Home Hobby Cook, Looking for advice on selecting a new set of knives

Oooookay. You've got a very big potential budget, not a lot of prior knowledge (read: preconceptions, prejudices, etc.), and you want "the works," as it were.

 

Before we can help you effectively, a few questions:

 

1. Do you know how to sharpen a knife on a bench stone? Are you interested in learning (not willing but interested)? If not, are you willing to purchase a solid, not excessively expensive piece of equipment that will allow you to sharpen effectively? In short, are you willing to spend the time, one way or another, to get your knives seriously sharp and keep them so? NOTE: This is a serious question. Most people, pros and home cooks, are not willing to do this. If the answer is "no," that's fine -- but it affects what we're going to recommend.

 

2. How finicky, precise, perfectionist, fussy, etc. are you about treating your favorite tools? Some knives require attention right now, and some need that attention but can wait quite a while. Where do you stand on the "must deal with this now" sort of issue?

 

3. What sort of cutting do you do these days? What are you currently using for knives? You are apparently not fully satisfied with the knives you have, so why is that? Are there types of specialized cutting you'd like to do but currently can't do well?

 

4. Will your knives be yours or shared? If shared, where do the other users stand on this issue of perfectionism and immediate treatment? Is anyone likely to actually maltreat a knife (e.g. throw it in a dishwasher)?

 

5. Last but not least, can you give us a complete breakdown of everything you've got that you think, under some circumstances if we really really swore by it, you just might be willing to keep in your set? Everything: butcher's cleaver, paring knife, whatever.

 

I know that's a lot of stuff. But given that information, I bet we'll come in WAY below the budget you have in mind, and still have you a gleeful addict like the rest of us within 3 months. Welcome to crazy territory....

Another question as well:

What do you like to cook/eat/prepare?

If you are a vegetarian or mainly eat veges, it might influence the choice of knife.

Same if you would butcher your own meat or fish or do so on a regular base

This is the response that has made me happiest in quite a long time. What it says, gunner, is that we really can find ways to make you very, very happy with your knives. You have some great pleasures ahead of you, and I envy you the experience.

 

[Unfortunately, I can't get the darn editor to work, so rather than do the multi-color response thing, I've taken your remarks out of quote-block and will cite the way we do in the academy -- with quotation marks!]

"1. Do you know how to sharpen a knife on a bench stone? Actually No, I do not, I have never used a bench stone to my knowledge, (embarrassingly, I must admit I do not know what a bench stone is. I have used many various types and styles of stones over the years for my hunting/skinning/fishing knives...)Are you interested in learning (not willing but interested)? If not, are you willing to purchase a solid, not excessively expensive piece of equipment that will allow you to sharpen effectively? In short, are you willing to spend the time, one way or another, to get your knives seriously sharp and keep them so? NOTE: This is a serious question. Most people, pros and home cooks, are not willing to do this. If the answer is "no," that's fine -- but it affects what we're going to recommend. I will honestly say Yes I am willing, but no i am not interested in learning what I need to know to keep my knives correctly sharpened. I utterly hate having to sharpen my other blades, but yet I take pride in the fact that I can sharpen my knives to a "razor edge." In short, do I want to learn or do, No. Will I? Yes, I am a fanatic about taking care of my equipment."

A bench stone just means a stone that one puts on a table, bench, counter, whatever, and uses to sharpen. You do this, it seems, so no worries there. The point about this issue is that some of the knives you might potentially be interested in do not sharpen well with the various mechanical, electronic, jig, or whatever systems that are available. You know how to sharpen freehand, so that's a moot point.

 

"2. How finicky, precise, perfectionist, fussy, etc. are you about treating your favorite tools? As stated above I am a fanatic about care and proper maintenance. Some knives require attention right now, and some need that attention but can wait quite a while. Where do you stand on the "must deal with this now" sort of issue?-- I guess, would answer that by saying, if it needs it now, it gets it now, if not two days ago..."

Wonderful. This means that carbon steel is a real possibility for you. Most people will not live well with carbon, because when it must be dealt with it must be dealt with. If you are a finicky fanatical perfectionist, you will ADORE carbon.

 

"3. What sort of cutting do you do these days? What are you currently using for knives? You are apparently not fully satisfied with the knives you have, so why is that? Are there types of specialized cutting you'd like to do but currently can't do well?--- Don't laugh,  but I don't know what I do in the kitchen...I cook what i want when i want and do what i want when i want...I have zerooooo training in the kitchen, I am a total and completely self taught "cook" I like a lot of Italian, and Mediterranean food (your basic dishes) I Looooooove Japanese food, and have recently been slowly building a small supply of ingredients needed to start learning how to make Sushi, and other Japanese dishes (don't worry I wont start any of that until I know I wont poison myself or my wife lol)

My current knives: Please don't laugh at this: I make do with a small hodge podge set of knives..A block set of Faberware set of knives gifted to us, and a small set of Rada knives that I have been using since I was 8yrs old. ---they may be cheap, but by god they can achieve and hold an edge lol. "

I won't laugh, and I hope nobody else will either. What's to laugh at? I learned from books and practice. I used mediocre knives for years. Lots of folks here are in the same boat. What I wanted to know, and have now learned, is that there are some things you like to cut and play with. They'll set you back a little, money-wise, but nowhere near your budget. And since you have mediocre knives that will in some cases take an edge, you don't have to replace everything: if it'll take an edge, it's fine, providing it's a knife of a style where you don't gain much by anything but edge. More in a second.

 

"4. Will your knives be yours or shared? If shared, where do the other users stand on this issue of perfectionism and immediate treatment? Is anyone likely to actually maltreat a knife (e.g. throw it in a dishwasher)?. I am the only one that will ever use the knives I purchase, I have a deal with my wife, stay out of my kitchen and I'll stay out of your computer room LOL"

Wonderful: so it's just your fanatic lunacy we have to worry about. Perfect.

 

"5. Last but not least, can you give us a complete breakdown of everything you've got that you think, under some circumstances if we really really swore by it, you just might be willing to keep in your set? Everything: butcher's cleaver, paring knife, whatever....I have a small assortment of chefs blades ranging in sizes 5"-8" multiple paring knives,..... seriously I don't have crap. I have about 10 knives Total, that I use regularly. I don't see the need for me to have/ own a butcher's cleaver (feel free to correct me.)"

Gosh, you're in for a treat. You're so going to love this.

 

"I know that's a lot of stuff. But given that information, I bet we'll come in WAY below the budget you have in mind, and still have you a gleeful addict like the rest of us within 3 months. Welcome to crazy territory.... In complete and total honesty I am just a guy that likes to "cook" and make his meals as best he can, I live in an area where the groceries are the usual run of the mill "southern" fare. I order a lot of my supplies online and I experiment with things I watch on the food network....I'm a complete novice in the real world of cooking, but if i could I would love to learn every single thing I could about cooking....."

And you want to learn. Why don't I get students like you in my classrooms?

 

"I know I don't truly need an expensive set of knives, but...I would rather purchase one set of knives that will last "Forever", than keep buying knives over and over and over again...."

Wish I could grant you that wish, I really do. But there is no such animal. Fortunately, guys like you and me will seriously need to replace excellent knives once in an electric blue moon. You may have to, here and there, but it's not going to be often.

 

 

Okay.

 

 

Based on what you describe, you are a good candidate for a standard French-style set, Japanese-made, in carbon steel. That means a paring knife, chef's knife, and slicer. Because you have a large budget and an interest in sushi, I would advocate for a decent yanagiba rather than a French-style slicing knife. You almost certainly have no need for butchering knives, but it's possible that a fish-butchering knife would be useful -- you can answer that based simply on what you find in the market. Other than that, all you need is stones to take care of your knives.

 

Based also on what you say, I'm betting you have a perfectly workable paring knife and bread knife. These things don't need to be brilliant, they need to do their jobs and shut up about it, if you see what I mean. You've got knives that take and keep an edge, so you're done there.

 

Fish-butchering, well, it depends on whether you ever break down a whole fish. Probably not, is my guess, but if so let us know.

 

What's left? The slicer and the chef's knife, plus stones to take care of them. Whatever shall we do?

 

You're in luck.

 

Chef's knife, the core of your arsenal. Buy the best: your budget will handle it beautifully. I say get a Masamoto KS-3127, which is a carbon steel 270mm chef's knife. I can't resist car analogies, and you will think I am exaggerating, but I am not: you have been driving a beaten-up 1970s Chevy; the Masamoto is a 2011 Ferrari. Not kidding. You have no idea: this will change your sense of what a knife is. The problems with this knife are simple: it's carbon steel, so you must clean and dry it ASAP; it's expensive; and it requires reasonably regular hand-sharpening to keep it at its preferred level of utterly ludicrous sharpness. You pass with flying colors in every area: you are a perfectionist about tools (check on the carbon), you have a BIG budget that makes this thing look cheap, and you know how to sharpen a knife. Honestly, this thing will kick your [expletive].

 

Stones: that's easy. Beston 500, Beston 1200, Arashiyama or Takenoko 6000, and Naniwa Superstone 10,000. The Superstone is completely optional, but it's quite fun. You will also need about $15 worth of medium-coarse drywall screen for flattening, and a thick sheet of float glass, perhaps a foot on a side give or take, would be nice. That set will last you, oh, I'd say, no more than, roughly, 25 years.

 

Yanagiba Slicer: Here I am a little out of my depth, because I have little sense of what is on the market in the US at what prices. Putting together your Masamoto and your stones, I think we've hit roughly $650. I would not advise you to blow the remaining $850 of your low-end budget on one knife: you don't know how to cut with this kind of knife well enough to make that a sane investment. (Neither do I, let me note.) Nor do you know how to sharpen a knife like this well enough. (You have never sharpened a single-bevel knife, and they're funny.) So I say shoot for about $350, give or take, and insist on carbon steel. I would advise white steel, not blue, for a first knife like this: you'll learn faster, they're cheaper, and many pros swear by them anyway. Get the best white steel yanagiba you can, at 300mm, preferably with a saya (wooden sheath) and heavy handle (itchii oak or perhaps ebony), for something like $350. Save the remaining budget until you know what you want to upgrade, if anything. Just don't ever let this knife hit a bone or something really hard like a counter, OK? Sharpen it ludicrously, take care of it, and play sushi games often --- you'll fall in love. It's hard to explain, but these things are an awful lot of fun.

 

If you do need a fish-butchering knife, you want a 180mm deba, I'd say white steel, in the roughly $150 region. If in doubt, ask about brands, but any medium-high-end brand will do admirably.

 

The deal on carbon steel is simple: keep it clean and dry. That's it. When you finish cutting stuff, wipe it. When you're really done cutting everything, rinse with hot water and wipe it dry. If there's crud on it, or you're worried, lay the knife flat on its bevel so the edge is just touching your board, and scour with a ScotchBrite pad and a dab of dish soap -- water is unnecessary. Then rinse hot and dry. When you've finished cleaning the knife, do not put it in a saya (sheath) or a block immediately: put it somewhere out of the way, where people won't kill themselves with it, and leave it about half an hour so that the trace moisture evaporates. Then put it in a block or sheath. That's it. So long as you do this often, the knife will soon develop a gray-blue patina which makes it non-reactive to things like onions, and it will treat you well.

 

Otherwise, what I'm recommending to you will make for many hours of pleasure:

1. Masamoto KS-3127: ludicrously easy to sharpen to insane levels, perfectly shaped, one of the finest chef's knives in the world bar none;
2. Beston 500 & 1200, Arashiyama or Takenoko 6000, Naniwa Superstone 10,000: a fabulous set of bench stones, not advisable to someone who can't use them, but perfect for someone who can sharpen;
3. $350 white steel 300mm yanagiba: the greatest slicing knife in the world, ready for learning and not fetishizing, appropriate for replacement if you ever totally lose your marbles and start blowing bucks like the rest of us maniacs.
4. Sharpen up your paring knife, and if there's a utility knife (like a paring knife but maybe 6" or so long) sharpen that up too. They're useful.
5. Dig out some kind of bread knife: a good crust will eat a really scary knife-edge.

 

That's the list, from where I sit. And let me tell you --- you're going to love this!

Your answers to Chris's questions were very helpful.  Let me try to help with some of yours.

 

Making a Masamoto gyuto work for you as a lefty is no problem.  Generalizing, "converting" any "V" edged knife is almost always very easy, and sometimes easier than very.  Some knives don't even need it (Masamoto is kind of inconsistent about that) and you can't beat the joy of doing nothing.  Others, you can allow to sort of drift over by starting sharpening on the left side every time, sharpening until you get a burr, then only sharpening the right side until it just develops a burr without trying to even out the bevel widths (the second wire will draw with much less abrasion than the first).  A few knives come from the factory so right-handed though, you might want to move the edge over quite a bit when you first get it.  

 

Also, if the other cook in your kitchen is right-handed (like mine), you'll want tto sharpen your knives to neutral symmetry or an asymmetry which slightly favors the person with the least technique.

 

FWIW, I like the KS gyuto quite a bit, but I'm not sure that I'd recommend carbon (as opposed to stainless or semi-stainless) for you.  It's a little bit of extra PITA for a little bit of extra reward in terms of sharpening -- sometimes.  Some stainless and semi-stainless knives get just as sharp just as easily and there are a few which perform as well (and cost as much!) as the Masamoto. 

 

In your case, a yanagiba as one of your first good knives is probably a bad idea.  Good ones are expensive -- and the ones made for lefties are very expensive.   A yanagiba is a chisel edged knife (sharpened on one side only, pretty much) and is very awkward to use with the "wrong" hand.  You just won't get the value out of it that you can get out of a sujihiki (slicer) or pair of them.  A yanagiba is really a special purpose knife designed for portioning fish and made to work as part of a pair along with another chisel-edged knife called a deba (used for breaking down fish and other heavy work).  While sujis are a lot more versatile in general, great for carving, for trimming and for doing any slicing around bone.

 

The basic four knives are:  1.  Gyuto (aka chef's); 2.  Slicer; 3.  Petty (a knife which does multiple duties, functioning as a small slicer, boner, parer, etc); and 4.  Bread.  Almost everyone is well served by this type of set, and considering your ambitions as a cook, I think that with a couple of (affordable) additions.  That is, something heavy duty for splitting chickens, portioning ribs and the like, usually an ordinary European chef's knife will do those things very well; and perhaps a small parer if you like to use them.  In any case, you can always add knives when you feel the need -- but if you can keep these four ( or five or six) knives sharp, there's nothing you can't do.  That goes double for someone whose cooking is heavily western oriented.

 

When we talk about bench stones, we're usually talking about stones which are medium size or larger.  In other words, they're big enough that you'd leave them at home on your work bench rather than packing them in your tackle box, for instance.  In the case of man made Japanese water stones that's about 8" x 2" x 1/2" and above.  

 

I recommend the same first two stones as Chris (Beston and Bester), but would like to get a better sense of where you're going as a knife user and sharpener before recommending anything else.  Also, I've moved away from recommending the 8K and 10K SS stones -- even though I use an 8K SS myself.  The fine grit SS are tricky to use because they're so soft, and there are stones which do as well or better for a similar price.  Why buy the headache?

 

While you can spend more, it should be comforting to learn that you can easily fit knife and stone kits of the very highest quality into your budget.  You'll also need to so something about knife storage and at least one good cutting board -- shouldn't be much of a problem.

 

But before we go any farther, let's start with whether you want to use carbon, or would prefer to use something which requires a little less frequent maintenance.  With carbon, you'll be rinsing and wiping down every time you cut onions, citrus or anything else very reactive.  Some people find stopping to maintain the knife several times during prep to be annoying.  It doesn't bother me much, but it may bother you.  And, to be honest, I find my new, semi-stainless go-to gyuto (Konosuke HD) to be liberating.  If I were putting together a new knife kit from scratch, I'm not sure whether I'd buy a carbon chef's at all.  At any rate, be honest about what you want.  Don't try and shoehorn yourself into being the right person for a KS.  As I said before, it's a phenomenally good knife but there are a few others which are just as good.

 

It would also be helpful to find out where you intend to go in terms of knife skills as well.  Do you want a near-professional sort of mastery and are you willing to master the techniques?  Or, is good enough good enough?  This goes to what lengths chef's and slicer you'll want, and a few other things as well.  Judging from your current selection of knives, you're not in love with any particular profile -- so it's probably fair to consider you'll be thrilled with anything in the very good range. 

 

It also might be worth hearing that a good Japanese style ("wa") handle isn't inherently easier, harder, better or worse than a good, western style ("yo") handle -- at least not for anyone with a decent grip.  The rewards for good technique are the same, and the grip techniques themselves are essentially similar when they're not identical.  Most of the good cutters I know -- and I know a few who come from both Euro and Asian style handles -- don't change grips when they change handles.  For instance, I use the same soft pinch on any chef knife.  I'd like to know something about your grip technique(s), if only to help match you to a good handle.

 

Let's talk some more, 

BDL

Oh. When you said you were a perfectionist, I misread you. I suggested carbon because I thought you were going to be totally into rinsing hot and wiping immediately. If not, you do NOT want carbon. Hmm. I'm going to leave you with BDL, because I've asked all the framing questions, and everything beyond here depends on knowledge I don't have. I use carbon knives exclusively, so I'm kind of a zero when it comes to anything else. But I'll watch this conversation, just in case BDL goes mad and has to be jumped on firmly. You never know.

Your miyabi will arrive in a sturdy box. I recommend that you keep it tucked away in there at the end of service. keep it dry, because it will discolour, there's a lot of carbon in that blade. I use news paper twice a day to polish the edge. Stone sharpen every two weeks on progressive 800, 1000 , 5000. 15 degrees 50/50
these knives are a delight.

Look at Bob Kramer 10" Chef knife.

I have an 8" and a 10".

While they need to be washed and dried right after use, they are excellent in my kitchen.

I do not share my knives- my Bob Kramers live at home.

In my commercial kitchen we use: Henckels, Calphalon, Sysco, and Wusthoff knives that all go in the sanitizing dishwasher.