CHEF KNIFE BONANZA from $3 to $300+ - WHAT SHOULD YOU BUY?

what's up folks my name is Justin kana welcome back or a very warm first welcome if this is your first time stopping by I'm gonna try something new with this video I've been reaching out to a ton of really awesome makers and there's also been a couple of brands that have reached out to me wanting me to talk about their knives so I've got a bunch of them on hand and I want to do kind of a side-by-side breakdown of knives chef's knives specifically from a bunch of different price points from three dollars all the way up to like three hundred and thirty dollars and at the end of it all make it possible for you to possibly win a new piece of gear for yourself why I say this video is different is because I'm gonna be making every single knife that I talk about in this series its own little mini video to help with Google's search function on YouTube but first a little bit about how I evaluate knives to me and this is my personal opinion when you're making a purchase of a new knife there's two really important things to consider how does it look on paper and how does it feel when you use it so that first category breaks down into handle the steel the profile the edge the artistic details that they'll add and then of course the price and that second category will break down into balance wait how does the forum feel in your hand does it make you go faster or slower does it cause any discomfort and how does it sharpen you can hopefully see that that first category is essentially everything you would learn online or in a catalogue about a knife you could do all the research in the world about the steel alloy they use and the handle materials and the edge geometry but that second category is that very human factor that genesee qua about a knife that until I get my hands on it I can't tell you exactly how it's gonna feel for me and it's something you should also take into account with anybody else on the internet who does a knife review it's one of the reasons I love buying knives in person so much as opposed to online because someone could tell me that this knife is the best knife on the planet but if after chopping parsley for a couple minutes my middle finger starts to cramp up yeah that well regardless I still feel like I can bring some value through a little bit of a breakdown and I want you folks to get a shot at upgrading your setup so here we go this is the Mercer m23 five one zero chef's knife from their Renaissance line it is an 8 inch chef's knife with a pretty classic western-style handle this is made from Delrin which was actually made by the DuPont company as a metal substitute so it's very sanitary gets that NSF stamp of approval it's also water-resistant and heat resistant these rivets attach the handle to the full tang as well they're using a high carbon German x50 CRM v15 alloy the edge says tapered round which on paper sounds super fancy but I would just be very careful if you're gonna take this knife out of the box and use it and then be disappointed that after you sharpen at the edge feels a little bit different because unless you have the same machines that they are using to get this tapered round edge on it it's gonna feel a little bit different after you sharpen it for the first time so just be aware of that speaking of sharpening this edge goes all the way down to the length of the heel so there's no none of that edgeless heel garbage so you can sharpen the entire length of this blade there's currently retails at about $35 but I've got it linked up down below for the most up-to-date prices the shape is nothing fancy if I'm comparing it to something like the Victorinox it's maybe just a few millimeters wider the handle doesn't come all the way up onto the knife as well so if depending on the way that you hold it that can be good or bad as far as any artistic details on this knife they've got the knife and honing rod logo there with their own branding on it so that's about all you're gonna get so my thoughts on this this is a utilitarian knife this is often frequently found in the culinary school student starter pack is the steel bad no can you get it sharp yes but it's not gonna last as long as some other knives you can get at that price point though it's pretty good but it's definitely not gonna be the sexiest knife in your kids I have a friend that cooks with this knife so I've used it before it's relatively well-balanced but the handle is very thin so I find that I have to choke up on the handle quite a lot which isn't the most comfortable especially for long cutting sessions but again I've used this knife before so I'm not gonna unbox it so that if you do win it you get the one that's fresh out of the box if you're just starting off or need a spare knife or you're wanting to get into something like a Hankel or a wuss top at a discount the mercer renaissance is a good choice these are Dell strong knives this is one of those products that when I unboxed it on Twitch you folks are very quick to make sure that you gave me your two cents on the product which I sincerely appreciate definitely made me feel old because I haven't done a lot of research on these up-and-coming Chinese brands and I had no idea that they were one soap cooler and too so controversial and if you don't know about Dell strong it's one of those companies that's part of the new wave of Chinese manufacturers who is essentially taking everything that the lay man knows about knives wrapping it all up into one product throwing some really savvy marketing behind him slashing the price to like head tilting levels and then providing really insanely good customer support and after doing some reading and research and interacting with a couple of the guys over at Dell strong I can see why they've had such insane success but you want to know is the knife dope or no first up I've got their gladiator series I'm gonna keep this super short here's all the info for that knife if you've want it go ahead and comment down below I want the gladiator and the first person to comment down low will get it and that pearl log may lead you to believe that I don't enjoy this knife and you'd be a hundred percent correct in assuming that it's got a stupid edgeless heal the handle unnecessarily curves which looks really sexy on paper but when you're actually holding it it's not comfortable at all it's full tang but the Tang goes all like look how much metal is on the other end of this knife the balance is just not good the only thing that's good about this knife is the cover and that is a saya that doesn't have any pins in it it just slides in and it Clips right on it works great the saya is great the knife sucks alright moving on next up is their Shogun series I've got their series X chef's knife here as well as the keiretsu cake from the Shogun series I wanted to compare these two side-by-side the Shogun is arguably the most popular series in their line because it's Damascus everybody loves Damascus this is a 66 layer high carbon stainless steel which if you can see by the differences in the Damascus the cure Itsuki looks like it's almost etched on whereas this looks like an actual Damascus but when I reached out and asked it about being a fake a rep said to confirm the steel used in our cutting core is this kind of steel with all these kind of breakdowns and they do say that this steel has a 62 Plus rockwell hardness so it is apparently very very hard the only difference other than the profile of these is that the Series X is actually hammered which is designed to make sure that food doesn't stick when you're cutting through it it doesn't stick to the blade which worked pretty well in my opinion but that's not to say that the keiretsu K did have problems with foods too to it so only get it if it's something that you're into I actually found that the hammered finish was kind of harder to keep clean because the hammered spots are actually really really deep so instead of that traditional one swipe through the towel that you'll normally do to clean your knife I had to like rub it down to actually get the knife clean between use moving on to the handle this is a g10 fiberglass it almost looks like carbon fiber when you take a look at it and it does have this really beautiful copper and brass decorative pin in the center all of the sizes that come with the Shogun's series are traditional plastic style sizes with a pin and a string attached so that's a nice touch the angle that they're giving you right out of the box is a 8 to 12 degree angle from what they're saying now for my thoughts and my review on the Shogun's series and dowel strong knives in general and feel free to take this with as many grains of salt as you need I find that when I bring up the word Dow strong people fall into one of three camps there's the diehard haters over priced Chinese company Japanese wannabes poor quality materials no craftsmanship and then there's the home cooks who are just stoked AF that you can get a knife that looks like this and performs the way that it does and is made with these kinds of materials at a cost that is two to four times cheaper than what they're used to when they've done their research on another company like a shewn and then there's that third camp of people who walk in super skeptical get their hands on a dowel strong knife and walk away pleasantly surprised and I have to say that I'm finding myself falling into that third category of course I'm gonna rip this apart if it's a bad product and it doesn't perform and it doesn't feel good but that's not the case am I gonna drop everything that I own and get their full suite of products no it's not that good and I know I said that I was pleasantly surprised but I am gonna tell you about a couple of my gripes with these knives the edge out of the box was pretty raggedy it wasn't polished in any way shape or form which meant that after cutting with it for a couple of uses I got these tiny microchips in the edge of the knife and when it came to sharpening because the steel is so hard it actually took a couple of extra passes to make sure that that edge got reshaped and then it was nice and clean and then once I got it on a stone I figured out that the edge was actually bent I first discovered it when I went to go sharpen the acute su K but then I also found it on the chef's knife if you go ahead and look down at the heel of the knife you do one of these moves I'll show you like this this is a good way to see that your edge is straight but this edge and the edge of the chef's knife as well has kind of an s-curve to it it goes there's like a bow in the edge in one way so when you go to sharpen it they're gonna get these micro scratches along the edge because you keep your angle straight but the shape of the edge is not straight and all of this stuff all these gripes that I have don't matter to the home cook because 94% of them aren't gonna sharpen their own knives they're gonna take it to someone who's just gonna throw it on a grinder and they're gonna get the same edge that they got out of the box that was a little bit raggedy and it's not to say I wasn't able to get the edge sharp I was able to get it pretty sharp and it's holding up pretty well but I do want to be fully transparent and I do want to be upfront about these problems that I had I'd rather test it for you rather than have you drop your money and then be disappointed another disclaimer and one of the reasons that makes me choose the chef's knife over the curat sookay is just the way that I work and the way that I use these knives the heel and the knuckle clearance on the series X chef's knife is much larger it allows for that rocking motion when you're chopping things the cured tsuki it's very it's much thinner here so if you do do a pinch grip you're not gonna get the knuckle clearance that you want and you're not supposed to cut like that anyways it's supposed to be kind of a push cut motion because the way that the edge is shaped and the way that the tip is shaped if you do that the tip is gonna dig into your cutting board and that's not good that being said tip work is much more enjoyable with the cured tsuki night pro tip for all of this if you want to beat the Chinese at their own game go ahead and head over to aliexpress.com that's essentially the Chinese amazon go ahead and type in Damascus chef knife and you're gonna be able to find all of dehl strongest competition where they aren't marketing to people in the US as much lowest price I was able to find was just shy of 47 dollars and it's essentially the same product what Dow strong does really well is their marketing reading through their description on Amazon I was ready to buy a whole set but when it comes to actually using them there's a little bit left to be desired if you want a Damascus knife in your kit the Shogun's series X is a good place to start and if you're to get a nice cute suit K and want to try that push cutting motion see if it's nice enough for you I'm not gonna tell you not to get these knives I just don't think they're gonna satisfy your knife needs forever this is the Victoria Knox fire box Pro 8 inch chef's knife I'm gonna keep this one short and sweet I've already done a full review and breakdown of this knife but they send me another one so I want to make sure that you get a chance to get one of your own if you want it if you're interested in a budget-friendly beater knife that's gonna be able to Drudge through all of those prep projects that you don't want your more expensive or thinner chef's knife to handle it's definitely a really really good choice or if you're a home cook with really big hands that wants a knife that's going to hold the edge for a relatively long time and also be easy enough to sharpen on a whetstone if you want to do that yourself I highly recommend this there's also a ton of other really positive reviews on the interwebs about this knife so it's kind of a no-brainer this one is interesting this is the akiles from a company called stern Steiger out of Germany they raised a ton of money on Kickstarter for this knife and they were nice enough to send me one of their chef knives they're known for their scissors and their more traditional German style Western knives but they really went for a unique unibody design on this they want a bunch of awards for the design on this there is the gaping hole in the center of the knife which I can only assume is to help with the balance but even with that big chunk of Steel missing you can see how far back on the handle I have to go to get that balance point so yes it is still a very handle heavy knife but it does feel balanced overall it is one of the more interesting profiles I've seen I'm used to the very straight spine and then very curved belly shape but this seems to taper from both ends all the way to the tip it's also incredibly sharp out of the box which I'm not the biggest fan of highlighting in a knife review because I think it's kind of redundant to say it's a I think the people that enjoy hearing that it's sharp out of the box are the ones that don't sharpen the knives themselves this knife has a 59 to 60 rockwell hardness rating which is more than enough for most people going back to the handle it's flat on one side and has these grooves on the other side where it almost encourages you to grip it this way which if you can see how I'm gripping it is not the traditional pinch grip I mean if you're a home cook cutting two tomatoes with your knife this is gonna feel fine but if you're doing a whole entire case of onions I'm gonna want to choke up this knife much more which you can see my fingers still kind of fall into those grooves but it's and I have this awkward gaping hole in the middle what is that for what I do like when you choke up on this knife is you get this really flat heel base so you can get that leverage with more dense vegetables overall if you're into unibody style chef's knives the steel is definitely good enough to hold up to the professional workload but you got to make sure that this feels good in your hands if you just want a piece of super minimal chef gear to go along with your kitchen it's totally worth it the price right now is of course varying depending on if you get into their Kickstarter or not the links to the akiles are down low in the description so let's say you're on a budget and I mean like super on a budget and you have zero interest in getting your knives freshly resharpened and you also happen to hate the environment this is a three dollar chef's knife yep this is brand list they make products without any fancy logos or any other fancy branding it just comes as it is and all of their products cost just three bucks so in theory instead of paying ten to twenty two maybe even thirty dollars to get your chef's knife sharpen you can just buy a new one and on paper this knife is kind of insane for the price of just three dollars it's got a full tang non-slip grip handle with rivets all the way through it's got almost a santoku style profile a hollow ground edge and it's just stainless steel made in China which checks very similar boxes to some of the other knives that we've covered in these videos a feature of this knife that I didn't think I was gonna enjoy as much as I did was actually the handle it's got this really satisfying mix of the round profile of like a Japanese knife but then it tapers down once you get towards the spine of the blade where if you're gonna do that pinch grip it just feels really good to hold this knife it's also just a little bit longer than some of the other knives that we've covered in this series and if you like longer handles don't sleep on the brand list chef knife another question you might be asking yeah okay but how sharp is it I took this all the way up to 6,000 just for kicks and yeah it gets pretty sharp but don't expect this to last forever yes the steel is very soft which can be good and bad this is the one that I just took out of the box it's got kind of this very annoying little tiny 1/2 centimeter of heel that doesn't have a late on it because the steel is so soft I was actually able to take this one and grind it down so it does have an edge now on the very heel of this knife and it's pretty sure if you're a casual cook that wants a couple of spare chef's knives in different kitchens in your life I think bran less is great especially if you know how to put an edge on it if you're a professional chef then you sharpen your knives either every other day or once a week this can be a fantastic beater knife for you to have where you just kind of run it up and down a stone a couple of times a month and it's gonna stay pretty sharp for you for the jobs that you're gonna use it for and it's also gonna cost you about ten times less than something like the Victorinox this is the Suisse in Hong yaki walkie o2 at 380 $9.50 it is the most expensive knife that I'm gonna cover in this series but you get what you pay for this is 100% a fusion style project it is tempered Swedish steel on the blade very very thin profile and then coupled with a japanese-style handle of Magnolia wood and water buffalo horn comes out of the box with a 90/10 bevel ratio which if you're kind of on the fence about going full carbon or full Japanese with a single bevel this is a really good middle ground because they've essentially taken the thinnest elements of a western-style knife and a Japanese style knife and fuse them into this bad boy which makes it incredibly light I couldn't even believe it when I picked this knife up the first time and I knew I had to purchase it right away which is weird for me because I normally like knives a little bit more weight to them but if you do a lot of vegetable prep delicate vegetable work this knife is amazing it's got a 60 HRC rating and the edge holds up really really really well I'm very very happy using this knife at three hundred and eighty-nine dollars it does somewhat a matching Magnolia wood saya which I hope it would at that price point I dished it for a leather magnetic town Cutler scabbard which I've been using for years overall with the materials the shape the profile the price as well this is definitely geared more towards the professional I'm actually thinking about shipping this knife out to Isaiah Schrader and having him knock off this handle and put a custom one on it just for me leave a like on this video if you'd like to see a custom knife project like that on the channel I just love this knife I've had it for years and I kind of want to do something to breathe new life into it and I just think that'd be really really fun and unique because of that and it's also kind of tattered and beat-up itself I'm not gonna be giving this knife away so I apologize in advance for that that'll do it for this chef's knife Bonanza video I want to continue to do videos in this style where I take a bunch of products in a certain category at varying price points and compare them head-to-head from either brands that I'm already using or brands that want to work together and then you guys get a chance to win some for a year if you're ever scrolling through Instagram and see a maker or a product that you want to see me cover don't hesitate to reach out there's been a couple of times when you folks have been kind enough to send a direct message to that company and say that you want me to review their product and they've reached out and sent me stuff so thank you so much for helping every single knife that I covered is gonna be published as its own separate individual video so if one knife spoke to you I encourage you to head over to that video and follow the instructions there for a chance to win if you love chef gear as much as I do make sure you subscribe and hit that Bell notification so you can check back in I publish new videos every single week on this channel thank you so much for your attention my name is Justin Khanna have a good one [Music]

Channel: Justin Khanna

Views: 215,440

Rating: 4.5573907 out of 5

Keywords: best chef knife, best chef knife for the money, how to sharpen chef knife, best chef knife under 100, best chef knife under 50, burrfection, knives, cooking, budget knife, how to choose the perfect knife, knifemaker explains, how to choose a chef knife, chef knife making, chef knife skills, justin khanna, what's in my knife roll, chefsteps, alex, recipe, chef knife vs santoku, sharpening, sharpest chef knife

Id: 3Ms0q9Xp0FU

Length: 18min 57sec (1137 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 07 2018