Kitchen Knive Buying Guide - Blade Materials

Knife Steel

Basically, kitchen knives are available in three types of steel.

High carbon steel is actually the best performer providing more toughness and the ability to take a very sharp edge with less overall effort. However, high carbon steel is not stain resistant. It can rust and will discolor from use. After much use, high carbon steel kitchen knife blades will actually become black. This discoloration is purely cosmetic and does not affect the performance of the knife in any way. An example of this kind of knife is the Sabatier Au Carbone.

High carbon stainless steel is the best of the stain resistant steels. It has a high content of carbon for hardness and still enough chromium to keep it looking great. High carbon stainless will take a sharp edge and maintain it well. It is the most popular steel type used in high quality kitchen cutlery and most of the cutlery we offer is made of this type of steel. The Japanese knives use an alloy and heat treatment that produces a harder thinner blade requiring more maintenance (Global) and the European knives (Wusthof) produce a softer thicker blade requiring less maintenance. Most of the kitchen cutlery we sell would fall into this category

Stainless steel or surgical stainless steel has less carbon and more chromium in the alloy. It is very resistant to rust and stains but not hard enough to maintain the best possible edge. This type of steel is used often in the less expensive cutlery you may find at a local discount department store. You won't find them here. We think the quality and performance of your cutlery is important to good cooking and we don't recommend this kind of knife.

Other Knife Blade Materials

Titanium is actually a matrix of titanium and carbides. Titanium is lighter than steel and more wear resistant. So titanium will hold an edge longer than steel. The carbides in the alloy allow the blades to be heat treated to a hardness appropriate for cutlery. Titanium imparts no flavor whatsoever to food. The blades are more flexible than steel blades so they aren't a good choice for some applications like decorative cuts but work quite well for boning, fileting, etc.

Ceramic is not a steel at all, of course, but a very hard ceramic material called zirconium oxide. These blades are so hard that they will maintain a sharp edge for months or years with no maintenance at all. Also they cannot impart any "steel" taste to the food. On the negative side, they are more brittle and cannot be used for prying (actually, no kitchen knife should be used for prying) and they require diamond sharpening tools to maintain. Also take note that you should use ceramic knives only on a cutting board. Don't use them as steak knives. They are hard enough to cut the glaze on your dinnerware. Examples of this type of knife are the ceramic bladed Kyocera knives.

Most blades are blocked or stamped from a steel blank and then ground to shape. Some, like the high end European bolstered knives from Wusthof or Sabatier are forged. Here the blade is pounded into shape from a blank of red hot steel. The final grinding and finishing are only superficial and cosmetic. The advantage is that these knives are "integral" which means they are made from a single piece of steel, bolster and all. That provides the highest level of strength. It is also said that the forging process reduces impurities in the steel which can contribute to consistency from front to back. A few high end European knives such as Henckels are not forged but are built up by welding together the tang (handle), bolster (thick part where blade meets handle) and blade to make up the complete knife.

Sabatier Cutlery  Wusthof Cutlery  Kyocera Ceramic Cutlery Japanese Cutlery