Wusthof Cook's Knives

[budrichard]

With the current emphasis by manufacturers on light weight knives with thinner blades, I purchased two Wusthof knives in the Cordon Bleu range.

The knives are pictured here with other Wusthof knives.

From left to right:

13" Bonesplitter 25.7oz

12" Wide Cook's 22.2oz

10" Wide Cook's 12.1oz

10" Cook's 9.7oz

10" Cordon Bleu 7.9oz

7" Cordon Bleu Santuko 5.8oz

The Bonesplitter is used as the name implies with the rear edge marked for splitting and the front edge marked for cutting. Useful for obtaining marrow and splitting lobsters among other things.

The 12" Wide Cook's is only useful for processing large amounts of ingrediants fast. you can line up 6 carrots and cut them all at the same time. Of course you need the strength to go with the blade.

The 10" Wide Cook's is what i use the most in the kitchen.

The 10" Cook's was my first Wusthof and will do just about everything you need a Cook's knife to do. The 10" Wide Cook's will just do it faster.

The 10" Cordon Bleu certainly subjectively seems to make cutting easier but the blade bends under some tasks such as pressing down on garlic cloves to make removing the skins easier. I haven't tried to process 4 or 5 carrots with it, but I think the 10" Wide will do the job easier, at least for me. I also am not sure what 'easier' means. It is all somewhat subjective. It does dice an onion very nicely.

The 7" Cordon Bleu Santuko is a joy to use to process small amounts of ingrediants for Asian style cusines. The blade is too flexible to ever be used for pressing down on things like garic cloves and I would not cut any type of bone with it. The 10" Cook's and above are better for those tasks.

As one can see, the blades definately get thinner and lighter as one goes to the right. The question is, when is light weight too light? I think your body type and the amount of processing you want to do at one time enter into the determination.-Dick

[Octaveman]

Good question and nice picture. Really shows the differences. My favorite Gyutos are not lightweight really but they are lighter than Euro knives of the same size. My two favs which are both 270mm (10.5") are 9.8 ounces and 10.5 ounces. I must say I can't really tell the difference between the two either in usage. A 240mm knife can only be so light so it would be impossible to compare one that is 6 ounces to one that is 11 ounces because the former just doesn't exist. I feel thickness is more of a factor in performance than weight even though they basically go hand in hand. One can say that the weight feels good to them but then feel the knife plods along during usage and just doesn't perform like a thinner knife would. Think of it as driving a van versus a sports car.

IMHO a thick(er) knife takes more force to slice through something than a thin knife. Factor in the level of sharpness and a knife's use could really be cumbersome or effortless. Knife skills I think are also a factor as it's hard to move quickly with a thick/heavy knife specially over long periods of time as you also pointed out. It's hard if not impossible to suggest that body type plays a factor because it is so subjective making it impossible for one person to change his/her body type for the test. A larger and heavier knife might suit a larger person better than a small/light knife but it comes down to how it feels and performs for that person.

Hope that all made sense...long day at work.