi 5000S line? Good value, while recognizing it is not the highest quality, but a good, intermediate quality knife?

 

[sharpandsafe]

hey D2,

I'm sorry no one has responded to your query yet! The German steel kitchen knives don't seem to get much love on these forums. Please allow me to offer my take on these knives. I am just going from memory, so please pardon any inaccuracies.

The 5000S line, I believe is made from the same X50CrMoV15 German stainless steel as the top (German) knives from Wusthof, Victorinox/Forschner, and Zwilling Henckels, except that Henckels has this very annoying habit of giving non-standard names to all the steels it uses. "Friodur" and "German Stainless" just refer to regular old X50CrMoV15 knives. "Friodur" is supposed to be a propitiatory cryogenic treatment they give to their German steel knives, that is supposed to result in maximum or at least precise hardening of the steel. I have no reason to doubt this. I think the target hardness of these knives is HRC 56-58, and if the Friodur process really is somehow superior to the competition, they may come out closer to HRC 58 than the others. This difference is probably just academic though. The steel is a step above 420J2 or 420HC, and a step below VG10.

I think these kind of knives are ideal for 99% of home cooks, and here's why: They are soft and tough enough to fold rather than chip along the edge due to abuse or use on surfaces not suited to ultra-hard Japanese knives. The edge can be easily restored on a butcher's steel. They have some degree of additional wear resistance with the added vanadium in the allow, allowing for slightly improved edge retention over 420J2 or 420HC knives. They are easy to sharpen when the edge really does wear away. They are more affordable than the fancy Japanese knives.

The great thing about a lot of these new Japanese/German fusion knives is that they offer vastly improved ergonomics over the traditional German designs. I find the handles much more comfortable in use over the square-profile, riveted European handles, and the fact that the bolster is reduced so that the edge extends all the way to the heel of the blade offers a huge performance advantage. This matters just as much as what kind of steel the knife is made of, IMHO.