Poll: What's the ratio of carbon to stainless of your knife collection?

[Ericfg]

Weird results.

In all my years (20+) in commercial kitchens I can count the number of carbon knives seen on one hand, besides my few. Granted I haven't worked in any *starred* kitchens but by the same token I graduated from dives and mom&pops many years ago.
95% of my coworkers use either house knives (Sysco-type or BB&B stuff) that are never sharpened, or the knives supplied by a sharpening company (like Cozzini et al).

Of the majority who voted as 'heavy carbon' owners I wonder how many are collectors or non-professionals?

 

[AT5760]

I’d guess a lot. I fall into the group of home users that can fuss over my knives and wipe them down pretty regularly. And no one but me will touch them.

 

[Lpn562]

90% carbon. 10 stainless or clad.

 

[nwshull]

As a home user, I'm 75% carbon, but as far as using its 50/50 maybe slightly more with stainless. I tend to treat my stainless knives as tools, with maybe an exception or two, whereas the carbon knives are definitely the babies.

 

[GorillaGrunt]

Pro here, mostly carbon. I make sure to have at least one stainless general purpose knife (suji, gyuto, or petty) in my bag at any given time because the need might arise. My current cooks know about reactive knives and that any of mine should be presumed to need a wet towel-dry towel after each use but at the next place I work this may not be the case.

Once I got acclimated to working with reactive knives in the working kitchen the reactivity was never a problem. The two issues I ran into more frequently than knives rusting, and the reason I keep stainless accessible, are rapid dulling during bulk acidic prep and discoloration of product such as onions, red cabbage, and a few others.

On semi stainless, there are some that are pretty nonreactive such as SLD and the high-carbide high-HRC superalloys; I group those with stainless because they don’t have a high degree of the above issues. Others such as SKD, the ones that visibly darken but rust less readily, I group with carbon because they essentially need the same kind of attention and in some cases will also give you blue onions.

Way I see it if a knife does rust or get an ugly color I’ll just sand it off later.

 

[stevessf]

Weird results.

In all my years (20+) in commercial kitchens I can count the number of carbon knives seen on one hand, besides my few. Granted I haven't worked in any *starred* kitchens but by the same token I graduated from dives and mom&pops many years ago.
95% of my coworkers use either house knives (Sysco-type or BB&B stuff) that are never sharpened, or the knives supplied by a sharpening company (like Cozzini et al).

Of the majority who voted as 'heavy carbon' owners I wonder how many are collectors or non-professionals?

I'm all the time reading descriptions of $1000+ knives here, but I have to believe the owners are collectors and these knives rarely if ever see the inside of a busy professional kitchen. I mean, would you enter your 1967 Shelby GT500 in a destruction derby?

 

[GorillaGrunt]

The Shelby might be like using an Ashi honyaki or Billipp or Xerxes in a kitchen, which I’m sure someone here does, but nearly $1k is my cutoff for something I’d use at work and therefore so far I haven’t bought anything more expensive than that. I’d consider that - a Kemadi, a Catcheside, a Y Tanaka, an Ikeda honyaki, more like using an optioned out Escalade or a Mercedes S to drive Uber, which I’ve definitely seen. Or a Snap-on tool set in a garage. When I eventually get a Kato it’ll be used at work, but it won‘t be damascus or western handled or KU, that’s collector stuff.

 

[M1k3]

Weird results.

In all my years (20+) in commercial kitchens I can count the number of carbon knives seen on one hand, besides my few. Granted I haven't worked in any *starred* kitchens but by the same token I graduated from dives and mom&pops many years ago.
95% of my coworkers use either house knives (Sysco-type or BB&B stuff) that are never sharpened, or the knives supplied by a sharpening company (like Cozzini et al).

Of the majority who voted as 'heavy carbon' owners I wonder how many are collectors or non-professionals?

Most pro's aren't on KKF. We're a minority.

 

[DavidPF]

I’d consider that - a Kemadi, a Catcheside, a Y Tanaka, an Ikeda honyaki, more like using an optioned out Escalade or a Mercedes S to drive Uber,

The Chef's Knife, Escalade Style:

 

[toddnmd]

Weird results.

In all my years (20+) in commercial kitchens I can count the number of carbon knives seen on one hand, besides my few. Granted I haven't worked in any *starred* kitchens but by the same token I graduated from dives and mom&pops many years ago.
95% of my coworkers use either house knives (Sysco-type or BB&B stuff) that are never sharpened, or the knives supplied by a sharpening company (like Cozzini et al).

Of the majority who voted as 'heavy carbon' owners I wonder how many are collectors or non-professionals?

Yeah, I'm a bit surprised by the results as well. ~70% are solidly in the carbon camp. In the Go-To Stainless thread, there were a few people who have just one or two stainless knives, which is what got me thinking. And I categorize the type of knife by the core steel, and put semi-stainless as more like stainless than carbon, so that's where I count them.
I am in the roughly half/half category. I try to have different steels, different makers in my collection. Yes I know I could do that within stainless or carbon, but I like the variety. Have a couple semi-stainless that I count among my stainless. I find carbon care manageable most of the time, but I tend to use my carbon knives when I have more time to take care of them properly. I guess using stainless or semi is a bit more carefree so more enjoyable in some ways. But the carbons are certainly more pleasant to sharpen.

 

[Matt Jacobs]

I am probably 80% carbon but I am leaning more and more toward stainless. I love AEB-L. It sharpens as easily as my carbons and I do a lot of tomato and lemon so it tends to hold an edge longer and I dont have to wipe it down constantly. For large prep I grab Carbon but I think that is just because my carbons are typically bigger with a better grind/geometry etc. If I could get a 240 with a nice distal taper and convex edge in AEB-L I would be all over it.

 

[YumYumSauce]

Weird results.

In all my years (20+) in commercial kitchens I can count the number of carbon knives seen on one hand, besides my few. Granted I haven't worked in any *starred* kitchens but by the same token I graduated from dives and mom&pops many years ago.
95% of my coworkers use either house knives (Sysco-type or BB&B stuff) that are never sharpened, or the knives supplied by a sharpening company (like Cozzini et al).

Of the majority who voted as 'heavy carbon' owners I wonder how many are collectors or non-professionals?

Ive realized the people on this forum are not normal in relation to kitchen knives and I'm glad. The normie crowd will always be there on fb reminding each other not to forget to sharpen on sharpening sticks.

Ive experienced about the same in my limited experience as well.

Im kinda surprised actually at the amount of dull knives in pro kitchens.