Knifemaker Explains The Difference Between Chef's Knives | Epicurious

I'm Will Griffin, I'm a knife maker. The knife is the most important tool a

chef

uses. A

chef

's knife is the most versatile knife in the kitchen. If you have to buy a knife, make it a chef's knife. First let's talk about steel. This knife here is Japanese made in Western style. You can see it has a lot of similarities to the Wusthof here, which is German. The big

difference

between these two is that this knife is made of carbon steel, high carbon steel, not stainless steel. Steel, this knife will react with the environment so it will patina and darken over time and potentially rust as well.

The patina on this steel here is from six or seven years of use in a professional kitchen, whereas the stainless steel knife doesn't get patina. or rust over time under most normal circumstances the reason you might choose a carbon steel knife carbon steel is easier to resharpen and many people, myself included, prefer the aesthetics of a knife that fits to its environment over time. The next thing to talk about is toughness. of steel, you can control the hardness of the steel based on how you heat treat it as part of the knife-making process. Here you have a knife made in Japan with a very high level of hardness in the steel.

The benefits are that it holds its edge longer, so you don't need to sharpen it as often. The disadvantage is that the edge is more brittle. Here I have an example of a very hard knife that I dropped on the kitchen floor and the tip broke immediately. The Wish Toff is a good example of a knife that is a little softer. That also has its advantages and disadvantages, so softer

knives

will not retain the edge for as long, but the edge will not chip as easily and the entire knife in general. It will be more resistant to knocks and abuse if you were to drop it on your kitchen floor the tip would bend and you could probably bend it back so the next thing to talk about is the shape of the blade so this type of profile o the shape of the blade that is very flat along the edge is very well designed for slicing and for cutting things on a cutting board so the German style profile with a very rounded belly is much more designed for cutting this way on the cutting board to balance that curved belly, if we're just talking about European style blade shapes now, you've got the German one here and then here's this French chef's knife and you can see the

difference

in these profiles, so that the French chef's knife is a little bit more It's similar to the Japanese one in that it's quite flat and tends to be a little bit narrower, it's still rounded here, so it can still do that, but the fact that it's so straight in The back tells me that it is also designed for many cutting and push cutting techniques as well.

Next, let's talk about the thickness of the sheet. Here is an example of a knife made in Japan that is very thin. The thinner the knife, the better it will be for most cutting tasks. The only downside to a thin knife is that it can be more delicate when you start talking about more robust foods, anything where it might bump into a bone or something like that, you know this knife is not the knife for that job, an element of the thinness is that it doesn't have a lot of weight behind it which can be an advantage or a disadvantage, it's nice to have something that's light if you're cutting all day but also sometimes you feel like a little more weight can help you get through things and then the other example is the wusthof here it is much thicker in the cross section, thicker in the spine but also thicker in the edge, the thicker knife will work better in situations where there is more tension on the blade, one It's not necessarily better than the other, but I will say that in general, if you can cook delicately, then you should choose the thinnest knife that works for you because the thinner the knife, the better it will move through the food. meal.

Let's talk about double bevel

knives

versus single bevel knives. This is a Japanese. Unique bevel knife made, the bevel refers to the part of the knife that is ground on a grinder to the cutting edge and you can see that there is a line which is the transition between the bevel and the top of the knife, so it has a bevel on the right side but it does not have a bevel on the back essentially it is flat although it is actually concave there are many benefits of knives like this they cut extremely well these knives are ideal for cutting raw fish that is why sushi chefs use those sashimi knives there is nothing like them in the world but there are a number of disadvantages with these types of knives, the edges tend to be very very delicate because of how thin they are and it takes some learning and experience to know how sharpen this type of knives. knives because it is a completely different sharpening technique than double bevel.

Another tricky part about these single bevel knives is that when you cut, the cut tends to move away from the bevel, the knife just wants to turn a little to the left. You can adapt to it and adjust your technique and you can do it, but a double bevel knife will cut straight down, there's a small bevel here and a small bevel here and it's ground equally on both sides. The benefits of that are a bit more. meat right on the edge of the knife, making it a little more robust, they are also easier to sharpen.

Another feature of these single bevel knives is that they are one handed, so this is a right handed knife, the handle is shaped to suit your needs. a right handed grip and that the blade is also right handed so the bevel is on the right side and the recess is on the left side so it is designed for a right handed person to cut this way. a left handed knife would have the bevel on the left and the gap here and the person would cut this way if you are left handed be careful before you buy one of these so let's talk about the blade length 240 millimeters or let's say 9 inches up to around 10 inches is a very common size for professional cooks.

A larger knife can be good for processing many ingredients quickly. You can line up more things on your cutting board and finish faster. A larger knife has some disadvantages are that they tend to be heavier because there is simply more steel there. They can also be overkill if you have a small space. If you're using a small cutting board, I'd say the most common size chef's knife out there is probably around an eight-inch chef's knife. knife, so this is the eight inch wusthof, here is another eight inch knife, the Japanese made knife, which is a great size for most things and a lot of people in restaurants also use this size, but also I think there's something to be said for a knife that's smaller than eight inches, so here's the six inch wusthof chef's knife and I think it's a great size for people who have limited space.

You feel like you have more control over a knife this size, especially towards the tip of the knife. I have more precise control over that area than when I hold a knife like this and the tip is very far away from where I'm holding it, so if you're chopping shallots doing a finer job, a small knife is great and this is also plenty enough big enough to chop carrots, do whatever, so if you don't do hours and hours of prep work at home, the savings that come with a smaller knife might be something to think about and move on to the mangoes first.

Talk about tang design, so here's a chef's knife made in Japan that features a hidden tang-style construction in the handle, meaning the steel of the blade extends part of the way into the handle and then is usually stick there and then there's a handle. material that is shaped on top of that, here's an example of a hidden tang knife without a handle, so it gives you a good idea of ​​what's going on inside the handle of a hidden tang knife and then if you compare the hidden tang with the full tang knife here is the wusthof again the steel extends the entire length of the handle and then there are just two flat handle scales that are glued and riveted to that steel so there is a lot more mass and material here on the handle and that tends to move the weight of the knife towards the handle one difference to maybe think about is that the hidden tang blade design is a little less suitable for very heavy duty applications.

I would say it is not designed to be stabbed into the cutting board, a full tang design is much sturdier in that area, you could be a little rougher with the knife and not worry about the handle coming apart with the tang to most kitchen applications. I wouldn't say there is a huge difference in quality or strength between these two types of knives with handle designs. manufacturers use many different materials for their handles again it is a matter of preference this particular knife this is a victorinox its handles are made of this fibrox material a very food service oriented knife it is easy to wash it is certified not to harbor bacteria and things like that, which are important in institutional type of kitchens, so the material has to adapt to the environment it is used in, there is also a possibility that they use just a black plastic material, it is a man-made material which is basically indestructible, very easy to maintain.

No warping, shifting or sizing of a large material for easy maintenance. I would say here is a handle that has a very similar design to the wusstof but this is the old French chef's knife and this is when they still used wood in their handles so it requires a little more maintenance than the man made material. A wooden handle may be appropriate for someone who appreciates the beauty of the natural material and its uniqueness. No two pieces of wood are exactly the same, so there is some element of nature. his way to the knife, which I appreciate.

There are a wide variety of handle shapes. The most important thing when it comes to choosing the shape of your knife handle is to put it in your hand and see how it feels. One feature of these is this flared end of the handle that tends to hold your hand in place and then you have a little bit of a swell here that conforms to the palm. If you look at the sabatie, the French version, you can see the similarities, but small differences, they both have the swelling here at the end, but this one is a little narrower, a little straighter, you can even bring a western style chef's knife, but made in Japan, they have adopted a similar handle profile, just a little more angular.

I would say, but it has the same swelling there, so it's a common feature and then you can go to something like this, this is a chroma chef's knife and they've designed something interesting here where the handle and this blade are one. integral piece of steel, a knife like this that I would definitely like to keep before purchasing one just to make sure it is comfortable for me when cooking. There are two main ways to hold a chef's knife. It holds up this way for heavy duty work. cutting and then you hold it this way with your fingers up pinching the blade and that's for finer work so this brings us to a discussion about the balance of a chef's knife.

I would say that balance is largely a matter of personal preference and when talking about balance in general, we are referring to where the knife is balanced from this end to this end. If a knife has a heavier blade, it tends to balance out here. If a knife has a heavier handle, it tends to balance somewhere along the handle. This knife has a lot of blade. Heavy Some people prefer a knife with a heavier handle Some people prefer a knife with a heavier blade A knife that balances on the front of the hand where the index finger is tends to be a knife that feels balanced if the point of balance out long here and I'm holding the knife here, it's going to be a very heavy feeling knife if the balance is too far back here, it's going to feel like it takes a lot of extra work to get it to go this way, so generally you want look for a balance close to where you hold it with this first finger and both knives are close to that, this one is a little bit in front, this one is a little bit behind where that first finger is, but they're still generally balanced that way.

Another part of the handle to consider is the reinforcement. If you look at this knife, you can see that this knife has a bolster. The reinforcement is this steel that is around the heel. blade that kind of transitions into the handle here, if you take a look at one of the knives that I made, there's no bolster here, so it's just the steel of the blade the difference now is kind of a safety feature, the Reinforcement prevents the finger from slipping up. here and nicking the heel of the blade, which seems to be the main function of what the brace is supposed to do, but which also has a very serious drawback: it becomes very, very difficult to sharpen this blade all the way. very corner without reinforcement you can get your fingers closer to where the blade is, while thisknife doesn't have a sharp edge on the corner so I can't use it for anything, while this knife I can use this sharp corner to do things, those are the main differences, as we have seen, there is a lot of variety in the materials, the design and the construction of chef knives, so when it comes to choosing one, it is important to find a knife that you connect with because you will be the one using it and the more you like using it, the more you will be in the kitchen and the more you will enjoy it. you will have fun