Choosing the Right Knives for Home Cooking Tasks
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Are you looking to improve your cooking game?
The easiest, and perhaps even more importantly, the most fun way to achieve this is to upgrade your knives. There is nothing like using a quality, sharp japanese steak knife to take cooking from an everyday chore to a pleasure.
Here at New Kitchen Store, we carry the complete line of WÜSTHOF and Miyabi knives.
WÜSTHOF knives are among the finest German kitchen knives you can buy. The company is family owned and has been in business since 1814.
Miyabi is a very fine brand of Japanese cutlery, owned by Zwilling Henckels from Germany. They are made in Seki, Japan.
We will discuss Miyabi knives in a future article. Today we are going to discuss WÜSTHOF knives. If you have never had a truly quality kitchen knife before, WÜSTHOF is the perfect place to start.
WÜSTHOF knives are used by more than 80% of today’s professional chefs. That alone should tell you everything you need to know. They are designed with the home cook in mind. They are easy to care for and able to stand up to extreme conditions.
When you hold the 8” cook’s knife in your hand, several things jump out at you – first, the perfect balance, right in the middle of the knife. They are not too blade-heavy or handle-heavy. WÜSTHOF knives are the perfect weight – not too heavy and not too light. They just feel good, like an extension of your hand. The handle construction helps with this. The best material for knife handles is high-impact plastic rather than wood. WÜSTHOF’s new plastic holds up much better than previous plastics, and is 100% hygienic.
This makes using them an absolute joy, and there is much less fatigue as you effortlessly slice through anything you are preparing. You do not have to fight your way through your food – just slice and dice.
They are also full-tang knives. A full tang makes a knife much stronger, and securely holds the blade and handle together. It also helps to perfectly balance the knife. They also have a bolster – a hallmark of a forged knife. The bolster helps with the balance and protects your fingers from the blade.
WÜSTHOF knives are tempered to a perfect 58 on the Rockwell hardness scale – a hardness that holds a very sharp edge. Plus, they are easy to sharpen. The edge right out of the box is probably sharper than any knife you have ever used. With proper care, because of the design, they stay sharp much longer than most knives in the high-end knife market.
WÜSTHOF has taken their edge angle from 19 degrees to 14 degrees. A 14-degree angle allows for a much sharper edge than any other western-made knife you can currently buy.
The steel formula used is a high-carbon, no-stain steel. They are designed to be easy to sharpen and to hold an edge much longer than most knives – up to two years if you follow WÜSTHOF’s care guidelines.
While dishwasher-safe, these knives should be hand-washed and hand-dried for optimal performance.
If you drop your knife, do not try and catch it. Move out of the way and let it drop. Otherwise you are very likely to either cut yourself or have a knife sticking out of your foot. Move and let it fall.
Come into New Kitchen Store at 330 Liberty Street in Walkerton, and let our experienced staff put one of these knives in your hand. Feel the perfect balance, see the edge and imagine how much fun you can have using this to prep your food for your nightly meals. For more info, call 574-586-2745 or visit newkitchenstore.com.
