Good chopping(chef's) knife

[SirCranksalot]

Hey guys

I know many of you do lots of cooking. I don't but I have been doing lots of chopping for my wife who does most of the cooking, at least for the fancier stuff. I am using what I think are fairly cheap knives with a straight cutting edge. I can make them very sharp but they soon lose their edge. I seems to me that a knife that has some rocker to the cutting edge would work better.

Your thoughts?? TIA

[John]

Are you using cheap stamped steel knives or a forged one. A good quality forged chefs knife and a decent steel to align the edge between sharpening are worth the investment. 

[AKRISONER]

I’m gonna let you in on something I learned from experience. It requires discipline but I can promise you it works.

6 years ago…(wow I can’t believe it’s been that long)

I was freshly separated from my ex fiancée and I needed to purchase a knife set. Knowing how much I hated dull knives I set out to purchase a set and selected a set of mediocre Henkels from Canadian tire. I think one step above the bottom brand, nothing fancy but they were on sale. Being a bachelor and having bought an apartment that I was now funding entirely myself I made a vow to take care of my knives as best as I could.

 

6 years later, my knives are as sharp as the day I bought them and the reason why is simple,

 

1. never cut a single thing on anything other than a wood cutting board. (Chicken being the only exception, use a plastic cutting board, don’t ever use those stupid ceramic ones)
 

2. hand wash your knives with a brush and soap

3. Never put your knives in the sink. 

that’s it. When I notice they seem to be getting more dull than razor sharp, i hone them, and they immediately go back to like new. I swear to god my knives 6 years later are dangerously sharp.

[CrowMan]

I used to sharpen and hone all my knives by hand. I had the different grit stones and even a clamp/guide to maintain the angle, etc.

Then my kids got me a Chefs Choice Trizor XV electric sharpener for Christmas. It will put a 15 degree multiple angle edge on your blade that's razor sharp and extremely  durable. Given the profile of the edge, its almost impossible to duplicate by hand. Every buddy I have recommended it to raves about it and won't go back to hand sharpening.

[crappieperchhunter]

Maybe 10 years ago I got a cheap Kitchen Aid knife  from Canadian Tire to use for chopping at the cottage. Then with advice from Roy who used to run this board I got a 600/1000 grit sharpening whetstone. Took me maybe three tries on the whetstone to get things dialled in, but now my knife is always razor sharp. When it does start to lose its edge it takes me less then 10 minutes to get it back to perfect.  I do this maybe once a month, sometimes more often if the knife is getting a lot of use. Now having said all that I told my brother in law about it and offered to sharpen his knives for him. I don't recall the brand of his knives but he told me they where very expensive. I did get his knives a little sharper but I just could not get them as sharp as my knives at home.   The difference in steel from my limited experience does make a difference in how well the whetstone will sharpen up the knives, but I am 100% happy with my results on my cheapo knives. So much so that I bought the exact Kitchen Aid knife for here at home because the whetstone was not doing a perfect job on my Henkel knife set I have here. The Henkels never get out of the cupboard anymore.

[SirCranksalot]

Thx for the comments, guys!

I was a bit mistaken in my original post. One of my 8" chopping knives is a Henkel, prob bought from CTC as some of you have done. The other one is a Slitzer. 

AK---maybe you have identified my prob. I normally use a plastic cutting board. We have a few of them and often use 2 at a time. It would be a PITA to switch over to wood though in terms of use and wash up. 

The pic below shows what I use for sharpening. At the top is a 120/240 oilstone. Below that are 3 whetstones in 400, 600, and 1000 grit. I can get a very sharp edge using those----not just slicing thru paper on edge at a 90 deg angle but at small angles down to about 15-20 deg. I sharpen all the kitchen knives with those. Maybe I have become a bit compulsive about that.

The other thing that I may be confused about is the idea that chopping knives have quite a lot of curvature on the cutting edge. Maybe I got that impression from watching clips of chefs chopping vegs, but when I Google  'chefs' knives' or similar all the knives seem to have a minimal curvature at the point end just as mine have.

[AKRISONER]

On 6/9/2023 at 9:05 PM, SirCranksalot said:

Thx for the comments, guys!

I was a bit mistaken in my original post. One of my 8" chopping knives is a Henkel, prob bought from CTC as some of you have done. The other one is a Slitzer. 

AK---maybe you have identified my prob. I normally use a plastic cutting board. We have a few of them and often use 2 at a time. It would be a PITA to switch over to wood though in terms of use and wash up. 

The pic below shows what I use for sharpening. At the top is a 120/240 oilstone. Below that are 3 whetstones in 400, 600, and 1000 grit. I can get a very sharp edge using those----not just slicing thru paper on edge at a 90 deg angle but at small angles down to about 15-20 deg. I sharpen all the kitchen knives with those. Maybe I have become a bit compulsive about that.

The other thing that I may be confused about is the idea that chopping knives have quite a lot of curvature on the cutting edge. Maybe I got that impression from watching clips of chefs chopping vegs, but when I Google  'chefs' knives' or similar all the knives seem to have a minimal curvature at the point end just as mine have.

Honestly, if you aren’t cutting chicken and keep the board oiled, wash up is a simple rinse with water and you are done. I never use soap on my cutting board. The oil basically makes it none stick. 
 

I legitimately have not sharpened my knives in over 6 years, and you can come see for yourself they are razor sharp.

[CrowMan]

4 hours ago, AKRISONER said:

Honestly, if you aren’t cutting chicken and keep the board oiled, wash up is a simple rinse with water and you are done. I never use soap on my cutting board. The oil basically makes it none stick. 
 

I legitimately have not sharpened my knives in over 6 years, and you can come see for yourself they are razor sharp.

Huh...sure it's easy to keep your kitchen knives sharp when you're a bachelor...talk to me when you have kids, especially teenagers ...lol

[SirCranksalot]

6 hours ago, AKRISONER said:

Honestly, if you aren’t cutting chicken and keep the board oiled, wash up is a simple rinse with water and you are done. I never use soap on my cutting board. The oil basically makes it none stick. 
 

I legitimately have not sharpened my knives in over 6 years, and you can come see for yourself they are razor sharp.

OK, thx. I am surprised that a plastic cutting board would take the edge off a knife but your experience suggests otherwise I guess. I will try doing my cutting mostly on the one board we have and see if it helps.

 

Thx for the invite. Maybe I will come by.😄 Where do you live? 😄

[dave524]

I use the IVO Blademaster knives, they were rebranded under the President's Choice label years ago at a better price, very happy with them , sharpen them regular with a Spyderco ceramic system I've had since the late 70's. Also available on Amazon   https://www.ivocutlery.ca/collections/blademaster

[AKRISONER]

On 6/11/2023 at 4:58 PM, CrowMan said:

Huh...sure it's easy to keep your kitchen knives sharp when you're a bachelor...talk to me when you have kids, especially teenagers ...lol

the number 1 enemy of my sharp knives is my mother in law.

She loves to throw my knives in the dishwasher with the glasses 😪

[woodenboater]

my most used are the Wusthof utility and chef's knives. I'll either sharpen with water stones or with two sided oil. For some stuff the Chinese cleaver sees duty. For the cabin then it's plain jane knife sets or a peasant chef's knife from Lee Valley.