10 Things You NEED to Know Before Buying a Japanese Knife

Buying your first knife can be such an incredible task. Walking into a store filled with hundreds of options, carbon steel and stainless steel, endless knife jargon being thrown around, it can all be a little intimidating! Fear not first timer, Nathan has sold a ton of knives over the 12 years he's worked at Knifewear. He's got a great list of tips for you so that when you walk into that store you'll feel ready, confident, and show those knives who's boss!

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[LickFury]

#11. Once you start using your first Japanese knife, you will be hooked for life and you will have to purchase more Japanese knives. There is nothing you can do about it, just accept your fate

[blubb]

Mine is atm in delivery. Im excited to get my Ryusen Oukokuryu 210 Gyuto

[GrantHendrick]

Great tutorial Nathan. This will be a great help to those starting out. I am on hold for now but it’s great to see all the great knives and kitchen tools you have. For those just starting I will suggest how happy I am with Masashi’s VS1 steel in the Kaijin line. Cheers.

[Amybnuy]

1) you will become addicted
2) your fav knife will go out of stock and you’ll instead spend a lot of time consuming content related to knives waiting for it to be back in stock ;p

[GabrielGuzman]

Me Watching this after buying my first Japanese knife

[zeveroarerules]

I started with a Miyabi santoku, have a masamoto KS and a few others.
I use my Zwilling pro chef's the most... (though I might need to do something about that sharp spine)

[tetuo]

It's not even the mechanical jostling that dulls a knife in the dishwasher. The thin edge gets corroded by the harsh alkaline detergents.

[tobyg]

What kind of knife is it at 07:59 from Masashi Yamamoto? That one looks great, would be awesome to know where I can find one!

[AuxHex]

Not sure why you're mentioning IKEA. Their BRILJERA line is made of VG10 and is hardened properly.

[gromultimas]

Do you have any recommendation for a gyuto with a K tip? I would want stainless steel for sure.

I have a high carbon santoku that was gifted to me and I recently bought a Yoshimi Kato Minamo Bunka 170mm. That Bunka is unbelievable.

[gvaala]

Nice video! What is the big knife on the thumbnail called? The kurouchi one 😊

[Hawaiian]

Much Mahalo (Thank You in Hawaiian) for the great information.

[TrevorDennis]

That was interesting and useful, but it would have been more useful to see those names written down, as I suspect I have no chance of working it out from hearing you speak the names in this video. Is there a list with the same recommendations somewhere?

[liquel]

There are expensive Japanese knives, and then there are those that are affordable. I learned that the inexpensive knives were made mostly by the apprentice blacksmiths. These inexpensive knives are not perfect, but still high quality thus worth buying. However beware of buying Japanese knives online from Temu as Chinese learned to pirate them by creating replica that only looks like Japanese knives but bends like aluminum when used.

[melonyogloo]

Chefs would only put knives in a dish washer in a restaurant setting is when they are not the one paying for it.

[unclesam]

My only issue here is the “safer” point. Any sharp knife, Japanese or not, is safer than a dull knife. So Japanese knives being inherently safer is a cop out. That being said, I love me an artisan made Japanese knife with western aesthetics and balance.

[Edwardi]

"Japanese knifes are much safer" I nearly lost a finger to a shun 😂

[ZarlanTheGreen]

There is no such thing as a machine forged knife. There are no machines that can forge anything. Machines can only cut, grind, and/or mill a blade. Never forge it. If someone were to develop a forging machine, that would be great, and would enable mass production of blades, using a lot less metal. (as you could shape them by forging, rather than removing material, and thus not wasting anywhere near the same amount of material)

[pitoalva]

You are wrong. 🤣🤣 just to be funny. Thank you for your knowledge.