Carbon or Stainless Steel? A Buyers Guide For Japanese Knives

A huge fork in the road for many buyers of Japanese knives is the choice between a carbon steel knife, a stainless steel knife, or somewhere in between.

In this video, you will learn about the different types of carbon and stainless steels, a bit about HRC, San-Mai, and a few other points that should steer you in the right direction.

Our pick for:
Shirogami - Matsubara Hamono Bunka

Aogami - Shiro Kamo Gyuto

VG10 - Suncraft VG10 Black Damascus Bunka

Ginsan - Tsunehisa Ginsan Range

AUS8

[arielguzman]

Audio is stronger on left AirPod for some reason

[davepratt]

Short, sweet and concise. Everyone looking for their first Japanese knife should watch this video. Thank you. For those of you stopping your day to comment on the sound of this video, please tell Cletus I said hello.

[MisterNistal]

I'm the proud owner of a Tsunehisa Ginsan Kiritsuke after some amazing help from Ben in store recently. Great video, very informative and looking forward to more guides, demos or showcases you decide to make!

[ericfang]

Hi, Ben, It's Eric here, your loyal customer. nicely done, good video. Looking forward next video.

[Johnnybananass-_]

My blue carbon steel kitchen knife has only needed honing In the 18 months I’ve had it, it’s kept an insane edge compared to my German stainless kitchen knifes that I’ve needed to whetstone a few times since getting the Japanese knife .

[Masterfighterx]

Blue Super is the next step up from Blue 1, not 2.

Moritaka is actually Warikomi rater than Sanmai, with Sanmai the core steel is visible on the spine, Warikomi is a more rare procedure where they inlay the core steel manually.

[craig]

Shopping for my first Japanese knife and it’s been more confusing than buying my wife’s engagement diamond but this videos explained it perfectly! Thanks!

[KitchenKnifeGuy]

Nice shirt, super clean look! Nice blue backlighting.

[scottiebumich]

Thanks for this. What is your take on the coreless (dual core) VG2/VG10 damascus blades? Shun has one that looks great. Being solid VG10 has me thinking it would be SUPER fragile?

[PeriklisDosis]

There is Blue Paper Super (Aogami Super) it goes 65 HRC

How about VG-MAX? Usually that uses Kai Shun

[Nick-yepf]

Why is your audio only in my left speaker? Something went weird.

[K.O.F.M.R]

Is the sound set on MONO ?? only hear from the left side.... (All sound is working, exept on his video)

[qrubmeeaz]

Very informative, thank you. But poor choice of lighting.

[Muchotrabajo]

What hrc is it? My stainless steel is 60hrc

[falcorcrow]

Hardness does less for edge retention than angle and carbides

[edrecetas]

Hello thanks for your videos, can you tell me what you think about these knife makers? xinzuo, xituo, syokami, turwho and TUO

[sanderbrugman]

How would a powdered stainless preform against a blue super?

[Dadscookingwithdaughters]

What type of Asian knife would you use to dice/slice a potato, before boiling? Would a gyuto be fine? Even with a higher hardness of like a 64?

[battennagasaki]

Enjoyable and informative video. Only one thing I want to say is that you pronounced 銀三 differently. Correctly you should pronounce GIN ( Silver ) as in name Ginsberg or Ginko tree, and SAN ( Three ) as in San Francisco.

[roospike]

If someone's first getting into Japanese knifes I wouldn't suggest anything over a vg10 imho.
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