best stainless

Kitchen Knife Forums

Help Support Kitchen Knife Forums:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

dennis7490

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jun 24, 2012
Messages
51
Reaction score
0
Folks,

i have a number of knives, mostly Shun & 1 old henkel's 8" chef.

But i bought a Moritaka KP-150 Blue petty 150mm and after cutting myself a few times have learned to use it and love it. it is my go-to knife. I sharpens so easily it's a joke, and it holds its edge. it could be the shape of the blade, or whatever, but it cuts more easily than all my other knives.

BUT, cutting onions, which i do a lot, the metal browns the onions almost instantly. I would like to get another high carbon knife, and I know that many, many chefs use them to cut onions...so what metal is best for this, or do I have to go to a stainless. if so, what is the best stainless. I don't like VG-10 (i think that's the shun metal in my knives.

Thanks,


Dennis
 
Once a patina sets in, carbon knives will be a bit more resistant to the effect you described, but it'll happen again whenever you sharpen/expose new steel and building a patina may take some time (I have no experience with moritakas, but for my takagi honyaki blue #1, onions don't get discolored after the first 2-3 cuts).

If you're really concerned about this, I would look at some semi-stainless and stainless steel knives. There are a lot of good ones, but to find the best fit, I think it's conducive to number the following in order of importance to you - edge quality, edge retention, toughness, ease of sharpening. Keep in mind that the steel is only part of the equation with regard to its performance; the maker's heat treat makes or breaks the steel.
 
If you are set on stainles...you might want to try different variations to see what your favorite is... Ive been having very good results with AEB-L and CPM 154

:cool2:
 
IIR my Ikkanshi Inox is Hitachi G3 and I'm totally happy with it. Is the Suisin Inox G3 as well?

Dave
 
Love my Konosuke SS 150mm petty(and my HD's).easy to sharpen,takes a great edge real nice F&F..
 
I don't recal what Devins PM stainless is, but its my favorite.
 
CPM154, S35VN, AEB-L and I have had good luck with VG1.
 
my favor are Harner's Carpenter XHP, DT's AEB-L. for semi-stainless: yoshikane's SLD......heard good review about S35VN but never has chance to try it!!
 
I just sliced up a white onion with my kikuichi chef knife and surprisingly it didn't brown them. I was pretty astonished. When I first got the knife they turned black instantly but now the knife has a heavy patina so I guess things are fine now.

I can't speak for all carbon knives but the one I have is at least somewhat non-reactive after it's grows itself a thick patina :D
 
Some carbon steels aren't as reactive as others. My CCKs, Sabs and Sugimoto's have all been super reactive and need to be wiped frequently, but I sliced about 20kilos of red and brown onion yesterday between my Konosuke #6 and Masamoto KS (both white 2) and had zero discolouration, or atleast, none that I could see. The Konosuke has a solid patina built up but has never been particularly reactive anyway and the Masamoto is new so it's patina is pretty weak at the moment.

It's interesting to see the difference between the reactivity of the same steels, like the Sugimoto which is supposeably white 2 as well but stains like mad when new and the others. It would be interesting to hear why they can be such a large variance; different batches of steel? HT? I'm sure cladding will have some part to play.

To the question at hand, I'm a big fan of the Sugimoto CM steel and whatever Mizuno use for their "Swedish stainless", these feel about as close to carbon on the stones out of the stainless knives I've used. I'd suggest you could also look at a stainless clad, carbon knife, a la Hiromoto AS, Gengetsu etc

Cheers,
Josh
 
CPM154, S35VN, AEB-L and I have had good luck with VG1.

Hey Lefty which VG-1 knife do you use? I've got Fujiwara Kanefusa FKV Yanagiba in VG-1 and it is bad. It doesn't hold it's edge.
 
Having worked with my first AEB-L gyuto, I cannot say at all that it performs like a carbon blade but it's certainly nice for stainless. The BEST for stainless has got to be R2. My Tanaka has been a pure joy to sharpen and use.
 
Back
Top