Knife Expert Guesses Cheap vs. Expensive Knives | Price Points | Epicurious

hi I'm Jeff fader and I'm a knife expert awesome exquisite this is a work of art this thing blows my mind well looks like we have paring knives paring knives are great little knives they're short so they're great for taking off the tops of vegetables if you're peeling something they're great and they're just a great all-around workhorse generally speaking they're on the lighter side they're smaller when we look at these knives the first thing I notice is side a has what's called an integral bolster that means the bolster this top part is flowing out into the blade so the bolster is actually a piece of the steel B has a little black knob your last few inches of the knife and kind of make it to the cutting board I notice it's got a plastic handle it's a little bit shorter the heel is very short one of the great things about paring knife is is you can use it into your hand you're holding it towards yourself instead of going away or going in support so if you have a heel sometimes that'll be a little bit more dangerous when you're you know doing your little fiddling around with all sorts of vegetables I need to take a look at these a little bit closer pick them up so when I look at the construction of this knife I notice a few things that would make this knife a little bit more expensive this knife has a complete and full tang that means you see the entire profile of the knife in steel that's called full-tang with an integral bolster so when they start to finish this knife after heat treatment they're going to thin it out and actually feather in this portion of the bolster that would tell me that they're using different types of grinding machines in order to make that transition very effortless this knife has a lot of processes that it goes through before you get to this point including sanding of the this handle scales and cleaning up and polishing all those rivets this thing doesn't make itself there's a lot of work that goes into these things let's take a look at B when I pick this up I notice it's very very light I also noticed that I don't see any exposed tang in the handle so I would think that this is what's referred to as a hidden Tang or partial Tang that means that this knife when it's cut out or stamped out it actually tapers down here and it's embedded in this handle this plastic handle has a little bit of a little bit of given here so I'm imagining that it's poured in this is a poured on handle I would say because there's less production there's no rivets there's no exposed tangs there's not a whole lot of grinding or sanding I would say that this is a little bit less expensive of a knife generally speaking you don't need paring knives to be razor blades because a lot of times when you're using him you're using them into yourself to stop at your thumb so what you're looking for is something light something easy to use is something easy to replace and something that's not going to cut your finger off right off the bat based on everything I've said I'm assuming that a is a little bit more expensive than B but in order to do that we're gonna have to confirm and look at the prices [Music] yeah that's more so in summary knife B is a great knife to have in your knife bag it's a great knife to have in your home it's a great knife that you don't have to worry about if it gets lost gets stolen you break it or you stick in the dishwasher you shouldn't do a is gonna give you a little bit more comfort in your hand I'm gonna be a little bit easier to maintain you might want to go with a all right we have some chef's knives here we know that these are chef knives because they're a little bit longer they have a little bit more he'll when you ask for an 8-inch chef's knife or a 10-inch chef's knife our nine inch chef's knife you're actually measuring from the heel to the tip it's just the blade so that's kind of important right off the bat one thing I will say about knife a that strikes me immediately I believe that this knife has a slight hollow grind the first half an inch from the edge towards this mine when I look at knife B it's a different knife completely it's a little bit longer it has a little bit more heel than knife a it also has a few different features one is it has brass pins and a decorative pin in the middle there's also a brass bolster brass also tells me that this most likely is a carbon steel and it's verified by saying carbon steel on the top alright you have two different styles of steel that you can use and each one has its pros and it's cons carbon steel holds a great edge it's very easy to sharpen what you're losing with the carbon steel is it has the opportunity to patina that means when you're cutting vegetables with a lot of acid like onions or you're cleaning lemons or using anything with a lot of liquid what's gonna happen is there's nothing in this steel that's preventing it from patina and rusting stainless steel has chromium in it and what the chromium does is it prevents the patina it prevents the oxidation the funny thing about stainless is it's called stainless it's not stained never so if you were to leave this in a bucket of water ultimately it will rust to figure out a little bit more about these knives I really like to pick them up the first thing I noticed this grind is half an inch from the edge and when I look at it I definitely see that these are definitely concave and what the hollow grind does it makes up for this distance this half-inch distance by kind of coming inside and making the edge a little bit on the thinner side so that makes this knife a little bit better geometry at that half an inch versus if the blade was ground from the spine to the edge when I see how flexible it is and I see the fact that the whole spine is one length it seems like there's a lot of cost cut it's not doesn't make it a bad nice um let's pick up B and see a little bit more about this knife I noticed this is a full tang knife it actually has a distal taper meaning that it tapers from the tip of the bolster all the way to the tip that means you're getting a little bit more performance to the front is really great for cutting onions and then having a thicker heel is great for kind of going through something harder when I look at the grind to this knife the grind goes from the spine of the knife all the way to the tip so this is what you refer to as a full flat grind so that means the machine not only tapered it this way but it tapered it completely this way it's different from this one in terms of the food release when you're cutting it you're gonna have a little bit more release of the food off your blade versus the full flat grind which boodles tend to stick to the blade this hollow grind allows it to kind of just slide off a little bit easier that's what you want based on the construction of both I would say that B is more expensive than a and there's really only one way to find out [Music] yeah it's big one for $4 you can't go wrong with a knife like that $4 is that's a good that's a good buy you could have this if you're in a small kitchen or if you don't really want to deal with knives there's nothing wrong with that knife versus B this is an enthusiast knife this is a knife or someone who's wanting to learn how to cook or get better this knife also has an opportunity be an heirloom it's a beautiful knife if you learn how to sharpen it if you learn how to maintain it this is something you could pass along to your family it's a great knife as a keepsake so we have a pair of boning knives these boning knives are both totally different but there's a lot of similarities boning knives tend to be something that when you're holding them you're actually not using them against a cutting board you're actually holding them what butcher maybe you hanging a piece of meat and you're actually holding you in the air or you're boning out of chicken you're never really resting it against anything the qualities that you're looking for in a boning knife is you want to make sure that it's nice and thin it doesn't need to be too long six inches or seven inches is all you really need for a boning knife you want it to be a little bit stiff but looking at these they might be a little bit more flexible knife B I see a molded grip it looks like it has a lot more comfort ability and slip resistance you can see that the part of the finger guard here is for protection so depending on how you're holding the knife you're able to be a little bit more confident and how it's in your hand when I look at this knife I see more designs to be ergonomic might feel more comfortable in your hand but we'll see I have to put in my hand first so when I hold this knife it feels a little bit heavy on the handle side which is good it's gonna be a little bit easier to manipulate when you're cutting through chickens or you're cutting through bones this is more like what a surgeon would use you want something kind of like a scalpel we're gonna have to take a look at B to see what's going on with this so right off the bat it automatically feels a lot lighter and one of the reasons why is because this is a hidden tank construction gets either molded on to this handle or the handles molded onto the to the knife what you end up with is something a little bit more slip resistant this actually might be a knife that you would have in a professional environment where you want to make sure that if you're processing a lot of meat you don't really want to have any slippage so comparing these two knives this is a lot less steel in it which might affect the cost the handle doesn't have as much elegance it doesn't have as much ornamentation so I'm imagining that that makes this a little bit of a less expensive knife I would definitely see this as something that be more of a workhorse than this knife and with that saying I would I would tend to think that a is a little bit more expensive than B let's see [Music] substantially you know these things happen this is four times more expensive than this one for the ornamentation this is the kind of knife you see on one of those stoves that you don't ever really use they're a little bit more sculptural I think that the the design is a little bit more fussy than a professional would use because a has an integral bolster and an integral but there is more work involved more craftsmanship getting to the point where you can actually put the scales in between the butt and the integral bolster I think there's a lot more going on in this that would make this more expensive there's a lot more processes there's a lot more rivets sanding this might be the knife that I would prefer where I'm using it all day long to process meat to hold it in a position where I feel comfortable and confident that it's not going to slip in my hand you're gonna keep sharpening it you're gonna be able to get it to the point where it looks like a toothpick and you're gonna throw it out and get another one so we have here two serrated knives brought a Damascus knife all right that's where we're going it is amazing knife a is an incredible Damascus intregal knife I'm gonna explain what Damascus is you can see all this pattern what that is is pattern welded steel when you take alternating pieces of high carbon steel and high nickel steel and then you stack them up and then what you do is you put them in a forge you get them screaming hot screaming hot and then you with power a power hammer or a press you're actually forging them and fusing them into something that you can a useable billet once your knife is ground and sanded and finished what you do is you dip the knife into ferric chloride acid and what the ferric chloride does is it actually itches it eats the high carbon steel and it leaves the high nickel steel alone so what you end up with is a specific type of pattern so this would be referred to as random pattern Damascus there's all sorts of patterns you can see the beautiful little topographical design of the silver being the high nickel and then the darker stuff being a high carbon when you're forging this knife what happens is your material is on the thicker side and then it's squished in so this Damascus actually looks like it's flowing out of the bolster this thing unbelievable can't believe it all right yeah let's let's get away from that one for a second so what we have here is more of a classic offset serrated knife this serrations are not like saw teeth they're more like scallops and what that's gonna do is you're gonna be able to do a little bit more than just bread usually when you see those sharp saw like teeth that's really for cutting that's for like sawing through your tough bread these offsets rated are meant to be used for not only bread but for chicken for prepping what this knife is it's similar to a bread knife but it has this shape both knives allow you to clear your knuckles you'll notice that the handle is a little bit perched out from the line of the serrations which is gonna allow you to work against your cutting board a little bit easier you have a little bit more versatility with this style knife then a standard bread knife I'm gonna lose my mind if I can't pick up this knife so basically this knife here is exquisite it's super light in the bolster there's a stick that's forged into the blade that goes all the way through the blade and the reason why I know that is because there's a brass fitting on the back so what this tells me is it's connected to the tang to make sure that it's sitting in place in this handle this is not a very aggressive serration this is going to be a lot less song and a lot more slicing this thing is going to move through anything like just I mean it's gonna be ridiculous 9 through butter I mean it's just extraordinary I'm like losing my mind a little bit let's just take a look at this offset serrated this knife is super light part of the reason why it's so light is because there's not a full tang it's a partial tang so there's not as much material in the knife it's very structurally sound it feels good in my hand I would say that is a good quality knife I don't think it's as expensive as the first one but it's a very perfectly fine excellent knife that you could bring with you to kitchen if you lost it it wouldn't be the end of the world looking at both these knives are perfectly good knives there is just no way that this is more expensive the only way we can really find out is obviously we need to look at the price come on of course please this knife is the perfect knife to have if you're going into a kitchen or if you're at home and you're doing a lot of utility stuff it's a perfect knife for your bag you don't have to worry so much about it the price is right it's definitely something you should have on your knife floor I think that this is a good price for a knight for this type of knife this is the kind of knife that you're gonna get a lot of life out of and when you're at a party and someone's using it you're not gonna freak out that it's gonna patina like this this is awesome you might not necessarily need something as expensive but a knife like this will get you excited about cooking this is a knife you kind of have to baby however you have to live your life we can't just be you know covering things up all the time live your life with this knife thirty-one hundred bucks let's do it come on make some dinner ridiculous thing is insane this thing is all engine no brakes I love this knife and if I had the money right away right away so after looking at all these knives these are the four knives that are perfect for your kitchen all four knives are much better than just getting a block of knives that might not be what you need one thing I will say is just because some of them are expensive and some of them are inexpensive doesn't mean they're gonna make you a better cook all these knives have great pros and cons and you should feel confident in the type of knife that you get that's kind of where you need to be I'm with you

Channel: Epicurious

Views: 4,492,248

Rating: 4.3280802 out of 5

Keywords: best knife, boning knife, cheap, cheap vs expensive, chef knife, chef knives, expensive, expert, how to make a knife, kitchen knife, kitchen knives, knife, knife making, knives, paring knife, knife expert, paring knives, boning knives, best knives, cheap knives, cheap knife, expensive knives, expensive knife, expensive knife vs cheap knife, cheap knife vs expensive knife, cheap vs expensive kitchen knife, epicurious, cooking, recipes, price points, geoff feder

Id: T9UHD30MSGk

Length: 16min 13sec (973 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 06 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/freedoomed]

same thing that makes anything expensive. the time and effort put into manufacture, quality of parts and desirability of the product.

[u/OrionsAnvil]

Also explains why it's hard to make a living making knives nowadays. The cheap ones are perfectly good enough for most of us.

[u/damonenpakt51]

Sat here thinking... that Damascus knife... I want to get to that point and be able to sell a beauty like that... as a new smith... I feel I'm far away from that dream by miles... lol

[u/gotsum411]

Geoff Feder is hilarious, you should definitely give him a follow on instagram, he posts often and does beautiful custom chef knives and some dope oyster knives too

[u/InhaleExplode]

A lot of people buy higher quality handmade knives because they're beautiful and they make you feel good. Obviously have a higher standard to hold them to than cheap knives but it's not always a straight value=function motive. Some people have the means and they want to own dope shit - if someone can provide that, I'm optimistic you can make er work

[u/vankorgan]

I really wish they had done this with knives a little closer in cost. I'm fairly certain anybody who knows nothing about knives could've known which of those were more expensive.

[u/SnickeringBear]

If you are happy using walmart knives, good luck. I won't touch them because they won't hold an edge.

If you want a set of widely available good quality kitchen knives, a set of MAC will set you back about $180. These are the daily user workhorse knives that you don't get too upset if something happens to them. I have a BK120 that is an awesome blade at a cost of about $125.

If you insist on high quality knives with specific features and blades designed for dedicated purposes, Henckels, Wusthof, Shun, or Messermeister will do the job. These will hit you anywhere from $500 to $3000 for a set.

If nothing but the very best will do, a Bob Kramer original chef's knife will set you back the best part of $5000. Good luck getting a set of 4 with a paring, boning, slicing, and chef knives for anything less than $10,000.