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Just some shitty comments: I clicked two knife categories and both said "This has no western equivalent!" True or false I am getting some twinges of "wowee, so

Just some shitty comments: I clicked two knife categories and both said "This has no western equivalent!" True or false I am getting some twinges of "wowee, so foreign, must be amazing, ancient secrets that somehow never crossed the ocean are here at last." Similarly I am unconvinced that we need specific knife forging masters whose fathers were knife forging masters to forge these knives. Do they have magical techniques that nobody else knows? Do you have to do it for 100 years to be able to make a good knife, or is the bar in fact lower? Your "why carbon steel?" page seems to indicate that carbon steel knives are better than stainless steel in all ways. Is that really true? Another poster here seemed to summarize that the carbon steel ones need more frequent sharpening (i.e. stay sharp less long, contrary to what you said).

jarcane 11y ago
The shape and design of Japanese knives is indeed quite different in use than the typical western chef's knife. It takes a little adjustment, but personally I do prefer a good santoku blade when I can get one, unless I'm doing something that needs the extra length. The thing about Japanese knife making is that they're just about the only ones left doing it that way, and there are advantages to hand-forged steel. You can't get the same results from machine stamping, and yeah, centuries of experience is not to be sneezed at in any profession. You'd be surprised how much of the working knowledge of a whole range of fields dates back to the middle ages. One of the holy grails of Western smithing books came out in the time of woodcuts. Using high carbon steel increases the tensile strength and hardness of the blade. It's true that crafted Japanese knives do require more regular care and maintenance, but the durability in the long term if properly treated is dramatically greater than stamped stainless knives. There are sushi chefs in Japan using 100+ year old knives. I was a cook professionally for many years, and I've tried a whole range of knives from the lowest to the highest end, and no knife I have ever used has been as pleasant to work with as a good Japanese forged knife. I'd still buy one in a heartbeat if I could both spare the cash and justify it for simple home use.
- lafar6502 11y ago
  I find it hard to believe that there are enough knife forging masters in Japan to be able to supply all hand made blades to the whole world. In last few years the demand has gone up many times (fashion, marketing, Internet) and the supply of master craftsmen is limited,even in Japan - i'd expect everybody and their grandma is making knives now from pre-machined components.
  - petewailes 11y ago
    You'd be surprised. The profile (no pun intended) of these types of blades have gotten has gone up a lot, but the actual number of hand made items hasn't really increased much as a result. They're expensive, and if you're not cooking a lot, or a very serious hobbyist, then you're not going to want to take on the burden of care that a knife like this requires. The flip side of that is that the production of this kind of knife is not something that's easily done at scale, while keeping the standard high. However, there are ways to get a similar aesthetic, without the same demands on the worker. That's where you get things like Global, Shun, Mac etc (and to a lesser extent, Tojiro and their ilk). TL:DR - lots of this style of knife exist nowadays, but the number of handmade items is still small.
  - buttermilk 11y ago
    What petewailes said. They the exposure has increased exponentially, the monetized result of that has been the sale of machined knives. Many craftspeople of many industries in Japan, have a surprisingly limited exposure on the internet. The known names definitely have year long waits now, but there's still room.
- vehementi 11y ago
  > centuries of experience is not to be sneezed at in any profession. You'd be surprised how much of the working knowledge of a whole range of fields dates back to the middle ages. One of the holy grails of Western smithing books came out in the time of woodcuts. I totally agree, it's just that, are zero people in the US good enough to make these knives? Does it require such expertise that if your father wasn't a knife forging expert, it's inconceivable that you could otherwise learn or be taught how to do this to make a good enough knife? Why can't I (say, a decent smith in the US) read a book on this technique, do it for a couple of years and churn out the same quality knives? I'm sure the 100 year old Japanese artisan smiths of Lothlorien make more subtly elegant knives, but a chef, or at least the general market of in-the-know chefs who want a strongass knife, should not care about that to the point of needing to import them from Japan.
  - jarcane 11y ago
    I don't think we even have any analog to it in the US anymore. Japan still has a strong tradition of apprenticeship and a cultural appreciation for craftsmanship that, well, the US doesn't even have the history for. Many of the Japanese smiths who make these blades started apprenticing from childhood, from someone else who was apprenticed since childhood, and on and on back centuries. And the custom in such apprenticeship is that you might expect to spend years doing the same simple task before being allowed to move on to the next. For an analogy: some of the best sushi chefs using those knives were themselves apprentices who spent years just learning how to make rice, before they were even allowed to touch a piece of fish. That kind of practice is hard to compete with unless you've been through it yourself, and chances are if you're old enough to post on this website, you are already behind. Now there are smiths, plenty of them in the states. Many very good ones indeed, even some who have had some training or study with the Japanese. The focus though, tends to be on swords or hunting/outdoor or fighting knives. Not many bother with kitchen knives, the demand isn't high and the requirements are different, and who would they sell them to? Here in the states they'd have to compete with a culture that can by a chef's knife for $15 from any restaurant supply store. House knives are cheap but durable, and easily replaced if they go too dull. If you want good knives, you buy your own import, is the general rule among chefs. Manufactured, probably from a European make, or handcrafted from Japan if you're a hardcore sushi chef. So it's not that isn't theoretically possible, there's just a hell of a lot of economic factors preventing it.
- buttermilk 11y ago
  @jarcane Well said! +1 I'm surprised that I too have been using a santoku as a daily driver. They're great when they're done well.
venomsnake 11y ago
Depends on the stainless. You want fine grain in a steel and small carbides to have ability to get it screaming sharp. With ultra pure unalloyed steels it is insultingly easy to do so. AEB-L can give run for the money to any carbon steel. But other soft stainless with huge chromium carbides have gummy feel when sharpened.
- buttermilk 11y ago
  Yes! Exactly this! The problem is that the majority of available AEB-L knives aren't treated in ways that display the potential of AEB-L. Devin Thomas is the only maker I know that spent years developing metallurgical research on AEB-L, bringing it to perform as well as, or better than, anything out there. ZDP-189 is another great modern stainless.
2muchcoffeeman 11y ago
Ancient secrets aside, I do find Japanese knives in general better. They are thinner, lighter, hold an edge longer, are easier to put an edge on, and the edge runs the entire length of the blade making it easy to sharpen. Other than my paring knife which cost as much as my chefs knife, I find Globals perfectly good. Even the step up from Globals are fairly inexpensive if you cook regularly.
buttermilk 11y ago
Not shitty comments, they're helpful. Thank you. When I wrote about these styles not having a western equivalent, I meant just that there is literally not a similar style in western knives. I in no way hoped to infer that these knives are unrivaled by western knives. They're just a totally new style for western chefs. I'll work on that wording though! Somebody else said something similar about hand-made. I'll write a post today or tomorrow to elaborate the benefits of generational makers or experienced makers. Where would you like to see this information on the site? Carbon steel knives are largely better than stainless in all ways (other than preventing oxidation). This is not a necessary truth, as some recent modern stainless steels have great capabilities, but there are extremely few makers capable of utilizing stainless steel in a way that rivals the performance of carbon steel. I'll be replying to the other poster but, in short, a lot of what they wrote is misinformed.
- vehementi 11y ago
  Thanks for the reply. I'm definitely just an ignorable bitter person skeptical of claims of unique ancient masters etc. The more cool articles on your site explaining these things the better. I am not a knife customer though and was just taking a peek at your site to give a little bit of feedback. But if I were to get into being enthusiastic about knives, I would greatly appreciate being able to go from zero to well informed by reading your site as an unbiased collection of the knowledge. If it sounds overly like marketing though, then it would look like you're trying to trick people into buying your knives, rather than explaining the whole truth and letting people see that the answer is to buy your knives because you've done the research and found the best ones. (Not saying it sounds like that)
  - buttermilk 11y ago
    Thanks! Feedback is a great gift. I appreciate it regardless of whether or not you ever buy from me. I'll keep the articles coming...
mikekchar 11y ago
I need to read the original site because possibly some of this information is already there :-) But, cooking has always been a hobby of mine and I fell in love with Japanese knives when I moved to Japan 7 years ago. Here are some answers to your questions. I'm not an expert so I hope I don't make too many mistakes. No western equivalent: Some Japanese knives are definitely completely different beasts than western knives. For example the nakiri knife is only sharpened on one side (the right hand side, away from the thing you are cutting). So it's a bit like scissors -- perfectly flat on the left hand side and sharpened to 22 degrees on the right. This allows you to get a much cleaner cut to vegetables and is absolutely necessary for some of the decorative cuts that some Japanese chefs do. It actually requires a different cutting motion to use -- you draw the knife towards you as you slice down as apposed to the western technique for pushing the knife away from you. There are some other very specialized knives for cutting fish (which he does not have on his website). One in particular that I can think of (the name escapes me) is practically a sword, being very large and heavy. It allows you to easily slice bones very thinly and hence make them edible (fish bones are a big source of calcium in Japan). As for the santoku being a different knife, I have to say that I find it more similar to a french chef's knife than a Gyuto so possibly I'm missing something there :-) Magical Construction Technique: Do they really have a magical construction technique? Amusingly, the answer is very close to "yes" ;-) Western knives are often cast steel that are then shaped and sharpened. High quality japanese kitchen knives are made the same way as a katana. They are folded time after time after time which aligns the carbon in the steel making it more stiff. This allows the blade to be sharpened better. However, the metal is very soft so you need to "wrap" the metal in a harder metal. This is what is known as a "kasumi" knife. When you sharpen it, it exposes the layers of different metal giving you a really pretty pattern on the blade. Although the pattern in pretty, that's not its function. It is to provide stiffness along the blade so that it doesn't bend or warp. Whether or not this is desired depends on the type of knife and what it is going to be used for (this is where I rapidly run out of knowledge, unfortunately). In addition to grinding through various layers of steel, a very good kasumi knife can also exhibit mottling from the carbon in the steel similar to damascus steel. Do you have to do this for 100 years to be able to make a good knife: Obviously not, but think for a moment about the number 100. What is true 100 years ago that is not true now? The answer is: they were still making katana 100 years ago. Katana were still made for the samurai class until the late 1860s (the Meiji restoration). After that, they were made for military officers until the end of WWII. The technique for folding the metal is unique to Japanese sword/knife manufacture and is incredibly labour intensive. Slowly the artisans that were making swords 100-150 years ago have been migrating to kitchen knives, scissors and wood working tools. Most of these manufacturers are family businesses -- just some old guy and his brother (and maybe one of their sons if they are supremely lucky) working out of a shed. My personal opinion is that high quality knives will be hard to buy at all 20-30 years from now because most of the people doing it now will be dead. This is not factory work -- these knives are crafted by artisans using techniques that are not well known. It's rather sad that it is hard for these artisans to excite the next generation into taking over the business (I think mainly because they make practically no money doing it :-( ) Carbon steel knives are dramatically better than stainless steel for use. Even a cheap, mass manufactured carbon steel knife costing $20 will beat the pants off of a stainless knife for a very simple reason: it is easy to sharpen. It is true that it does not hold the sharpness for long (and it may be my post that you are referring to). General rule of thumb is to sharpen it every day (after you are finished using it so that it has time to rest before using it again -- most chefs have 2 sets and use them on alternate days). The other main benefit for a high quality carbon steel knife is that the flex of the knife is designed into it by the artisan. Because they are folding the steel, they can get a lot of different effects depending on what they are going for. There is a huge variety of Japanese knives for this reason. The "this has no western equivalent" should really be taken as "this is designed for a specific usage and has characteristics which would not be possible using different materials/techniques". Whether or not you need such a niche tool is really dependent upon what you are doing, though. (although I think the santoku is a wonderful general purpose knife). Once you get used to using (and sharpening) carbon steel knives, I pretty much guarantee that you will also think of stainless steel knives as not worth the effort. It just isn't possible to sharpen stainless steel to the same degree. The only other knife that is comparable IMHO is ceramic (but which is completely unsharpenable and is only good for a couple of months depending on how much you use it). My wife prefers ceramic over carbon steel because it is very, very light. It's a bit less versatile, though. There are numerous disadvantages of carbon steel. You have to sharpen it very frequently (every day). You have to keep it clean. You have to keep it dry. You can get rust on your carbon steel knife if you even so much as look away, I think. Japanese chefs are obsessed with their knives (and cutting boards) and you have to have the same attitude. Although the website may not discuss the downsides of carbon steel adequately, I don't think they are incorrect about the overall message. Stainless steel will give you a crappy knife that is easy to look after. Carbon steel will potentially give you a fanstastic knife that you must care for. IMHO he is also correct that Japanese carbon steel knives are unique in the world (I don't know anywhere else that makes them the same way -- I'm interested to hear of any, though). In particular the knives he is selling are hand made artisan knives. Far from being able to find similar knives in other places in the world, the knowledge (and desire) needed to make these knives is even dying out in Japan! Hope that helps. Like I said, I'm a big fan of Japanese carbon steel knives, but I'm not an expert, so please forgive me if I have made mistakes in the above.

jarcane 11y ago

The shape and design of Japanese knives is indeed quite different in use than the typical western chef's knife. It takes a little adjustment, but personally I do prefer a good santoku blade when I can get one, unless I'm doing something that needs the extra length. The thing about Japanese knife making is that they're just about the only ones left doing it that way, and there are advantages to hand-forged steel. You can't get the same results from machine stamping, and yeah, centuries of experience is not to be sneezed at in any profession. You'd be surprised how much of the working knowledge of a whole range of fields dates back to the middle ages. One of the holy grails of Western smithing books came out in the time of woodcuts. Using high carbon steel increases the tensile strength and hardness of the blade. It's true that crafted Japanese knives do require more regular care and maintenance, but the durability in the long term if properly treated is dramatically greater than stamped stainless knives. There are sushi chefs in Japan using 100+ year old knives. I was a cook professionally for many years, and I've tried a whole range of knives from the lowest to the highest end, and no knife I have ever used has been as pleasant to work with as a good Japanese forged knife. I'd still buy one in a heartbeat if I could both spare the cash and justify it for simple home use.

lafar6502 11y ago
I find it hard to believe that there are enough knife forging masters in Japan to be able to supply all hand made blades to the whole world. In last few years the demand has gone up many times (fashion, marketing, Internet) and the supply of master craftsmen is limited,even in Japan - i'd expect everybody and their grandma is making knives now from pre-machined components.
- petewailes 11y ago
  You'd be surprised. The profile (no pun intended) of these types of blades have gotten has gone up a lot, but the actual number of hand made items hasn't really increased much as a result. They're expensive, and if you're not cooking a lot, or a very serious hobbyist, then you're not going to want to take on the burden of care that a knife like this requires. The flip side of that is that the production of this kind of knife is not something that's easily done at scale, while keeping the standard high. However, there are ways to get a similar aesthetic, without the same demands on the worker. That's where you get things like Global, Shun, Mac etc (and to a lesser extent, Tojiro and their ilk). TL:DR - lots of this style of knife exist nowadays, but the number of handmade items is still small.
- buttermilk 11y ago
  What petewailes said. They the exposure has increased exponentially, the monetized result of that has been the sale of machined knives. Many craftspeople of many industries in Japan, have a surprisingly limited exposure on the internet. The known names definitely have year long waits now, but there's still room.
vehementi 11y ago
> centuries of experience is not to be sneezed at in any profession. You'd be surprised how much of the working knowledge of a whole range of fields dates back to the middle ages. One of the holy grails of Western smithing books came out in the time of woodcuts. I totally agree, it's just that, are zero people in the US good enough to make these knives? Does it require such expertise that if your father wasn't a knife forging expert, it's inconceivable that you could otherwise learn or be taught how to do this to make a good enough knife? Why can't I (say, a decent smith in the US) read a book on this technique, do it for a couple of years and churn out the same quality knives? I'm sure the 100 year old Japanese artisan smiths of Lothlorien make more subtly elegant knives, but a chef, or at least the general market of in-the-know chefs who want a strongass knife, should not care about that to the point of needing to import them from Japan.
- jarcane 11y ago
  I don't think we even have any analog to it in the US anymore. Japan still has a strong tradition of apprenticeship and a cultural appreciation for craftsmanship that, well, the US doesn't even have the history for. Many of the Japanese smiths who make these blades started apprenticing from childhood, from someone else who was apprenticed since childhood, and on and on back centuries. And the custom in such apprenticeship is that you might expect to spend years doing the same simple task before being allowed to move on to the next. For an analogy: some of the best sushi chefs using those knives were themselves apprentices who spent years just learning how to make rice, before they were even allowed to touch a piece of fish. That kind of practice is hard to compete with unless you've been through it yourself, and chances are if you're old enough to post on this website, you are already behind. Now there are smiths, plenty of them in the states. Many very good ones indeed, even some who have had some training or study with the Japanese. The focus though, tends to be on swords or hunting/outdoor or fighting knives. Not many bother with kitchen knives, the demand isn't high and the requirements are different, and who would they sell them to? Here in the states they'd have to compete with a culture that can by a chef's knife for $15 from any restaurant supply store. House knives are cheap but durable, and easily replaced if they go too dull. If you want good knives, you buy your own import, is the general rule among chefs. Manufactured, probably from a European make, or handcrafted from Japan if you're a hardcore sushi chef. So it's not that isn't theoretically possible, there's just a hell of a lot of economic factors preventing it.
buttermilk 11y ago
@jarcane Well said! +1 I'm surprised that I too have been using a santoku as a daily driver. They're great when they're done well.

venomsnake 11y ago

Depends on the stainless. You want fine grain in a steel and small carbides to have ability to get it screaming sharp. With ultra pure unalloyed steels it is insultingly easy to do so. AEB-L can give run for the money to any carbon steel. But other soft stainless with huge chromium carbides have gummy feel when sharpened.

buttermilk 11y ago
Yes! Exactly this! The problem is that the majority of available AEB-L knives aren't treated in ways that display the potential of AEB-L. Devin Thomas is the only maker I know that spent years developing metallurgical research on AEB-L, bringing it to perform as well as, or better than, anything out there. ZDP-189 is another great modern stainless.

2muchcoffeeman 11y ago

Ancient secrets aside, I do find Japanese knives in general better. They are thinner, lighter, hold an edge longer, are easier to put an edge on, and the edge runs the entire length of the blade making it easy to sharpen. Other than my paring knife which cost as much as my chefs knife, I find Globals perfectly good. Even the step up from Globals are fairly inexpensive if you cook regularly.

buttermilk 11y ago

Not shitty comments, they're helpful. Thank you. When I wrote about these styles not having a western equivalent, I meant just that there is literally not a similar style in western knives. I in no way hoped to infer that these knives are unrivaled by western knives. They're just a totally new style for western chefs. I'll work on that wording though! Somebody else said something similar about hand-made. I'll write a post today or tomorrow to elaborate the benefits of generational makers or experienced makers. Where would you like to see this information on the site? Carbon steel knives are largely better than stainless in all ways (other than preventing oxidation). This is not a necessary truth, as some recent modern stainless steels have great capabilities, but there are extremely few makers capable of utilizing stainless steel in a way that rivals the performance of carbon steel. I'll be replying to the other poster but, in short, a lot of what they wrote is misinformed.

vehementi 11y ago
Thanks for the reply. I'm definitely just an ignorable bitter person skeptical of claims of unique ancient masters etc. The more cool articles on your site explaining these things the better. I am not a knife customer though and was just taking a peek at your site to give a little bit of feedback. But if I were to get into being enthusiastic about knives, I would greatly appreciate being able to go from zero to well informed by reading your site as an unbiased collection of the knowledge. If it sounds overly like marketing though, then it would look like you're trying to trick people into buying your knives, rather than explaining the whole truth and letting people see that the answer is to buy your knives because you've done the research and found the best ones. (Not saying it sounds like that)
- buttermilk 11y ago
  Thanks! Feedback is a great gift. I appreciate it regardless of whether or not you ever buy from me. I'll keep the articles coming...

mikekchar 11y ago

I need to read the original site because possibly some of this information is already there :-) But, cooking has always been a hobby of mine and I fell in love with Japanese knives when I moved to Japan 7 years ago. Here are some answers to your questions. I'm not an expert so I hope I don't make too many mistakes. No western equivalent: Some Japanese knives are definitely completely different beasts than western knives. For example the nakiri knife is only sharpened on one side (the right hand side, away from the thing you are cutting). So it's a bit like scissors -- perfectly flat on the left hand side and sharpened to 22 degrees on the right. This allows you to get a much cleaner cut to vegetables and is absolutely necessary for some of the decorative cuts that some Japanese chefs do. It actually requires a different cutting motion to use -- you draw the knife towards you as you slice down as apposed to the western technique for pushing the knife away from you. There are some other very specialized knives for cutting fish (which he does not have on his website). One in particular that I can think of (the name escapes me) is practically a sword, being very large and heavy. It allows you to easily slice bones very thinly and hence make them edible (fish bones are a big source of calcium in Japan). As for the santoku being a different knife, I have to say that I find it more similar to a french chef's knife than a Gyuto so possibly I'm missing something there :-) Magical Construction Technique: Do they really have a magical construction technique? Amusingly, the answer is very close to "yes" ;-) Western knives are often cast steel that are then shaped and sharpened. High quality japanese kitchen knives are made the same way as a katana. They are folded time after time after time which aligns the carbon in the steel making it more stiff. This allows the blade to be sharpened better. However, the metal is very soft so you need to "wrap" the metal in a harder metal. This is what is known as a "kasumi" knife. When you sharpen it, it exposes the layers of different metal giving you a really pretty pattern on the blade. Although the pattern in pretty, that's not its function. It is to provide stiffness along the blade so that it doesn't bend or warp. Whether or not this is desired depends on the type of knife and what it is going to be used for (this is where I rapidly run out of knowledge, unfortunately). In addition to grinding through various layers of steel, a very good kasumi knife can also exhibit mottling from the carbon in the steel similar to damascus steel. Do you have to do this for 100 years to be able to make a good knife: Obviously not, but think for a moment about the number 100. What is true 100 years ago that is not true now? The answer is: they were still making katana 100 years ago. Katana were still made for the samurai class until the late 1860s (the Meiji restoration). After that, they were made for military officers until the end of WWII. The technique for folding the metal is unique to Japanese sword/knife manufacture and is incredibly labour intensive. Slowly the artisans that were making swords 100-150 years ago have been migrating to kitchen knives, scissors and wood working tools. Most of these manufacturers are family businesses -- just some old guy and his brother (and maybe one of their sons if they are supremely lucky) working out of a shed. My personal opinion is that high quality knives will be hard to buy at all 20-30 years from now because most of the people doing it now will be dead. This is not factory work -- these knives are crafted by artisans using techniques that are not well known. It's rather sad that it is hard for these artisans to excite the next generation into taking over the business (I think mainly because they make practically no money doing it :-( ) Carbon steel knives are dramatically better than stainless steel for use. Even a cheap, mass manufactured carbon steel knife costing $20 will beat the pants off of a stainless knife for a very simple reason: it is easy to sharpen. It is true that it does not hold the sharpness for long (and it may be my post that you are referring to). General rule of thumb is to sharpen it every day (after you are finished using it so that it has time to rest before using it again -- most chefs have 2 sets and use them on alternate days). The other main benefit for a high quality carbon steel knife is that the flex of the knife is designed into it by the artisan. Because they are folding the steel, they can get a lot of different effects depending on what they are going for. There is a huge variety of Japanese knives for this reason. The "this has no western equivalent" should really be taken as "this is designed for a specific usage and has characteristics which would not be possible using different materials/techniques". Whether or not you need such a niche tool is really dependent upon what you are doing, though. (although I think the santoku is a wonderful general purpose knife). Once you get used to using (and sharpening) carbon steel knives, I pretty much guarantee that you will also think of stainless steel knives as not worth the effort. It just isn't possible to sharpen stainless steel to the same degree. The only other knife that is comparable IMHO is ceramic (but which is completely unsharpenable and is only good for a couple of months depending on how much you use it). My wife prefers ceramic over carbon steel because it is very, very light. It's a bit less versatile, though. There are numerous disadvantages of carbon steel. You have to sharpen it very frequently (every day). You have to keep it clean. You have to keep it dry. You can get rust on your carbon steel knife if you even so much as look away, I think. Japanese chefs are obsessed with their knives (and cutting boards) and you have to have the same attitude. Although the website may not discuss the downsides of carbon steel adequately, I don't think they are incorrect about the overall message. Stainless steel will give you a crappy knife that is easy to look after. Carbon steel will potentially give you a fanstastic knife that you must care for. IMHO he is also correct that Japanese carbon steel knives are unique in the world (I don't know anywhere else that makes them the same way -- I'm interested to hear of any, though). In particular the knives he is selling are hand made artisan knives. Far from being able to find similar knives in other places in the world, the knowledge (and desire) needed to make these knives is even dying out in Japan! Hope that helps. Like I said, I'm a big fan of Japanese carbon steel knives, but I'm not an expert, so please forgive me if I have made mistakes in the above.