The HARD Choice - Carbon VS Stainless Steel Knives

Adam on YouTube: @AdamWitt

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[dylanweiss]

After using both extensively for years for me it just chalks up to your preferences and whether or not you want to go that extra mile. I’ve seen a lot of people go out and drop $200+ on a knife and either let it rust as a display item in their kitchen or completely ignore maintenance in a professional setting.

Get a knife that fits you, don’t try to fit into a knife.

[briguymcfly]

I think it's incorrect to assert that hardness is directly related to stainless or carbon classification. Stainless and carbon steel knives are commonly found in 60+ rockwell hardness ratings as blade manufacturers (and bladesmiths) are capable of creating all sorts of hardness using sophisticated (or basic) heat treating techniques. The metallurgical composition (types of adjuncts added to create micro [nano?] structures is more responsible for the functional characteristics that are being discussed.

To keep it approachable to beginners, I think it could be helpful to compare it to a cake. The crumb, hydration, fat content and solids all contribute to the 'performance' characteristics of the cake. Cook time and temperature affect the 'hardness.'

[TCMx]

to be fair though, most of the really high tech steels have full stainless or semi-stainless levels of chromium in them amongst a great deal of other carefully measured stuff like vanadium, and these steel's wear resistance and subsequent real world hardness and edge retention are far, far beyond what even Aogami Super offers. the advantage of carbon steel is that with modern manufacturing it can have extreme purity + fine grain structure and take and hold high levels of polish that larger carbide steels can struggle with, also those carbides can require specialized cutting equipment as they can be harder than most stones so you either cant cut them or even worse tear them out. I personally also enjoy polishing so for me carbon steel is my usual choice as it's far easier to get glad with iron instead of stainless. I cant comment on which is better for a home env much less a pro environment as Ive got like 20 240mm knives alone and that cant possibly be anything like what your average person owns/uses.

[ShortcutReviews]

As a home “enthusiast” I”ve found the geometry and comfort is king, super edge holding doesn’t matter. The easy of sharpening VG-10 (Stainless) or 5160 (Carbon) means you’re more likely to keep it touched up compared to ZDP-189, for example. Pace at home is slower so you have time to clean and dry a carbon knife. I have the inexpensive Daovua Leaf Spring Honesuki for boning chickens, 2 every week or so, and maybe touch it up once every 3 months (~15-20 chickens) and does really well and is easy to maintain ( don’t laugh) on a spyderco sharpmaker 😂

[nikolasusman]

Been using a 210 mm VG10 Takamura for the past 3 years & while I love it to death I still wish I got something with more edge retention, a thicker handle like a WA style one & a longer blade.

I'm looking forward to getting a carbon steel knife down the road when I'm better with hitting consistent angles on the stone & overall maintenance.

[thiago.assumpcao]

On low end knives carbon steel tends to have longer edge retention and its easier to sharpen. That is a limitation of many cheap stainless steel but not a limitation of stainless by itself.

My knives on Din 1.1416 and 10Cr15MoV can easily sharpen enough to shave but its really hard to get my cheap 1070 carbon steel knives to that level of sharpness, took me many attempts to learn how to do it. Also the edge retention on the 10Cr15MoV is much better than my cheap carbon knifes. That is an issue with the quality of my carbon blades not carbon steel in general.

I'm not a professional but I read about metallurgy. Since you love knives maybe you would be interested on the topic

Steel is made of a multi crystalline structure. The main limitation for how sharp a knife can get is the size of the crystalline steel structure. The crystals drop off the blade as a whole so if they are big the edge will never get scary sharp. As long as its shaving hair I'm happy with the sharpness.

Both, stainless and carbon steel can have a very fine microcrystalline structure, that depends on the quality of the heat treatment. If quality control is bad the crystals fuse and grow so the blade doesn't sharpen easily. Correct heat treatment protocols for stainless are much more rigid than carbon so if quality control is bad it will suffer much more.

Edge retention is affected by hardness, toughness, sharpening angle, carbide content, carbide type and corrosion resistance. Different knife usage cause dulling by different mechanisms and durability will vary according to method used to compare. Under normal usage the most impactful by far is hardness. As long as its correctly heat treated, not making the steel brittle, the higher hardness blade will have better edge retention regardless if its carbon or stainless. For same hardness and toughness carbon steel may loose edge faster due to corrosion but hardness usually is more important.

On stainless steels chromium forms grains on called carbides. These reduce the toughness of the blade and reduces the optimum hardness of the steel type. You can get shaving sharp stainless at 60 HRC for about 35 dollars so its hard for carbon to compete on that hardness range. A few simple stainless steels can be threated above 60 HRC, for example 14C28N optimum hardness for kitchen knives is around 62-63 HRC.

If you want ultra hard blade, 64 HRC and above, maybe carbon is the right choice. Another option is semi stainless powdered metallurgy steels like HAP 40 that can reach 64-68 HRC.

That being said steel is not everything on a blade. I have a stainless blade, shaving sharp, 60 HRC, but I hate it because the grip is sliperry, balance point is handle heavy and blade profile is too curved for my cutting style. I would rather use my 4 dollars carbon knive at 56 HRC that looks exactly how you would expect but has good balance point, good geometry, confortable hande and also gets shaving sharp.

[quielmallari]

Loving this mini series from the podcast man

[TurbanII]

Hey, i really enjoy your videos! I watched most of your Gear Videos more than 10 times. I would love to see a new "Whats in my bag" video, Thanks for your content. Greetings from Germany :)

[wolfingitdown]

Stainless is what I recommend to your average cook and carbon is typically reserved for enthusiasts only

[isaiahwood]

At the end of the day, cooking should be fun! Don’t stress it too much.

[rolandlannier]

Hi Justin, How are you holding up?

Just to add a few technical points to your video, the difference between carbon and stainless when it comes to sharpness or ease of sharpening or even the brittle risk is not exactly related to what hardness each family of steel allows you to achieve. It's more about the cristal memory or chromium and the carbon/chromium balance.

There are plenty of stainless steel with a super high carbon ratio that will brittle a lot and be almost impossible to hone. As soon as you go higher than 60HRC of course you'll have to go for the stone instead of the the honing steel but that's true for stainless and carbon. And under that level, carbon steel will be pretty ok to hone as well.

But what happens when a steel has a high chromium percentage is the edge wants to go back to the original shape of the chromium carbide cristal which is round while an ordinary steel has more like a shard based cristal. This is what happens when you stainless knife looses its fresh sharpness overtime without having even been used.

Also, you can see the repartition of the chromium carbide within the steel matrix as rocks in a pile of sand while in the other hand carbon steel is much more homogeneous, just like a pile of sand with every grains at the same size. And when you try to get a keen edge with a stainless steel with a lot of carbon and also a lot of chromium, you can have a "rock" on top of your "sand pile" or a rock-shaped hole instead and that would prevent you to have a clean pointy top on your sand pile. Some more recent stainless steels with added nitrogen can offer a good "in between" solution, as part of the carbon will be replaced by nitrogen and its nitrites will let you achieve hardness the same way carbides can but you can stay under the 0.5% carbon ratio, so your alloy won't let chromium carbides grow, and you'll get a nice "pile of sand". With sub-zero treatment, you can push these steels to 60-62HRC, it stays stainless (of semi-stainless for some), don't brittle much, stays easy to sharpen and retains the edge nearly just as much as a carbon steel does.

But I agree with you on what you said in general and beginners should definitely go for the victorinox. Slaughterhouse butchers are using them all the time, just because they are cheap and get the job done and these guys get a LOT of job done.

[CultureStress]

So how come I never see stainless steel kitchen knives in 20CV, M390, RWL34, etc? Am I looking at the wrong brands?

I feel like we so often are comparing VG10, 8Cr13Mov, and 14C28N to shirogami #1 and Aogami Super etc...which doesn't seem like a fair comparison.

[connormcskimming]

what sort of knife might you recommend as a multi-purpose workhorse for a higher volume kitchen that may not be quite as expensive as a ux10 for someone who is left-handed?

[philipp]

I hate sharpening stainless ... carbon all the way if you don't mind the patina.

Chipping happens if the cutting angle is too narrow for the shock applied. If you sharpen a stainless cleaver to 20° it will chip too (look at ppl. assuming chinese chefs knives are cleavers). No samurai sword will have chips. Most have about a 30° cutting angle. That's like a cleaver. The combination of differential hardening and the narrow angle will keep the blade from chipping.

[subhuman]

Sure knives are cool and all, but the REAL question is stainless vs carbon paella pans...?

[gerdnienhaus]

Ever tried the chroma japan chef 255mm? I would love to hear a review and your opinion about it. Greetings

[MrMsal]

I also think it is important to not get a knife that is too precious to use.