New knife buyer's strategy-knives, stones and wood

Hello all,

Just joined the forum, thought I'd post my experiences on the off chance it would be helpful to someone. I know reading many of the posts here was super helpful to me, and even though I'm not that experienced I thought my process might be helpful to others.

I'm mostly writing this because I think a lot of people who ask questions on the forums seem to only focus on the knives, and I'm hoping to shortcut someone else's experience down the line by helping to understand the importance of all three materials in a successful system.

Background
I've been cooking at home my whole life, and I've had a 10" Henckels or Wusthoff (can't read the brand anymore) forever. I also had a granton edge santuko from the other one of them that's about 15 years old. My cousin lent me a mac nakiri and I thought it was great. Once my daughter told me she was leasing an apartment, I decided to redo the knife drawer, give her some of the old stuff.

I'm best described as a binge cook. I have one or two dinner parties a week for 8-12 people and a half dozen or so times a year I make dinner for 25-40 people. (I have a big family, both biological and not). I'm ambitious but not insane when I make big dinners. Also, I'm not particularly price sensitive about knives, I could get whatever makes sense to me. Most of my pots are made by Sitram, which is a great middle of the road French manufacturer, if that gives you any kind of clue.

Anyway, I'm a researcher by nature, so I decided to see what I could find out. My first thought was to focus on the knives. I initially thought I might buy a mac chef's knife since I liked the nakiri and call it a day, but I went to try one out and grabbed the handle and cut my index finger where the bolster used to be. Ooops. Decided to switch to wa handles so that wouldn't happen again.

Initial Buying Experience
After much research I decided a laser sounded great. I called Japanese Knife Imports to buy a Gesshin Ginga. After talking to Jon for a bit, he told me in a very nice way that I really wasn't experienced enough either as a user or a sharpener to start with a laser. He recommended his Uraku line, and I agreed with him, bought a 240 Gesshin Uraku gyuto about 3 months ago.

It was a really good knife. It was very asymmetrical out of the box but even with my limited sharpening skills I got it working better than any knife I had ever used. I think it cost around $150.

After buying this I thought a 150 petty would be good. I never used a utility knife much (had one years ago from henck-stoff, it sucked), but I made a dumpling filling with the gyuto that had shallots, scallops and mushrooms and thought a smaller knife would be helpful. So I bought a Konosuke GS petty on sale for $100. I guess it's nice to have, not so useful, but also not so expensive. Nice for small stuff. Not essential. It is very thin though, and as such it kind of cured me of my laser obsession for the time being. I just like somewhat more substantial knives.

Epiphany
Anyway, at this point I decided I needed a clearer strategy, I decided there are three cornerstones to the cutting-up-food world: knives, stones and wood. I decided I would try to look at this holistically and upgrade everything to an appropriate level. I also decided, in order of importance, stones (and the skills to use them) are most important, knives second and wood a still important bronze medalist.

Stones
I had king 1000 and 4000 stones. I've always sharpened my own knives, every so often I would send them out. Either way, the edges were never great. I wasn't bad at sharpening, but I wasn't that good either.

First thing I upgraded was me, I took a class from a japanese woodworker in brooklyn who taught sharpening. That was very helpful. Jon's videos are great, but the class was sixty bucks and so worth it. The teacher sent me to the hardware store to buy a $0.99 piece of sandpaper, flatten my stones, that helped a lot!

I upgraded the king 1000 to a gesshin 2000, that seems a lot better, although I don't have a lot of experience with it yet. I'll probably replace the king 4000 with something better, maybe a gesshin 5000, I'll see.

Wood
I also replaced the knife rack in my drawer with a new one from amazon by a brand called Shenzen. Twenty bucks. It's much more compact than the old one, the blade slots are thinner and the top tier holds larger knives much better. Highly recommended. Oh, and it only has room for six big knives, so that puts a cap on how many I can have around!

I bought a 12 x 18 x 1 1/2 cherry end grain cutting board from Jones Custom Woodworking. I always used 10 x 13 edge grain boards and thought I would get something a little bigger. It's okay, nice to cut on, too big to put over the pot and dump food in. I'm not totally convinced by the workmanship yet (there are some really thin pieces on the edges), but time will tell. Marty Jones told me it's fine, I'm believing him so far.

Knives

I like the Uraku knives a lot. They feel like a really good starting point for me. I bought the konosuke petty to see what a really thin knife was like, I'm so glad Jon steered me towards a workhorse type knife. All in all, I agree with him, it's much more appropriate for me. I later bought a santoku (also a Gesshin Uraku) in case someone needed a knife I could hand them something that wasn't so intimidating, plus my cousin asked for her nakiri back. It's a nice knife, the gyuto is MUCH better. I had him sharpen the santoku for me so I have an idea of what a knife like this could do when it's really sharp.

I may get another gyuto soon, I'm not sure what kind but I'd like to have two. The Uraku santoku is much more like a nakiri than it's like my old German santoku, it doesn't really feel like a good second chef's knife. I'd say if you're wondering whether to go santoku or gyuto, get the gyuto. I don't have a 210 gyuto, but I'd bet it's much more useful than a santoku. If you insist on getting a santoku and are switching from the german ones, getting a 180, not a 165 may be a consideration. I didn't really ask Jon's advice about that, I probably should have.

I'm also keeping the old 10" chef's knife for cutting up chickens, all the stuff I do that isn't really great for a gyuto's edge.

Knives part 2-How to cut
From watching too many stupid videos about some guy whacking a tomato, I thought that getting a kindle book about cutting technique wouldn't be an utter waste of time. It was quick to read, I learned some stuff. The book I bought was "An Edge in the Kitchen". Worth the 12 bucks/three hours I invested in it.

Dealer
I live in NYC. Went in to a local dealer here who's fairly well known, it was pretty confusing. They wanted to sell me a 270 wa-gyuto because that's what they had in stock, they didn't have a 240 for me to compare it to. Anyway, I bought knives sight unseen from a mail order dealer across the country because I felt I got solid advice from him. I think that's one of the best decisions I made.

Anyway, that's my knives, stones and wood story, hope it helps someone else starting out.

Oh, and since this is a forum post, I guess I should add the ubiquitous ymmv!

Rick

Good story. I agree with your assessment of a Santaku vs gyuto's. Welcome to KKF.

Also, I have a board made by Martin too and love it.

Welcome, and thank you for the writeup.

Just a prediction, but I doubt you will stop at two gyutos. You will want to try different makers, profiles, etc. I seem to be much better at buying them than selling them, but will need to thin the herd eventually...just to be able to justify buying more :biggrin:

honestly, reading this made me really happy. Glad everything is working out well.

Very good post. Thanks for taking the time.

Great read...... I can tell you, from past experience, there is none better than Jon & JKI. :doublethumbsup:

Great reading and welcome!
the king 4000 is great in my opinion and makes a screaming sharp edge on a thin stainless edge, i keep mine clean with a nagura stone.

There is always room for a couple more stones:thumbsup:

Now that is what I call introduction post to KKF! Welcome Rick - seems like you already collected a lot of knowledge and experience and we appreciate that you share it. That is what keeps this community so great.

I am not surprised that advice from Jon worked - it always does

Have fun around here and do not stop asking or sharing.

Thanks all for the welcome. Glad to hear my board choice wasn't mis-informed! Sabaki, can I leave that King 4000 stone in water all the time? Is the nagura better than 220 wet dry sand paper?

There's another topic that I forgot to add to this, and it's steel. I'm not trying to stir up any controversy here, I was pretty clear how inexperienced I am about this, this post is just a beginner's observations. I'll try to edit the original and include this if I can (later-can't edit my first post).

Steel
Steel is seductive to think about and ultimately confusing. I'd say, other than the carbon/stainless decision, a beginner can ignore it, just go by the knife maker's reputation or better yet (for my money) find a dealer you can trust. This may be different if you work in a restaurant, but a beginner is probably better served by reputation rather than some specific steel formulation. I came to this conclusion after I read everybody trashing VG-10, except there was one maker who was masterful at it. I thought that just meant there were a lot of crappy knife makers who used VG-10, but if you really understood the material you could make a great knife with it, at least on the level that I'm considering. I read the opposite about AEB-L, it's great except a lot of knives made with it are so-so because the particular smith who made knives with it after it became popular wasn't so talented. I'm sure if you get into better knives it's meaningful, or if you use a knife for a living edge retention is a big deal, but for a home cook, the steel formulation is just not the first criteria in choosing a knife.

As far as carbon vs. stainless goes, I'm a stainless believer all the way. I'm not the world's most careful cook, I can leave a knife on the cutting board through dinner before I wash it, stainless is a no brainer to me.

Useful post. Thanks for sharing.

Thanks for the post--obvious that you've done your homework. My only recommendations would be: pick up one of Jon's diamond flattening plates and contact the Boardsmith for your next cutting board. By finding Jon initially you've saved yourself from a lot of mistakes that many of us went through...I should also point out for those not familiar with his knives that the Ginga he talked you out of is a more expensive knife than the one he sold you.

I agree on overlooking the steel type, other than stainless vs. non. The maker, and therefore heat treatment and geometry, are much more important.

Welcome, Rick! Very thoughtful, well reasoned piece. Clearly you're on the right track (including by consulting with Jon), and avoiding rushing helter-skelter into acquisitions, as some overly eager individuals do when first introduced to this intriguing world of great knives.

"rushing helter skelter"? "overly eager"? You say that like its a bad thing...

Very nice write up btw.