Comparing a few Japanese knives

[Fat Guy]

I've been thinking about possibly making a couple of new knife purchases. My friend Sean has acquired a diverse collection of kitchen knives over the course of a multi-year obsession. So we thought we'd take the opportunity this weekend to go through all his knives and make some comparisons. Here's the knife collection:

To break it down into two groups, going from left to right:

1. First two Chinese cleavers. Sean's friend brought these back for him from China so there aren't a lot of details available about them. This one is for vegetables.

2. And this is a Chinese cleaver for bone breaking and other heavy lifting.

3. The Ryusen Blazen gyuto in the 270mm size, from Epicurean Edge

4. Global 10.5" chef's knife

5. Henckels 4-star 10" chef's knife

6. Kumagoro hammered-finish gyuto, 240mm

7. Shun classic 8" chef's knife (Granton edge)

8. Henckels Professional S 8" chef's knife

9. Kasumi 180mm santoku

10. Takeda 180mm -- this is either a gyuto or a banno funayuki-bocho, we're not 100% sure and the shapes are quite similar

11. Wusthof Classic 9" slicer

12. Mac SB105 10.5" bread knife

13. Kikuichi Carbon Elite 240mm sujihiki

14. Henckels 4-star 8" bread knife

15. Another Henckels knife. As you might have deduced, Sean started his knife odyssey with a set of Henckels knives and has slowly retired them.

16. Tojiro DP honesuki 150mm

17&18. More Global knives

19. Shun paring knife (3.5")

20-23. Assorted paring and utility knives

24. A Japanese nikiri of unknown provenance, purchased in Asia

25-27. Henckels four-star santoku, utility and cleaver (up top)

Last night we performed some preliminary analysis and decided that there was no way to test every knife systematically without devoting an unreasonable amount of time to the project (and wasting a lot of produce). So using various criteria we narrowed the field to six general-purpose knives (well, five and we also threw in the nikiri for fun).

So that's knives 3 (RyuSen Blazen, $319.95 at Epicurean Edge), 4 (Global, $136 at EE), 6 (Kumagoro, $157.95 at EE), 7 (Shun, $128.95 at EE), 10 (Takeda, somewhere in the neighborhood of $210) and 24 (unknown Japanese nikiri, cheap).

This morning, our cooking project was making hash out of leftover prime rib plus potatoes, onions, garlic and parsley. These ingredients presented a good range of slicing and dicing opportunities, which actually turned out to be important in evaluating the knives.

In order to eliminate as many variables as possible, each knife (except the Blazen, which was already quite sharp, though later we sharpened it anyway) was freshly sharpened to Sean's best approximation of factory angles with the Edge Pro . . .

. . . and stropped with this thing:

Of course sharpening them all to identical angles may have been another way to go. Knife comparisons are fraught with this sort of uncertainty. For example, Cook's Illustrated I believe tests knives new out of the factory box. That makes sense for people who don't sharpen knives, but it also gives an inflated rating to a knife like a Forschner that comes extremely sharp from the factory but is only going to stay that way for a short while.

We started with about half a 20-pound sack of potatoes. (We didn't use them all in the hash!)

We very quickly gave up on the Global knife and the Japanese nikiri. They simply weren't in the same league as the rest of the knives. We used them a little more later on but it was immediately clear that they couldn't compete.

I had high hopes for the Kumagoro hammered-finish gyuto. And maybe if the task at hand had been making thin slices of meat, fish or tomatoes I'd have had a higher opinion of this knife. But for our tasks it was just awkward. It's a relatively thin knife and quite large, and the handle is offset more than I like. It's clearly a great blade but as a kitchen knife it didn't work for me.

I was initially disappointed with the Takeda gyotu. It wasn't long enough to do a good job cutting the potatoes lengthwise, especially with a pinch grip subtracting an inch or so from the usable portion of the blade. And I found the blade shape awkward for that task.

Both the Shun and the Blazen absolutely excelled at cutting potatoes. The extra weight of their blades really helped make chopping potatoes easy. And I liked the Shun D-shaped handle and the Blazen's typical Western handle better than the Japanese octagonal handles (though this matters less if you use a pinch grip).

When it came time to dice an onion, however, the Takeda made a huge comeback. It was by far the best knife for this task. Its thin, small blade made it very easy to cut thin slices in each direction.

The other knives were all good at the onion task, and the Shun was better than any other knife in the running (I tried a whole bunch of them) but the Takeda was in its own league. I had not anticipated that there would be such a difference in usability from task to task. I guess I should have known that was going to happen, but I didn't.

For the remaining tasks -- mincing garlic, slicing and dicing the cold leftover beef and chopping parsley -- the larger, heavy knives (the Shun and the Blazen being the only ones surviving until this point in the experiment) were best. The Shun was surprisingly competitive with the Blazen, given that the Blazen is a much more expensive knife and that most every knife aficionado will tell you the Blazen is a better knife. I was nonetheless very pleased with the Shun in most every way.

The hash came out really well, by the way.

As a side note, using the Henckels knives side-by-side with these better knives is very revealing. The Henckels knives are just not playing on the same field. The only advantage I can think of in favor of a Henckels knife is that you can beat on it more freely than you can a harder (and therefore more brittle) Japanese knife. Still, the Shun and Blazen were plenty beefy, it seemed, for long hours of heavy chopping. I didn't have my Wusthof chef's knife with me for this but I think the Wusthofs are better than the Henckels knives -- but still not on par with something like the Shun.

On the one hand, I felt I learned a lot from the experiment. On the other hand, it didn't give me the one-knife answer I was looking for. If I had to choose one all-around knife, taking cost into account, I'd choose the Shun. But I'd rather also have the Blazen and the Takeda. And if I had both of those I might not need the Shun as much. But it would be a much more expensive proposition. I think I see a Shun in my future.

[Country]

Thanks for the report FG. I actually made a roast beef hash last night out of leftover beef from Christmas (a beautiful 4# piece of boneless rib; plus potatoes, carrot (1#), onions, and garlic - all homegrown - and a little worcestershire sauce. By coincidence, I even cooked my hash in the same All-Clad pan you used. Well, not literally.

Anyhow, I used all Wusthof's - 10" Chef's, 8" carver, and the little 2 1/2" trimming knife for getting much of the fat trimmed out (all Classics). It went pretty well, and the hash came out good.

So my question is, since you mentioned your Wusthof, do you think it would be worthwhile for someone with a limited budget to buy one of those Shun knives?

PS. How did you like the handles on those knives?

Edited December 28, 2008 by Country (log)

[Fat Guy]

So my question is, since you mentioned your Wusthof, do you think it would be worthwhile for someone with a limited budget to buy one of those Shun knives?

I think there's little question that a Shun is a step up from a Wusthof Classic. The only arguable advantages I can think of on the Wusthof side are that 1- they're probably a bit more resilient when it comes to something like chopping through bones, and 2- they're surely easier to sharpen (though they have bolsters, which is a disadvantage when sharpening). As to whether that's worth the price of a Shun when you already have a Wusthof, well, I'm grappling with that very question myself. Certainly, you can have a long and happy cooking life with just Wusthof knives. But the Shun knives are better.

PS. How did you like the handles on those knives?

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I don't like the traditional Japanese octagonal handles very much. I like the D-shaped handle on the Shun a lot, though I think Western handles are the best. Handle preference are really personal, though. Also, it matters how you grip your knife. If you use a pinch grip the handle becomes much less relevant. If you grip the actual handle the shape of the handle is more important.

[Starkman]

Thanks a lot for for the information!

Starkman

[nickrey]

Thanks for the very informative post. What a knife collection!

When looking for a Japanese knife, I was very attracted to the Shun but being a left hander in a right hander's world quickly found that the knife was not set up for left handed use (I know you can order left handed versions of some Japanese knives but did not choose to take this option).

As a consequence, I went with a Kasumi Chef's knife that can be used either left or right-handed and have been very happy with it.

Further to your point on grip preference when I started using the Kasumi, it felt awkward after using Western grips for many years. After adapting my grip slightly through trial and error it seems to feel much more natural that the Western grips ever did.

[Hiroyuki]

Thanks for the thread. Silly me, I hadn't realized until I read it that "Shun" is a brand of the Japanese manufacturer, Kaijirushi (better known as Kai overseas?). After a few searches, I also learned that this brand is for export only, and is not available in Japan. I don't mind because other cheaper brands of that manufacturer are good enough for me. I have two Kaijirushi knives, a deba and a sashimi slicer.

[paulraphael]

I think a couple of German knives are definitely worth having. When it comes time to chop chocolate, whack the head off of a trout or bronzino, bone a chicken, etc., a tough knife is a good friend. There are specialized Japanese blades for all these things, but unless there's a task you're doing all day long, there's little disadvantage to a single go-to chef's knife that can take all kinds of abuse.

It's also really nice to have a chef's knife you can hand to a guest if they want to help out. Hardly any of my friends with pro cooking experience know how to use a really sharp knife without destroying it. None of my amateur friends has a clue. The solution is to have a tough knife that you don't have to hide.

It sounds like you've discovered the problem with knife comparisons. The only way to really know a knife is to live with it and use it for a while. With repeated sharpenings you'll find an edge geometry that works best. And with repeated use you'll find a set of techniques that works best. Any attempt to use a new knife the same way as the ones your used to, or the same way as the ones your testing against, sets up an artificial situation. Of course, some knives will immediately reveal themselves to be crap, either through use or through attempts to sharpen them. But the good knives are more often separated by subtleties.

I said in a recent thread that a knife is really just a medium for your sharpening and cutting techniques. It's not much on its own. I traded up to my latest 270mm gyuto about three months ago. I liked it immediately, but its real value has been the continuing education it gives me in cutting and sharpening. Every time I take it to the stones I push it toward a higher performance geometry. And every time I cut with it I work to refine my technique. In a year or so it should be a pretty good knife, and I should be pretty good at using it! Then I'll be able to compare it to something else.

[Conal]

Properly sharpened that Blazen should handily out perform the Shun.Blazen are made from SG2 powdered steel and could easily take a 10 degree angle.The Shun on the other hand is VG10.I've tried it at 10 deg but the steel just wasn't up to the task.15 degrees seems to be the better option for a Shun.Wustof and Henkles are just awful with their factory edge of around 23 to 25.

Edited December 29, 2008 by Conal (log)

[paulraphael]

Properly sharpened that Blazen should handily out perform the Shun.Blazen are made from SG2 powdered steel and could easily take a 10 degree angle.The Shun on the other hand is VG10.I've tried it at 10 deg but the steel just wasn't up to the task.15 degrees seems to be the better option for a Shun.

This is exactly the kind of thing it takes some time to figure out. It's not just about the steel, but about how the manufacturer forged and heat treated it.

Also, what angles a knife will take depends on who's using it (and a bit on who's sharpening it). There are some who sharpen knives like my gyuto to 5° on a side. They must have flawless and delicate cutting techinque. I have a feeling that I'm too hamfisted to get away with it. I also doubt my sharpening skills are good enough ... if my margin of error is plus or minus a couple of degrees, then aiming for 5° is bound to be a disaster. Trying to balance caution and adventure, I go a little thinner and a little more asymmetrical with each sharpeinging session, and wait to find out how far I can go.

[whatsaMcGee]

You might want to consider getting the Blazen from JapaneseChefsKnife.com. They still sell the old Blazen, which is made of SRS15. SRS15 is very comparable to SG-2, as both are hardened to about 63 HRC. The JCK version is almost $60 cheaper and shipping is $7 (from Japan no less!) compared to $12-13 from EE.

Edit to say that I have owned both the EE and JCK versions and can personally vouch for the two being basically identical in performance.

Edited December 29, 2008 by whatsaMcGee (log)

[Fat Guy]

Blazen are made from SG2 powdered steel and could easily take a 10 degree angle.

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We are setting up the Edge Pro and aligning to the black dot in preparation for putting a 10-degree (each side) edge on the Blazen.

[Fat Guy]

We have learned respect for the Blazen's steel. It has taken almost an hour of gentle coaxing with the 120 stone to raise a burr on a 10-degree edge. Now we're going to run it through the rest of the sequence, which should be much more straightforward. Later, when it's time to prepare dinner, we'll chop some potatoes and such.

[Fat Guy]

As Conal suggested, the 10-degree angle made a huge difference. So much so that it immediately ended the experiment: the Blazen sharpened to a 10-degree angle is such a formidable cutting machine that it completely outclassed every other knife we tried. Which reinforces the point that evaluating knives out of the box with factory angles only tells you how knives cut out of the box with factory angles. So my current opinion is that for someone who is going to use factory angles there's little point in upgrading from a Shun to a Blazen, but if you're willing to put in time with the Edge Pro to redefine the edge of the Blazen it's a superior knife. How well that 10-degree edge will hold up is an open question. (We also didn't try sharpening the Shun to 10 degrees but we didn't think that was worth the time.)

[Octaveman]

A word about the Takeda. Like you said it was too short but it is with question on par with Blazen performance and bevel angle wise. Takeda's out of the box angles and sharpness are the most acute you'll ever find. If I recall correctly they are close to 7* per side on average for a gyuto. Too bad it wasn't longer as it certainly can't compete in this manner at this length with 270's. It makes for a completely different knife. If you had a 270, I think you would've found it a tie with the Blazen if not on top from a performance standpoint. But there's the issue with the traditional handle you didn't care for.

[Octaveman]

How well that 10-degree edge will hold up is an open question.

If it doesn't hold up well you can put a micro bevel on it to give it some strength. Many people will sharpen their knives very thin to increase it's performance then increase the angle 5* and make a few swipes giving it a micro bevel.

[Fat Guy]

The thinness, lightness, blade shape and handle design of the Takeda ruled it out, for me, as a general-purpose knife. So a bigger one probably wouldn't have appealed to me -- I'd have likely discarded it along with the Kumagoro. The small Takeda proved great for dicing onions and, later, for slicing tomatoes -- precision tasks that don't require much force, rock chopping or blade length. I would really like to have a Takeda in that size just for those tasks. (This particular knife actually came from Takeda at a knife show, so Takeda did extra sharpening at the time.)

[paulraphael]

Here's a test that shows off some of the less expected benefits of a sharp knife. I'm sure all the knives in Steven's arsenal would do well at this, but most of the knives I've seen in home kitchens and even pro knife bags would fail miserably.

All I did was slice up a pear. I didn't eat it, because it was mushy and flavorless (is anyone else having a hard time finding good ones this season?)

Instead of tossing it, I spread out the slices and let them sit at room temperature, to see how long it would take them to brown. Back before I learned to sharpen knives, pears would start to brown in under 10 minutes.

These are my slices after 36 hours:

They're drying out, and have just started browning around the edges. They're only really brown on the inside at the top and bottom, where I did a less than delicate job of coring.

The moral of the story is that sharp blades do less damage to your food. You'll serve meals with better texture, appearance, and flavor.

Some foods, like herbs, require excellent technique in addition to a sharp knife, but a monkey can slice a pear. This was all about the blade.

The knife used has a carbon steel edge sharpened freehand to around 9° per side, and thinned to a very accute angle behind the edge. Last sharpened a week and a half ago. It did all the prep for the holiday meals, and was touched up lightly on a steel afterwards.

[jsmeeker]

How did you decide on an angle for sharpening the Shun?

I've been drooling over this knife ever since I saw one a few years ago. You are using the Apex system to sharpen, so I'll assume that it is up to the task of sharpening the Shun properly (and hopefully, without too much effort or risk of damaging the knife). Did you use Chad's "An Edge in the Kitchen" for guidance?

[Fat Guy]

How did you decide on an angle for sharpening the Shun?

←

With a magic marker, finding the factory angle and following that.

[nakji]

This has been an incredibly useful topic for me to read through. Sadly, I feel, it has almost talked me out of purchasing a Japanese knife. I live in Japan, and use a basic knife that I purchased at a home furnishing shop. I'm fairly happy with it, as I'm a beginner cook, but I had thought since I was living here, now would be a good time invest in a fine knife. I don't do any major butchering - I get the fishmonger and butcher to cut things down as I like; but I do dice a lot of onions, and generally chop a lot of vegetables. I'd like a tool that would make that task go faster and more efficiently. I can see by the pear photo above that a good knife clearly makes a difference in the final product. However, I can't see myself investing much in the way of sharpening technology right now, and extensively messing about with angles and such. Currently I use a hand-held sharpener, which sharpens my knife a little, but I'm sure not very well.

I'd like a basic knife, one for a beginner cook and sharpener. From Steven's assessment, I'm drawn to the Shun, and I see from Hiroyuki's post that it's sold under a different name here. Is it worth my while to upgrade, and what sort of knife would be suitable for me?

[Hest88]

Since Nakji has pulled this thread up again, I might as well butt in. ;-) I just got a Tojiro DP gyuto 270mm--my first Japanese knife (in part because it was well-priced) and designed to be my main chef's knife. I'm terribly lazy though, but I can't justify buying an Apex right now, so now I'm trying to figure out the most economical way for routine maintenance in between trips to a professional.

I'm used to sharpening my Chinese cleaver on a two-sided stone inherited from my mom, but I understand that may be too crude for this knife. From my research it looks like I should go for a HandAmerican rod but they seem to be out of stock. The only one currently listed on http://www.japaneseknifesharpeningstore.com is the Steatite Honing Rod which, I believe, is not the "glass smooth" one or the borosilicate one discussed in threads from a year ago. Is the steatite rod suitable or is there a substitute I should get (like those Idahone Ceramic Rods)?

[mtigges]

I can't justify buying an Apex right now, so now I'm trying to figure out the most economical way for routine maintenance in between trips to a professional.

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My recommendation, get a ceramic hone from: edge pro

[Hest88]

My recommendation, get a ceramic hone from: edge pro

Thanks! Done and done!

[KLwood]

We have learned respect for the Blazen's steel. It has taken almost an hour of gentle coaxing with the 120 stone to raise a burr on a 10-degree edge. Now we're going to run it through the rest of the sequence, which should be much more straightforward. Later, when it's time to prepare dinner, we'll chop some potatoes and such.

←

He may want to consider the Diamond Hone available from Edgepro.. Its great for harder steels

[paulraphael]

I'm used to sharpening my Chinese cleaver on a two-sided stone inherited from my mom, but I understand that may be too crude for this knife.

I wouldn't assume that the stone is too crude. Are you happy with the results you get on your cleaver?

The ceramic rod is actually a cruder approach, because it takes off metal like a medium grit stone, but is more difficult than stones when it comes to keeping your bevel angle constant.

If the stone you have works but doesn't give as high a level of polish as you'd like, then you can supplement it with a finer grit waterstone.

The cermic rod can be good for touch ups between real sharpenings ... just be sure to use a VERY light touch. maybe one or two swipes with barely perceptible pressure on each side. Nothing like what you see french chefs doing on tv.