All you need to know before buying a kitchen knife set

About time you get a knife set? Here is all you need to know to save yourself some time.

Before you make your final decision, go through all of the tools offered and determine if you’ll really use them, or if they’re just a bit of eye candy that will only be used on rare occasions — if at all.

For most home kitchens, three or four knives will be sufficient for the majority of the work performed. Look for a set that includes the basic pieces:

ADDITIONAL KNIVES

Again, depending on your cooking style, some additional pieces could be:

  • A bread knife (Included in the Kitchen Starter Kit) — not just for breads but handy for cutting through cake and squish fruits such as tomatoes.
  • A utility blade — an all-purpose performer for handling smaller pieces.
  • A meat cleaver — for cutting up chicken, ribs and larger pieces.
  • A vegetable cleaver — for chopping up and dicing veggies and herbs (or substituting as a general chef’s knife).
  • A fillet knife — for filleting fish.
  • A boning knife — for removing meat from chicken, ham, or roasts.
  • A carving blade — for slicing thin pieces from roasts, turkey, chicken, ham, etc.
  • A honing steel — for keeping the edges of your blades true and sharp.
  • Kitchen shears — handy for multiple uses in the kitchen, from breaking down a chicken to cutting herbs to opening plastic packaging.

Looking for a Chef’s Knife in the $20 range? You’re going to find a lot of junk down at that end of the spectrum. But find one with X50CrMo15 steel and you’ve got yourself a great value. Keep that knife sharp and you’ve just saved yourself 50% or more.

Want to step up to some high end knives? If you’re going to shell out $100 for a Santoku and you’re willing to care for it properly, a MAC knife hardened to HRC 60 and sharpened appropriately will be a stunning value. You can save 50% over a high-end Wusthof and get a better knife to boot.

Steel names preceded with X mean it is a high alloy steel, the X itself only notifies the reader of the name that the numbers behind the composition are nominal percentages. If the name is not preceded with an X it means the numbers are modified with a multiplier.

For example: — X105CrMo17 steel has 1,05% carbon, 17% chrome content and a unspecified level of Molybdenum.

Steel always contains iron and carbon. Carbon facilitates the transformation of iron into hardened steel. Some of this carbon is absorbed by the iron, but the rest adds hardness to the blade. The more Carbon, the harder the blade.

Below are listed different kind of steels you might encounter in your research:

X50CrMoV15

is the most commonly used stainless steel type for kitchen knives by a.o. German manufacturers. It is a good steel type for a very wide public. The rust resistance is high and the cutting characteristics are perfect.

Excellent for family use and professional use where not everyone is careful with the knives. For info: X stands for stainless, 50 for 0.50% carbon and 15 for 15% Chrome. In addition the steel contains small quantities of Molybdene and Vanadium to improve the grain structure and durability.

Available knives in this steel: All Wüsthof knives except Silverpoint, All knives by Zwilling J.A. Henckels and Robert Herder RVS knives.

Cromova (Global) — stainless steel

Cromova is the name of Global for the stainless steel they use. It is steel with 0.8 % carbon and added chrome, molybdenum and vanadium. Cromova steel has a fine grain structure and can be sharpened very sharp. It combines good cutting characteristics with good rust resistance.

Cronodur 30 — stainless steel

Cronodur 30 is stainless steel with a low carbon content and the addition of nitrogen. That benefits the resistance against corrosion while the hardness is good too. The steel promises a lot, but we have to say we have little feedback on these knives because we only carry one knives set in this steel type in our assortment.

VG10 (V-Gold 10) — stainless steel

VG10 is a stainless steel type with a — for stainless steel — high carbon percentage, i.e. 1%. This makes VG10 harder than most stainless steel types. The cutting characteristics are very good and VG10 is easy to sharpen razor sharp.

SG2 / SGPS — Stainless powder steel

SG2 and SGPS are two names for the same powder steel. Its fine structure and good distribution of the elements makes it possible to add more alloy elements than in ordinary stainless steel. That increases the hardness and cutting characteristics.

Carbon steel HRC 60 — (not stainless) carbon steel

Rober Herder uses carbon steel hardened to the level of 60 Rockwell C. Hence the name HRC 60. This steel is hard at 60 Rockwell C hard, but not extremely hard. The carbon percentage is 0.8%.

Find it confusing? Check out our Kitchen Starter Kit which includes a set of the knives (X50CrMoV15 German steel) most commonly used in restaurants.

Welcome to a place where words matter. On Medium, smart voices and original ideas take center stage - with no ads in sight. Watch
Follow all the topics you care about, and we’ll deliver the best stories for you to your homepage and inbox. Explore
Get unlimited access to the best stories on Medium — and support writers while you’re at it. Just $5/month. Upgrade