I'm trying to figure out the differences between these two knives and which would be right for me. Here's what I have so far (only posting this because I couldn't find a head to head online).
There are so many more questions here than I expected, please only answer what you have patience or inclination to answer, sorry.
- There have been complaints on that there internet, that the kai knife is tough to sharpen. I thought it's a matter of burr formation, deburring and then stropping? Can anyone with sharpening experience offer reasons for or attest to the annoyance of sharpening a kai wasabi 8" chef knife?
- Others dislike the global knife because it's hard to sharpen. I thought you do what that old man does on the youtube and also burrfection except it takes you significantly longer and then you end up with a sharp global knife? Can anyone speak to this?
- is the Global blade verifiably thinner than the kai blade? Does this matter? I held the G2 before, haven't held the Kai, ordered the santoku version off amazon because I wanted to see what the handle feels like but o/w it's impossible for me in Canada to "try before buy", also it's proving impossible to order 1 kai knife from a vendor selling it at a good price and still get free shipping on the order.
- Does anyone know what the balance is like between these two? I held a global G2 and an Ikea 365+ santoku knife in the same hand and the Ikea knife "felt heavier" even though my food scale said they were the same weight (dunno how accurate it is but it's digital idk).
- I have come to understand that there is a difference in "price point" and "entry point" for the kitchen knife enthusiast whereby kai knives on sale cost CAD 40 and the G2 is currently on "sale" for CAD 100. But that's only 60 bucks ? I know that's a lot of money to some people and I'm not trying to be dismissive, all I'm asking Really is... Is the global G2 $60 better? Has anyone tried both and returned either or left one of the two in a drawer almost permanently and gone with the other? With that price difference, is it usually easier to just buy the more expensive knife? They both offer a lifetime warranty, both are made in Japan, I figure whichever I buy will be my main knife until I find something terribly wrong with it which, honestly, not sure I will. Have any of you? I know some hate the global handle but I love it, it's great, I'm 5'5 it fits like a glove. I keep my knife hand clean when prepping and regularly rinse the knife, so I'm not worried about food getting stuck in the golf ball holes. Should I be, though? Youtube said I should be, does anyone find it a pain to clean the handle? I have tried the global and found it to be good for me, but ... would the other cheaper knife also be fine for me if it feels good in my hand or is there something fundamentally wrong with it vs. with the Global?
- I'm vegetarian with no signs of returning to the meat world, and I only make meat about 4 times a year to make steak or some such fanciness for my girlfriend. If I'm in the kitchen doing chopping, push cutting, and a minor amount of rock chopping and mincing (those are four different movements and I'm really hoping I labelled them correctly)...and if I'm careful not to twist my knife blade with the occasional rock chopping and mincing that I do .... Would it still be okay to own either of these knives ? Or should I be buying definitely one and definitely not the other? Or should I be buying something else entirely? YouTube told me nakiris have been replaced by mandolins in most pro kitchens?? Also, YouTube told me rock chopping or mincing would damage a Japanese knife, so what do users of those knives do to get the little small ant food that you can throw into the tapenade? (Ok tapenade you'd likely do with a food processor, bad example, I'm just asking)
Is anyone upset by these two choices? What do you think I should look into?
- I figured nakiris aren't pointy enough but I suppose I don't really need a point when cutting what I cut? Have they fallen out of favour with chefs for some reason?
- Shun makes nice knives, but they seem far more expensive except maybe for some, does anyone see one in there that could fit my needs and wouldn't be much different in price point from the above two?
- I like this video:
I don't know the first thing about buying a knife, but when I'm shopping for knives, this is what I like to see. Mass murdering vegetables. Does anyone regularly do this with one of their knives that they bought for 100 or less Canadian, what are your thoughts on it? There should be a video like this for basically every knife, I'm sure this is obtainable with any of them that are sharp, unless I'm missing something about the edge geometry or etc of the global that makes it more amenable to this.
I read that most line cooks and serious students use plain steel knives (<$20 each) and sharpen them regularly. Should I just do this for a year to develop knife discipline or something, and not buy a knife now? I like the G2 but I feel as though I could like any number of these knives, & I want to make the best and most sensible decision and not look like an idiot for prematurely buying something that won't benefit me at my level or my ranking as a weekly home cook in the knife enthusiast hierarchy. If it won't make a difference to me in terms of efficiency, speed or comfort, then I'd rather do without it.
I bought the Ikea 365+ santoku and the global g2 and at the time, I thought the global knife was better but not 5x the price better so I returned it and kept the Ikea knife. Then I got a bunch of knives for free and sharpened them, and this free "Cuisine de France" santoku knife started outperforming my Ikea 365 knife which seemed to lose its factory edge (not much of an edge tbf) rather quickly. So I said well, I have a sharp knife now, what's the point...and I returned the Ikea knife because I figured well, if I can sharpen and rust erase and hone my own knives, I probably shouldn't be bothering with an $18 knife, I should probably get something that will hold a "Better edge" (idk what this is , really. Tomatoes fear my current knife) and something that will take longer before re-sharpening (I cook once or twice a week. Being vegetarian and mostly plant-based, there is a notable amount of knife work involved. Learning how to sharpen a knife a couple of weeks ago has made it much safer and much more fun)
Oh Also,
- I currently use a santoku knife, it's like idk 5-6 inches in length. Someone on the internet said all chefs use a chef knife of at least 8" in blade length because it makes prep work faster. Can anyone dumb this down for me and specify where that happens? Is it because it'll go through meat and squash and sweet potatoes faster or is it because of some knife principle that I haven't fully understood yet? Because if it's all the same, really, then I figure why buy an 8" knife when a 5-6" knife is just fine? But if it's different, then I figure I should just learn to be comfortable with a chef knife instead of settling for a 5.5" santoku knife, right? I mean the G2 didn't seem particularly difficult to wield, tbh, it just looked rather long compared to other stuff I've used in the past is all.
Okay thanks for making it to the end.
There are so many more questions here than I expected, please only answer what you have patience or inclination to answer, sorry.
- There have been complaints on that there internet, that the kai knife is tough to sharpen. I thought it's a matter of burr formation, deburring and then stropping? Can anyone with sharpening experience offer reasons for or attest to the annoyance of sharpening a kai wasabi 8" chef knife?
- Others dislike the global knife because it's hard to sharpen. I thought you do what that old man does on the youtube and also burrfection except it takes you significantly longer and then you end up with a sharp global knife? Can anyone speak to this?
- is the Global blade verifiably thinner than the kai blade? Does this matter? I held the G2 before, haven't held the Kai, ordered the santoku version off amazon because I wanted to see what the handle feels like but o/w it's impossible for me in Canada to "try before buy", also it's proving impossible to order 1 kai knife from a vendor selling it at a good price and still get free shipping on the order.
- Does anyone know what the balance is like between these two? I held a global G2 and an Ikea 365+ santoku knife in the same hand and the Ikea knife "felt heavier" even though my food scale said they were the same weight (dunno how accurate it is but it's digital idk).
- I have come to understand that there is a difference in "price point" and "entry point" for the kitchen knife enthusiast whereby kai knives on sale cost CAD 40 and the G2 is currently on "sale" for CAD 100. But that's only 60 bucks ? I know that's a lot of money to some people and I'm not trying to be dismissive, all I'm asking Really is... Is the global G2 $60 better? Has anyone tried both and returned either or left one of the two in a drawer almost permanently and gone with the other? With that price difference, is it usually easier to just buy the more expensive knife? They both offer a lifetime warranty, both are made in Japan, I figure whichever I buy will be my main knife until I find something terribly wrong with it which, honestly, not sure I will. Have any of you? I know some hate the global handle but I love it, it's great, I'm 5'5 it fits like a glove. I keep my knife hand clean when prepping and regularly rinse the knife, so I'm not worried about food getting stuck in the golf ball holes. Should I be, though? Youtube said I should be, does anyone find it a pain to clean the handle? I have tried the global and found it to be good for me, but ... would the other cheaper knife also be fine for me if it feels good in my hand or is there something fundamentally wrong with it vs. with the Global?
- I'm vegetarian with no signs of returning to the meat world, and I only make meat about 4 times a year to make steak or some such fanciness for my girlfriend. If I'm in the kitchen doing chopping, push cutting, and a minor amount of rock chopping and mincing (those are four different movements and I'm really hoping I labelled them correctly)...and if I'm careful not to twist my knife blade with the occasional rock chopping and mincing that I do .... Would it still be okay to own either of these knives ? Or should I be buying definitely one and definitely not the other? Or should I be buying something else entirely? YouTube told me nakiris have been replaced by mandolins in most pro kitchens?? Also, YouTube told me rock chopping or mincing would damage a Japanese knife, so what do users of those knives do to get the little small ant food that you can throw into the tapenade? (Ok tapenade you'd likely do with a food processor, bad example, I'm just asking)
Is anyone upset by these two choices? What do you think I should look into?
- I figured nakiris aren't pointy enough but I suppose I don't really need a point when cutting what I cut? Have they fallen out of favour with chefs for some reason?
- Shun makes nice knives, but they seem far more expensive except maybe for some, does anyone see one in there that could fit my needs and wouldn't be much different in price point from the above two?
- I like this video:
I don't know the first thing about buying a knife, but when I'm shopping for knives, this is what I like to see. Mass murdering vegetables. Does anyone regularly do this with one of their knives that they bought for 100 or less Canadian, what are your thoughts on it? There should be a video like this for basically every knife, I'm sure this is obtainable with any of them that are sharp, unless I'm missing something about the edge geometry or etc of the global that makes it more amenable to this.
I read that most line cooks and serious students use plain steel knives (<$20 each) and sharpen them regularly. Should I just do this for a year to develop knife discipline or something, and not buy a knife now? I like the G2 but I feel as though I could like any number of these knives, & I want to make the best and most sensible decision and not look like an idiot for prematurely buying something that won't benefit me at my level or my ranking as a weekly home cook in the knife enthusiast hierarchy. If it won't make a difference to me in terms of efficiency, speed or comfort, then I'd rather do without it.
I bought the Ikea 365+ santoku and the global g2 and at the time, I thought the global knife was better but not 5x the price better so I returned it and kept the Ikea knife. Then I got a bunch of knives for free and sharpened them, and this free "Cuisine de France" santoku knife started outperforming my Ikea 365 knife which seemed to lose its factory edge (not much of an edge tbf) rather quickly. So I said well, I have a sharp knife now, what's the point...and I returned the Ikea knife because I figured well, if I can sharpen and rust erase and hone my own knives, I probably shouldn't be bothering with an $18 knife, I should probably get something that will hold a "Better edge" (idk what this is , really. Tomatoes fear my current knife) and something that will take longer before re-sharpening (I cook once or twice a week. Being vegetarian and mostly plant-based, there is a notable amount of knife work involved. Learning how to sharpen a knife a couple of weeks ago has made it much safer and much more fun)
Oh Also,
- I currently use a santoku knife, it's like idk 5-6 inches in length. Someone on the internet said all chefs use a chef knife of at least 8" in blade length because it makes prep work faster. Can anyone dumb this down for me and specify where that happens? Is it because it'll go through meat and squash and sweet potatoes faster or is it because of some knife principle that I haven't fully understood yet? Because if it's all the same, really, then I figure why buy an 8" knife when a 5-6" knife is just fine? But if it's different, then I figure I should just learn to be comfortable with a chef knife instead of settling for a 5.5" santoku knife, right? I mean the G2 didn't seem particularly difficult to wield, tbh, it just looked rather long compared to other stuff I've used in the past is all.
Okay thanks for making it to the end.
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