$50 vs $170 Chef’s Knives

Mercer Renaissance Chef’s Knife

Victorinox Chef's Knife

Zwilling JA Henckels Twin Pollux Chef's Knife

These are my 3 best chef's knives for $50.

▬ Contents of this video ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬

00:23 - Victorniox overview
01:04 - Mercer overview
02:38 - Zwilling JA Henckels overview
03:21 - Sharpness and edge
04:23 - Testing the rust resistance
05:45 - Testing the balance
06:53 - Weighing the knives
07:27 - Verdict ($50 or $170 knife)

[jacksonfl]

Greetings from Jacksonville Florida USA. Nice job. I have the NINE inch Mercer. Fits me perfectly. Love using it. Also have an eight inch Damascus knife, for finer work. Never had good luck sharpening my knives myself.

[clintondavis]

I’ve got Miyabi chef 8”, Yaxell Enso prep, Mac 6” utility, Victorinox 8” chef, various knives in a Chicago Cutlery set gifted to me, and a Chinese 5” filet knife. Home cooks don’t really need expensive knives, which are suited to cork-sniffing, steel wonks. Stainless is more practical for most folks and good quality is available at reasonable prices. Ease of sharpening is freeing to the home cook to focus on getting the meal on the table. As long as you have a knife that will ease through a soft tomato, you’re good. A chef type knife for chopping and bigger cutting jobs is a must. Add a comfortable and maneuverable small paring knife for in-hand work and a utility knife and you are set. Comfort with the handle, weight, and blade design will bring more use for the knife. Home cooks generally are not breaking down large amounts of meat. I mostly use my Victorinox chef knife and a 3.5” comfortable Chicago Cutlery paring knife for meal prep. Occasionally, I’ll use the Japanese prep and utility knives. The harder Japanese knives are more prone to chipping. I read that Shun knives are very chippy which is a worry. I have a Japanese two-sided water stone but I’m not very good with it and it takes time - so that’s again for those who are really into knives. My Chef’s Choice electric sharpener brings my Victorinox to a keen edge, with a little bite, which I find more practical than a razor-edge - it’ll slice into a tomato better. As for stamped vs forged, etc. Many of the top Japanese knives are stamped. For most purposes, I prefer a knife that isn’t a thick wedge. One just doesn’t need to spend a log of money for knives. If possible, it’s good to get a feel for any knife - suit yourself and research to ensure that the steel is of good quality and will be worry-free and easy to keep sharp.

[brianazmy]

I'm able to put a razor edge on any blade so I've always chosen the knife with the most comfortable grip. Too many people are consumed by name brands and image.

[gwine]

I have 5 Mercers and love them. I prefer the Genesis because of the handle.

[hunter-tmkl]

Saying chromium makes steel stainless is correct but it's also somewhat misleading. It's chromium in solution that makes steel stainless, but it likes to form chromium carbides with the carbon, and it doesn't help with stainlessness when it's a carbide. You can see this clearly in some extreme examples, where ZDP-189 has 20% chromium but it's largely tied up in carbides so the result is a steel that will rust in distilled water, but CPM MagnaCut has 10.7% chromium and will barely rust in 1% saltwater.

[thomascatt]

You place emphasis on the grade of steel used, namely 50CrMoV15, and rightly so. But what you fail to mention is that the grade alone does not completely define the blade's properties. This grade can have HRC hardness between 53 and 57, depending on heat treatment etc, and there's a lot of difference in edge retention between these values. Forged knives are often, but not necessarily, harder. To increase the uncertainty, some manufacturers have been known to specify a hardness not actually reflected in their products.

Furthermore, it is generally considered that the ideal hardness for a good balance between edge retention and brittleness is about 59. Even at best, 50CrMoV15 falls short of this.

[anthonycampos]

I know it's next to impossible to go into every single detail of sharpening in an 8 minute long video but you really should have mentioned the importance of Rockwell HRC hardness of steel and how that effects edge holding, resharpening and toughness.

The other thing to mention is all the knives are flat grinds with V-grind cutting edge bevels EXCEPT the Victorinox, it uses a Convex edge bevel so it it's tougher but will round over (become dull) much faster than the other grinds.

If you can get your hands on one I'd like to see a comparison with any of the Twosun TS 999 series of kitchen knives using 14c28n steel which I particularly like

[effu]

I bought the 8 inch Mercer Renaissance granton chef's knife about 6 months ago, it's ok. I prefer the victorinox fibrox chef's knife mainly due to the handle. My next chef's knife will probably be a Global or Shun.

[djc]

Personally I like carbon steel knives especially the vintage ones that you can usually get for pretty cheap

[tgmittler]

I feel a blade biased balance point aids push cutting while handle bias aids rock chopping.

[vollandt]

nice review. I don't why a knife with balance is slightly forward into the blade would much of a factor. It seems like slight forward balance may even be a may even benefit chopping.

[JohnMoore-uepw]

Personally Buck knives cutlery is the best bang for the buck!

[overripe]

Just looked up the Mercer Culinary M23510 Renaissance, 8-Inch Chef's Knife - its $159 on Amazon. Not $50 at all.

[ndzapruder]

I actually bought an 8" Mercer Millennia thinking it was the Victorinox knife here since that's what I *thought* they were using so much in ATK. $22 and I absolutely love it. It's stamped and the steel isn't as hard, but it hones easily. I recently used it to thinly slice 5 *pounds* of onions for a Genovese sauce and my eyes never burned.

[jamesf]

Most expensive kitchen knives are very poor value and there is very little difference between them and very moderately priced knives because they use quite cheap steels that make even basic carbon steels look good. That said, there are some people out there using high end stainless and carbon steels and even a few bargains. IKEA sells a knife made from VG 10, which is by no means top of the line but has better edge retention than most carbon steels while being very stainless. Stainless steels to look out for are CPM154, LC200N, AEB-L, Magnacut and S30V. There are plenty of Japanese knives in exotic steels too. VG 10 is quite common, including in Shun knives, and high end carbon steels like ZDP 189 and HAP 40 will give edges that last forever but need care as they will rust.
They will probably be a bit more expensive than Wusthof etc but you are getting much more knife.
One caveat. Edge retention and ease of sharpening are directly related. Any steels with over 60 HRC hardness (Rockwell) will be much easier to sharpen with diamond sharpening plates. Hand sharpening isn't all that easy and takes a reasonable investment in stones and a lot of practice, preferably on cheap knives. Spyderco sharpmaker or a guided system like the worksharp precision adjust elite are the simple way for novices to get good results.

[adamhausner]

The Wustof is my least favorite mostly because of that massive bolster or heal that runs down back of the blade you can't sharpen it as well with whetstones and eventually there will be a spot that doesn't touch the board. Cheers.

[AAAAAAndrea]

Some people say the " messermeister " are rebranded German " burgvogel " but I'm not sure

[edwardshalash]

Thanks for this quite informative video. What is your take on Babish knives, the santuko, boning, clef, and chef knives. Would love to see a video on them.

[bigzardman]

I recently aquired a Wilkinson sword sheffield steel vintage 60s 79s 10inch cooks knife unused in original packaging, looks fantastic quality. if there are any collectors here with any knowledge on this let me know

[mrbad]

I personally use the Mercer Renaissance in a commercial kitchen and although i agree it's a great knife for the price you can't really leave out the HRC when comparing it to a Wustof since that's the reason you pay extra and is the line you cross between normal knifes and advance knifes.