[ChrisLehrer]

Originally Posted by French Fries

I've spent hours reading countless threads on knives and my head is dizzy. All I wanted was to buy a knife!!

I know the feeling. First principle: calm down. In your price range, any knife that isn't actually a rip-off (and those are few) will be a good knife.

I've never sharpen a knife either, but I would like to learn. Still, I know I won't have a huge amount of time to sharpen my knives, so if one knife is faster to sharpen, or can hold an edge longer, it would be an advantage.

If you think sharpening sounds like fun, buy a good-quality Japanese knife. The steel is harder and arguably purer than almost all mainstream Western knives' steel, and will both take and hold a better edge. However, you will not be able to "steel" your knife, i.e. use one of those honing rods -- these are only advisable with softer knives. That means that when your knife does dull, you will need to use stones.

A home cook with passable cutting skills -- and even mediocre sharpening skills -- should not need to sharpen more than once every 2 months. But you will soon find that it is an absorbing hobby, and you start to get nuts about trying to get the sharpest edge in the universe. Be warned: it is an addiction!

I am not too sure what the differences between "high carbon" and "stainless steel" mean for knives: I keep reading high carbon knives require more maintenance but I'm not sure what exactly? Just keeping it dry and clean after each use? And if that's the inconvenient of a high carbon knife, what are the advantages?

High carbon steel will rust and stain if not properly treated. Stainless, which simply means that it's steel with an admixture of chromium and often other things like vanadium or molybdenum, won't unless you make an effort at it.

With carbon, every time you finish cutting something, you should wipe your knife with a damp towel. Really, you ought to do that regardless of the knife in order not to cross-contaminate flavors, but with carbon it can be important for preventing stains, pitting, and rust. Whenever you finish cutting for a little while -- like more than 15 minutes or so -- you must immediately wipe the knife thoroughly clean with a damp towel (or rinse or scour the knife) and then dry it very thoroughly with a dry cloth. This is essential: carbon steel can rust remarkably quickly. Although this same process is certainly ideal for stainless knives, it's not at all necessary: don't wash them in the dishwasher or anything, but such knives can wait until after dinner for cleaning. Carbon cannot.

The cleaning and drying process is quick and quickly becomes habitual. I have mostly carbon knives and love them. But it is mildly inconvenient, especially at first. And if you ever share your kitchen (and thus knives) with someone who might not have good habits, a carbon knife can get damaged very rapidly.

Initially, carbon knives also tend to stain certain foods, most notably members of the onion family, which can turn black after being cut. Quite quickly the blades develop a blue-gray patina, however, at which point they won't react with food any more.

The advantage of carbon is that within a given price range, in general, carbon knives tend to be made of better, purer steel, and are often harder as well. This means that they take a sharper edge, sharpen smoothly and quickly, and retain their edge better. But this is not an absolute rule: there are fabulous stainless steels that will beat most carbon hollow. And then there are carbon steels (no, they're not all the same either) that are truly spectacular in various ways. But now you're starting to talk about big bucks. In the $100-$150 range, for a 10" chef's knife, the steel will generally be better on a carbon knife, but a non-ripoff stainless knife will be excellent as well.

I would advise against carbon steel at this point in your knife career, as it were. Some time later, pick up a carbon petty knife, or perhaps a single-beveled Japanese knife like a deba or yanagiba or something, and see how you like it.

I went to "Sur la table" and tried three knifes: a Global, a Shun and a Wusthof. ...
• Togiharu Inox Steel Gyutou
• Inox Sabatier-K
• Carbon Sabatier-K

I really like the shape of the blade on the Sabatier, but I'm not really a huge fan of the bolster, which is why I'm considering the Togiharu - at the same time I guess I could get used to that bolster pretty quickly and I would probably be fine with it.

1. If you like the shape of the Sabatier, ditch the Wusthof (and Henckels as well) from your list. That shape is the French profile, which you also find on most Japanese gyuto.

2. If you are looking at Japanese, Global and Shun are overpriced but available in shops. If you are willing to buy online, the Togiharu is certainly superior.

3. The Sabatiers and Wusthof will be heavier than the Japanese knives. If you thought maybe you liked one of the Japanese knives in the store, I'd say go with the lighter Japanese style.

4. As someone already noted, the bolster gets in the way of sharpening. On a tall blade like a chef's knife, you are not likely to ding your finger on the heel of the blade, so it's really not necessary for safety (whereas on a paring knife, the first several times you use an un-bolstered blade you WILL ding your finger). On the whole, I think you are right to avoid it.

Result: I say get Togiharu if you can stand to buy a knife online. I know people -- serious knife crazies -- who think that knife is the single best entry-priced stainless gyuto on the market today.

Also, any idea on a beginner water stone and honing steel for my knife?

If buying Japanese, don't buy a honing steel, and don't use one either.

For a beginner water stone, I'd go with either a King 1000 stone or a King or Norton combination 1000/6000 stone. The combination is fun if you want to play with polishing, but it's totally unnecessary. The King 1000 is the single most popular stone in Japan, for good reason: easy, fast, durable, and cheap. If you put a good 1k edge on your knife, it will be sharper than anything you have ever likely handled, and it will have enough subtle "toothiness" to cut just about anything easily.

You will eventually need a coarse stone, but you won't initially. When you do, get something around 220 grit and don't get green carbide -- it wears much too quickly, so although it's cheap you quickly end up having to buy a new one and there go the savings. You might look into so-called oil-stones for this kind of coarse work -- use them dry or put water on them, not oil -- as they basically don't wear at all and can be quite inexpensive from your local hardware store.

How do I know if those (or other) knives have a symetrical V-shaped edge or an asymetrical "70:30" edge? I assume a V-shaped edge would be easier to maintain for a beginner?

Don't worry about it. This is almost entirely a non-issue, and should have not the slightest impact on your choice of a knife. Asymmetry is not going to make the knife steer noticeably when dealing with a really thin blade like the Togiharu has, and thick knives like Wusthofs don't come asymmetrical.

When it's time to sharpen, which may be immediately, that's when you'll find out the edge angles. Put one face on the stone and lift the spine slowly, looking very closely at the edge. At a certain point, that edge will just barely bite into the stone. That's the angle this bevel is sharpened at. Do the same on the other side. Either it's the same angle or it's not. Either way, sharpen at the angle you find, raise a burr, and so on. It's not a big deal.

If you decide you want to play with asymmetry and don't have it, or decide you hate it and have it, you can always re-profile the knife with your coarse stone. If you buy the Togiharu, it'll probably take about half an hour, maybe an hour at most if you're being hyper-careful. After re-profiling, you just sharpen normally on the higher-grit stone(s) and you're in business again, symmetry changed. Nothing is permanent.

Note that when you buy your knife, you'll first need to determine whether it's sharp enough for you. Try cutting a very ripe tomato and a rock-hard fresh onion. If the tomato squishes and/or the onion makes you cry a lot, it's not sharp enough. Not many knives really come sharp enough, often deliberately.