Kitchen Knife Buying Guide - Knife Construction

Knife Handles

Chefs selecting kitchen knives can choose between composition handles, wood handles or stainless steel handles. The choice is between the practical and maintenance-free nature of composition or stainless, and the beauty and luxurious feel of wood. Most professional chefs choose composition or stainless handles because they require no maintenance - an important feature in a busy commercial kitchen. Wood handled knives are attractive and work fine in a home kitchen where the they receive less use and where the cook will take care of the equipment.

Knife Construction

The best type of knife construction is called full tang. The tang or handle part of the knife is full size and the handles are riveted to the tang with the tang showing all around the handle. Full tang knives are the strongest types.

Bolsters are found on the best quality knives. They are the thick steel area between the sharpened edge and the handles. Bolsters provide additional rigidity, weight, safety and improved balance to a knife. Examples of this kind of construction are the Wusthof or Sabatier.

The best kitchen knives are flat ground. The blade profile tapers from the thicker spine to the thinner edge in a straight or convex line. They are heavier and tougher than hollow ground blades which have a concave profile.

Serrations are the wavy type of blade edges. We consider serration to be an outstanding feature on bread knives and recommend that your bread knives have it. Serrations allow you to cut a soft material like bread without crushing it - a sawing motion is best. As long as you keep your edges sharp, plain edges are better for other kitchen purposes. A well sharpened plain edge knife should slice a ripe tomato cleanly and easily. Serrations are popular in lower priced knives because they will cut better when dull than a plain edge blade. We recommend plain edge blades for people who can and will keep their edges sharp. They provide more accurate and precise cuts as well as being easier or even possible to sharpen. Sharpening serrated edges is usually impractical because one would need the wheel from the factory with which the serrations were originally ground. It is possible to touch up serrated edges on the back side by honing them lightly. When serrated edges become dull, you should think about replacing them.

Some chef knives have what is known as a granton edge. You may have seen the large Kullenschliff slicers used to cut prime rib at a buffet. These knives have hollow oval areas ground into the side of the blades. They are used by professional chefs for slicing meat and fish as well as for other purposes. The advantage is that the food being cut with them has less tendency to stick to the side of the blade. Granton edges are maintained just like regular edges.

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