Guide To Selecting the Right Knife

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When looking for a new knife to add to your kitchen, there are many questions you have to ask yourself: forged vs. stamped; carbon steel vs. stainless steel; “German-style” vs. “French-style” vs. “Japanese-style”; light vs. heavy; full tang vs. partial tang; bolster vs. bolsterless; the list goes on of descriptors used in the knife industry. But no matter what you’re looking for, keep this overarching principle in the back of your head: Ultimately, the best knife for you is not necessarily the most expensive, but the one you feel the most comfortable wielding. 

Materials and The Rockwell Hardness Scale

There are essentially three categories of steel used in knife making: Carbon steel, stainless steel, and high carbon stainless steel.  Carbon steel is often viewed as the best performing steel, as it provides the ability to take on a very sharp edge with little sharpening effort.  The down side to carbon steel is that it can discolour and rust.

Stainless steel (or surgical stainless steel) has less carbon and more chromium in the alloy, making it very resistant to stains and rust.  Plain stainless steel knives are usually inexpensive since they are usually dull when purchased and never get any sharper as the steel is not hard enough to maintain a good edge.  Stainless steel is, unfortunately, the material used in the vast majority of knives on the market, especially at big box stores. 

High carbon stainless steel is a combination of the above two (carbon steel + stainless steel) and is used for the majority of quality knives.  High carbon stainless steel has enough carbon to maintain a good edge, but also enough chromium to keep it looking clean and shiny.  Victorinox, Grohmann, MAC, GLOBAL, Wusthof, and Kasumi all are made of high carbon stainless steel.  Note however, the term “high carbon stainless steel” is a generic term and the quality level of the steel composition varies drastically between brands.  Some of the more expensive knives add unique alloys like vanadium or molybdenum to enhance performance.

One other material that is popular amongst knife aficionados – ceramic.  Ceramic knives are made of a very hard zirconium oxide (or zirconium carbide).  The blades are so hard that they will maintain a sharp edge for months (or years) with no maintenance at all.  The down side to ceramic knives is that they are more brittle than steel and require expensive sharpening tools.

Most knife marketing brochures will quote the Rockwell hardness of the steel.  The Rockwell hardness scale is a scale based on the indentation hardness of a material and determines the hardness by measuring the depth of penetration of an indenter under a large load compared to the penetration made by a preload. Therefore, the higher the Rockwell number, the harder the steel and the longer it will maintain a sharp edge (and the harder it will be to sharpen once it dulls).  In general, Japanese knives use harder steels than their western counterparts. Inexpensive mainstream knives are rated about 52-54HRC; better quality knives are 54-56HRC; high-end knives are anywhere from 56-61HRC and sometimes even higher.  Keep in mind that a difference of one on the Rockwell Hardness scale is quite significant.  Harder knives are usually more expensive because of their ability to maintain an edge longer and hold a more acute angle; conversely, one disadvantage is that harder steel is prone to chipping or breaking.

Forged vs. Stamped

Forging refers to the manufacturing process and is differentiated to “stamping”, the more common manufacturing process used today.  Stamped knives are cut from sheets of metal using a template of predetermined size and shape.  The process is usually quite quick and less expensive than forging.  Most stamped knives are generally flat and thin, as well as lighter than their forged counterparts.

A forged knife is an example of blacksmith art.  A single piece of steel is heated in the forge and the maker then pounds the steel with a hammer into the rough shape of a knife. The forged knife is heated again and more hammering follows. Several cycles of heating, cooling and hammering all serve to temper the steel and make the forged knife strong and not easily broken.  Finally, the blade is ground from spine to edge, creating a tapered blade.

As a general rule, forged knives will be higher quality than stamped knives and that’s simply because no manufacturer is going to invest in the time, labour and forging equipment to produce a poor quality forged knife.  However, at the high-end, stamped knives often outperform forged knives. Stamped knives are usually thinner than forged knives, meaning that they have a blade that effortlessly glides through meat, vegetables or fruit.  The difference is obvious if you were to cut carrots with a thick forged knife – such as a Sabatier, and a thin stamped knife, such as a MAC.  What you will notice is the forged knife wedges the carrot and causes the pieces to break off even before the edge of the blade reaches the cutting board.  With a MAC, the blade will effortlessly slice through the carrot without “breaking” them off.

The notion that a heavy knife is better than a light knife is also a misconception. Ultimately you should use what you feel comfortable using.  There’s a reason most Western chefs have moved toward lighter Japanese knives – using a heavy knife all day every day will often lead to repetitive strain injuries.  Japanese knives are much easier to use for extended periods of time.  For the home chef, the important thing is that you feel comfortable with the knife.

Take into consideration that there are big differences between different companies stamping processes.  For example, after stamping the stainless steel blank into the shape of the blade, the blade of a GLOBAL knife is heat-treated at 1000 degrees centigrade, before rapid cooling at minus 80 degrees ("sub-zero treatment" increases the hardness of the blade), then tempered once again passing through another heat treatment, which takes approximately four hours.  The whole process yields a different and superior result than the stamping of less expensive knives, like Victorinox. 

Last, the process used to manufacture our most expensive knives – the Kasumi – is unique and does not fall under the forged or stamped processes described above.  Kasumi knives are made using a traditional Japanese sword making technique that involves the repeated folding and forging of 32 layers of steel. The layers on both sides of the V-Gold No. 10 core are made by repeatedly folding together two different types of stainless steel and forge welding them by hand until you have sixteen exceedingly thin alternating layers. 

To read the srest of this article and download the full PDF by click here.

 

Mario Fiorucci
~ is the Co-Founder of The Healthy Butcher
www.thehealthybutcher.com


Comments (1)

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Hello there! I could have sworn I've been to this blog before but after ednriag through some of the post I realized it's new to me. Anyhow, I'm definitely glad I found it and I'll be book-marking and checking back often!
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