Japanese vs German Knives - Shun vs Wusthof Cutlery

hey there folks welcome back Ricky Trent here with cutlery and more today we are going to look at soon vs voice Tov what we're going to do today is we're going to look at the design philosophies between these two companies and show you what the major differences are between Japanese and German knives there is a very good reason why both companies make knives that are very highly regarded now the first thing that we'll look at from shown is the premiere this knife here uses a VG max core seal heat treated to a 61 on the Rockwell scale now the cutting angle of this knife is 16 degrees on each side giving you an effective cutting angle of 32 degrees the VG Max core steel is sandwiched in between thirty four layers of Damascus cladding on both sides giving you a total of 68 layers of Damascus cladding you also have a hammered or switch she may finish on the premier line very beautiful finish you also have a very high polish on both sides of the blade this life is heat treated from a 60 to a 61 on the Rockwell scale with the Pamir line shoes offering a knife that has the core steel of a Japanese knife while giving you the added benefit of the profile that you would normally find on a Western or German knife it's a great compromise for those who are looking to get a Japanese knife but I've always used German knives in the past the spine of the premier is very well polished the toil or the neck area is also very well polished you have a stainless steel bolster and you have a stainless steel end cap the handle is a walnut pack of wood with a medium to high gloss finish the shaping and tapering of the handle gives you a very good grip eating when handling greasy or oily foods next we have the shewn dual core the design of this knife is a crits K profile they are a little bit more specialized in terms of what their function are in the kitchen they tend to have less rocking ability but they offer more power and lateral chopping the shewn dual core is one of the first knives with this particular knife design most knives will have one of two designs you have either a mono steel where the entire blade is made of one steel material and you have a Claddagh design where the coarse deal will be one material and then the cladding on the exterior would be a different material the entire blade is actually made of two different steels merged into one that's why you have this amazing beautiful Damascus like pattern called a herringbone pattern the end result here is a beautiful blade design has 71 micro layers of vg-10 vg2 in a herringbone pattern this is definitely one of the most distinctive play designs you will ever see coming down to the handle we have an ebony peckerwood in an art agonal handle design the ferrule is a stainless steel ferrule also very high polished if you look at the spine of Japanese knives in general they typically are a little bit thinner than German knives that mainly has to do with how the food culture has evolved in Japan and their food culture has really shaped the way their knives or designed in terms of their rockwell or hardness rating the shewn dual core is heat treated from a sixty to a 61 and the Rockwell scale next we have the shin hero this stuff here is definitely one of the most distinctive knives you will pick up from shewn it uses an su 2 core steel or super gold 2 core steel with a 32 layer of Damascus finish with nickel and stainless steel very rarely will you ever see a knife manufacturer mix two different steels for their Damascus cladding in addition to that Damascus finish you also have a hammered finish or a suti may finish on the top half of the hero the heat treatment of this knife is very high you're looking at 64 on the Rockwell scale now for many years finding a kitchen knife that had a heat treatment of 63 and above was considered mythical or the unicorn and today thanks to advancements in metallurgy we were seeing knives regularly in the sixty two to six read range and now shooting has come up with a knife that has heat treated to a 64 on the Rockwell scale the ball sir is a nickel bolster which is very nice and very highly polished something we don't see very often coming down to the radically shaped handle this is one of the most comfortable handles you will ever hold it uses a charcoal pack of wood with a crimson lining something that you really don't see and gives us not a very aggressive and distinctive look the tapering of this handle is something that is also very unique you have a tapering from the top of the handle to the middle of the handle and also the profile this handle is also tapered from the top and bottom of the handle from photos and from afar you will think that this knife has a very simple overlies handle but once you hold it you will understand that this knife here has a radically shaped sculpted design that very few knife manufacturers can lay claim to in the middle of the handle here you see a beautiful mosaic rivet now this is a symbol of the samurai family crest there Jr is taking the best of everything Xuan has to offer into one package now we will look at the verse stuffs so the first knife we're gonna look at is the vou soft classic chef's knife this knife here is the original verse off that we all have come to know and love the classic line of knives offered the largest selection of knives available in divorce up line for all of their knives wasabi uses a single type of German steel called X 50 CR MOV 15 yes I know that is a tongue twister now we look at this knife here we see a classic design chef's knife profile with a full bolster in a finger guard the finger guard and full bolts are authors a knife a number of benefits the first one is that it gives the blade an overall stiffness the second thing is that offers a middle finger and guard from grinding against the neck of the knife in a pinch grip coming down to the handle you see that this is the palm handle with a very traditional western knife handle it's a very sturdy handle design that is tried and true we also have a stop at the end of the handle which prevent your hands from slipping off when handling greasy or oily foods next we have the classic icon with the creme handle the creme handle is made exclusively for cutlery and more now if we look very closely we will see that the classic icon has a very similar profile to the classic except now we no longer have the full Balcer in place we have a tapering bolster the first benefit of having a tapering boster is that you do save a few grams from the overall weight of the knife the second benefit is that you are now able to sharpen your voice off down to its heel the handle is a little bit more radically shaped it's a bit more sculpted now even though the handle shape is very different from the classic it's using the same palm material it's a polyoxymethylene which is the very robust material it's bacteria resistant what resistant and crack resistant and because the Palmateer of the zombunny water you're never going to have any sort of expansion or contraction issues such as you will find on a wooden handle the last knife and the voice of lineup is the Epicure the Epicure is the newest line of knives it offers a similar profile as the classic but a little bit more modernized you'll see that the belly here is a little more aggressive than the belly on the classic and on the classic icon you still have the full Balcer so they've kept that in the design queue you still have the exact same high carbon German stainless steel the x50 CR mov 15 so in terms of overall performance you have the same great performance that you would normally expect in the classic of the classic icon but coming down to the handle you'll see that the handle is also radically shaped and very different from their other line of knives this is where the largest departure of this life is from the rest of the voice off line up the tapering of the handle is very nice it has a very aggressive taper from top to bottom but it also is very sculpted and very curved however the material is now a composite wood material as opposed to a palm handle now having a composite material for your handle has a few benefits one of the biggest complaints that you would hear with people using German knives is that the handles can feel a little bit heavy now with the composite material your handle is not much lighter the other added benefit is that the composite handle feels very much like natural wood in your hands it's very much warm to the touch on a cold day when you first pick up your knife this handle will not make your hand uncomfortable cold at all so you can see in this brief video if the design philosophy from these two companies are very different voice-off uses a very highly regarded steel for all their knives it's a steel that they are very comfortable with and that their customers have come to know and love the x50 CR MOV 15 is very good in terms of his overall toughness since it is heat treated to a 58 on the Rockaways scale you will have a much lower chance of chipping this knife if you were to accidentally cut into a bone or a hard pit of a fruit first off wants every single one of their customers to experience that same great high carbon German stainless steel and that toughness and that reliability that voice-off have been known for for the last 200 years of making knives soon on the other hand are always pushing the boundaries of sharpness edge retention and knife design you can see right here that every single one of these knives have different handle materials different colors their blade profiles are completely different and they cater to very different customers so some of you may be wondering what is the benefit of buying a Japanese over a German knife or a German knife over a Japanese knife one of the first things that you hear people talk about is edge retention and toughness of the blade anything over 60 is considered very hard anything under 57 is inserted relatively soft being that there are 58 they are right in the middle so you have a good ratio of edge retention and edge toughness relative to let's say 'soon that you have a knife that is heated to a sixty to a sixty four you have a higher chance of chipping your blade if you were to misuse it so while it is kind of scary to think that your knife has a higher chance of chipping here are a few things you can do to make sure that doesn't happen first off buy a good quality wood cutting board and endgrain is preferable with n green cutting boards your knives or cut into the grain of the cutting board as opposed to across the grain the second thing is not putting your knives into an automatic dishwasher the first obvious reason is that you can risk it yourself your child or I guess in your home reaching into a dishwasher load to grab a fork or a spoon and cut in themselves on that knife the second thing is that the heat from the hot water and drying cycle can cause the wooden handles on your knife to contract and expand causing rivets to fall out and overtime destroying the handle itself so even though Japanese knives may have a higher chance of chipping as long as you care and maintain for them properly that should be minimized the next thing that you may have heard is that Japanese knives can cut through anything like a katana on an absolute scale yes a Japanese knife he treated to a 64 will get sharper and stay sharper longer than a knife he treated to a 58 in the Rockwell scale however getting that knife to his absolute sharpness requires a consider amount of skill and time such as sharpening your knives on a whetstone so just because you can go out and buy a Japanese knife that you can shave with it does not mean that that knife will stay that shop forever on the other hand it was soft that is heat treated to a 58 on the Rockwell scale can get to about 90 to 95% as sharp as the shewn with just a honing rod there are world renowned chefs that will use nothing more than a honing rod to keep their knives sharp on a daily basis so true a Japanese knife can potentially get sharper and stay sharper longer than a German knife getting there is not quite that easy as you can see here there is no clear winner as to what knife you should buy Japanese knife manufacturers have a very different design philosophy when compared to German knife manufacturers you need to find out what it is important to you is the absolute sharpness is it robustness there's buying a knife with exotic Steel's excite you or would you rather go steel that has been tried and true both companies offer limited lifetime warranties for their knives either way you will not go wrong with buying a knife from Gustav or from soon we will have links in the video's description below to each of the product that were featured in today's video we are also taking video requests if there is a product or products on cutlery more.com that you would like to see featured here on our channel please leave a comment below well thank you again for being with us today we'll catch you in the next video you

Channel: Cutlery and More

Views: 642,436

Rating: 4.6378498 out of 5

Keywords: cutleryandmore, shun knives, wusthof knives, shun vs wusthof, best japanese knives, best german knives, german vs japanese knives, japanese vs german knives, how to choose a knife, how to pick a knife, how to pick japanese knife, how to pick german knife

Id: HqOqNfwQygc

Length: 12min 4sec (724 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 28 2017