uh i know i owe you guys a huge and long explanation as to where i've been what i've been
doing um i will do that but not on this channel for those who care to hear about what's been going
on in my life hop over to ricky tran my other youtube channel which i'll post in the video's
description below and there you guys can hear about what i've been doing what i've been planning
and everything that's going on in my life outside of knives now i do get a lot of questions from you
guys as to what is the best knife and more so often than not i get that question from people
that are just getting into knives i think once you've kind of been in the knife world long enough
you will get a sense that there is no one best knife but there are very good knives in certain
categories and so i'm gonna do a short series of knives that i've used at different price points
um different steels that i think are worth noting now if you guys have followed my videos in the
last i would say maybe four years or so um every single time i talk about the best knives i've used
regardless of any price point the agazawa has always been brought up it's a knife that i've
always liked and i still like a lot and since i've used the akazawa there hasn't been many knives
i've used under that 350 category that offered the same type of steel the same hardness of steel
until i found these two this here is by yoshihiro and this knife here is by kaisen so what i'll do
is go through them one by one talk about their similarities their differences and
really the value proposition between each one this is the akazawa
this is a yoshihiro
and this is the kaisen
and normally i tell you guys i like to use knives in my kitchen for about a month or so
the reason why i use these knives a lot longer than that was because i wanted to see how the
patina formation developed on these knives these are origami supers and a lot of folks want to ask
me about carbon steel knives in terms of their use and their care so for this specific you
know video series or these three knives i did some long-term planning that hopefully will pay off and
that will help you guys understand the benefits or the kind of the effects of having a knife with
patina formation so when i say oil in this video i meant tsubaki oil you can interchange this for
mineral oil if you wanted to there's nothing wrong with that i use tsubaki because it smells
really nice and it's formulated just for knives specifically so there's nothing wrong with using
mineral oil now blue super is a steel that i've always been a fan of you generally will find
blue super with a heat treatment of 62-63 these knives here all have a heat treatment of a 64-66
i don't have a hrc tester or rockwell tester here so i can't really tell you but the reason why i
know that these are quite high in terms of the rockwool treatment is because i've used them in
my home for six months and after about five months i just started feeling that these knives could be
sharpened most of the knives i've used my homes so whether it's vg10 or sg2 generally speaking after
two to three months i feel like the knives need to be sharpened but these knives here after a good
five months of use in my home that's when i felt like the edge needed to be sharpened what got me
interested in these two knives is the akazawa it's been close to five years of me owning this knife
and it's a knife that i've always enjoyed it's a knife that i've had in my home for a long time
and this was the knife that almost made me quit it actually gave me carpal tunnel i still have carpal
tunnel it doesn't really flare up all that often but i can't really do the rope cut test anymore so
that's why you guys haven't seen it on my channel it's a shame that that's happened but that's just
how things are sometimes it has an ebony handle so that's why when i saw this knife
it looked a little bit more expensive than i thought it should be but once you look into the
handle and how much these cost then it makes more sense generally speaking when you upgrade your
handle from a wall handle with a magnolia wood to an ebony handle you'll pay anywhere between
i would say 60 to 80 dollars and depending on the manufacturer sometimes the ebony handle
could be as high as 100 now i did something that is probably considered a little bit silly
what i did was i took the tsubaki oil and i applied it only to the left side of the knife
during my entire time of using it and so you can see right here it's kind of quite hard to
see but you can see a here you definitely see a patina formation on the right side
of the knife on the left side that tsubaki oil did a very good job at keeping the patina at bay now
the tsubaki oil will not keep patina from forming altogether it just slows that patina formation
down so that you are less likely to get rust and also one kind of side effect or a benefit of that
is it actually protects the cladding of the knife as well you can see there's actually a bit of oil
residue still left over that subway oil or if you want to use mineral oil that's fine too
it actually will protect the knife's cladding from absorbing coloring from food such as carrots
turmeric yeah turmeric will stain your knife like crazy so having some sort of
barrier between the steel and the ingredients that you're cutting will definitely help it
long term as we can see right here so that's one benefit of having some sort of oil on your knife
it's not just for the patina formation it's actually for the cladding as well and tonight
i keep saying every single year that i'm gonna you know give it up and put it up for auction
i i i haven't done it yet but i think this year i will let this knife go and so yeah this is finally
i'm the reason why i'm willing to let it go now is because i found these two knives that cost
200 or under 200 that perform just as good as this knife here now this here is the yoshi hero
now even though it looks virtually identical to the other two knives it has the most neutral
cutting performance of the two knives or of the three knives now this knife here i applied the
tsubaku oil on the cutting edge you can see right there that there is patina patina does form
again we're not trying to avoid patina formation altogether if you were to do that you might as
well just buy a stainless steel knife so the knife on my right is the kaioshin that has no
application of any oil whatsoever and you can see there's a healthy patina that formed on the
cutting edge right below the cutting line there and the knife on the left is the yoshihiro that
had the oil applied to it for you know roughly six months of use and you can see there is a
formation of patina but is very minor relative to the knife on the right so in terms of blade
care you can see how the mineral oil or in this case the tsubaki or protected the blades
from forming a patina or heavy protein formation it will slow it down it will not prevent patina
from forming altogether it just slows it down and makes it much more manageable for those especially
those who are new to japanese knives or newer carbon steel knives that's one of the biggest
fears people have with going to a carbon steel knife don't worry so much about rust with carbon
steel knives as long as you are willing to wash your knives and dry it after use you'll be okay
all right the fin finish of these knives are all basically the same there is one area that i kind
of want to point your attention to is the troil look at the choil here on the akazawa it's more
of a squared choil it is finished is slightly rounded square but the fit and finish of the
choil area or actually the polish of the toil is actually substantially better on the yoshi hero
and the kai shin now the polishing on the choil is important for those who are using
the knives either in a pinch grip or during sharpening where your middle finger actually
rubs up against the choil that makes a really big difference having a coil that's nicely rounded
if you're the type of user that just likes to hold your knives like this you're not going to really
feel the difference or the benefit of having a highly polished coil but for those of us who are
using your knives in this sort of a manner where you're holding the knife in a much more closer
position to the choil that round choil makes a big difference that's really the biggest
difference between these three knives if you had to chalk it up you know if i had to say which is
the best fit and finish knives i do have to say that it goes to the yoshihiro and the kai shin
because of the rounded choil the polishing of the spine between all three knives are equally as good
i wouldn't say one is better than the other um the cutting profile that's going to be
subjective but some people will like the more aggressive cutting profile of the kaishin some
people will prefer the more neutral profile of the yoshihiro okay so this is the akazawa you can see
that it's got a traditional diato profile very straight bottom half of the knife and then you
kind of have a small belly it's not much of a rocker it's not a knife that i would recommend
rocking with you can do some quick rocking if you have some scallions or something like that
it will rock but it's generally not a good idea to rock a japanese guitar with a straighter profile
this is the yoshihiro now the yosh hero is a bit more neutral in terms of its ability to rock it
has a i wouldn't call it a flat bottom half you can see there is a very nice radius that goes
from the heel all the way to the tip so this is a bit more i would say more neutral performing and
maybe even a bit more user friendly for those who are going from a german knife
or a western knife to a japanese knife it does offer a better rocking profile than the akazawa
this is the kai shin now the kai shen i would say it's a bit closer to the akazawa in terms of
its cutting profile it has a slightly straighter lower half so in terms of overall cutting profile
i would say that the akazawa and the kai shin has the most aggressive cutting profile
and the yoshihiro has a slightly more neutral cutting profile for those who are coming from
western knives now all these handles look brand new even though they've been used in my kitchen
for like i said about six months or so and there is no secret to it there is no trick
to it all i do is apply a few coatings two or three coatings of the beeswax mixture i've got
two handles before i use them and then i just let it dry then i just basically
use it that same day i don't have to let it sit overnight you can if you really want to
but these waxes are made to be used immediately now i make my own polish because i find that a
lot of the polishes that i buy whether it's a salad bowl finish or something along those lines
tend to leave the handles feeling a bit artificial and it leaves a really thick film
which covers the natural grain of the wood so i wanted to make something that would give me
the natural feel of the wood while offering some water protection if you were to wash your knives
and you weren't to dry it very quickly and you left it there for you know 10-20 minutes at a time
the beeswax polish should keep the water at bay long enough for you to dry it later on
so just because you have a polish on your knife whether it's beeswax polish or some sort of
sealant on your handles it doesn't mean that you can neglect it so please don't take that
as an excuse to neglect the handles of your knives basically after the six month was up i reapplied
the you know beeswax mixture and i applied two or three coatings of it and this is how the handles
look after six months of use they look virtually brand new i mean if you picked it up you can you
know you can feel that they've been worn a little bit but the beeswax mixture does a really good job
you know sealing that the handle keeping that water out and you're sealing the moisture in the
handles they don't feel dry at all it's something that i do recommend you guys doing for your knives
or if you want to use something affordable or something around the home a lot of folks will have
mineral oil laying around the home mineral oil won't protect your handles as well as a beeswax
polish but it will do pretty well so if you apply it once a week the results should be relatively
close to what you can see here one thing to note on the handle on the akazawa it's a very thin
handle thin in terms of overall height and thin and circumference as well so for those people
with small to medium hands you might find the akazawa's handle very comfortable but for those
with medium to larger hands i think that it may be a bit too thin the handle on the yoshihiro it's
probably the most neutral sized handle of these three knives i find that it's comfortable for
my hands but i think also large enough for medium to larger size hands to feel comfortable as well
the kai shin handle definitely the most robust handle for those who like the large handles the
handle on the kai shin i like a lot and also it has a kind of a very s i would say a very small
taper if you look at the tapering of the handle on the actually both the other two knives you have a
you know you can see a visual difference between the top of the handle and the bottom
the handle on the kai shin is very consistent the height and the circumference of the handle
doesn't really seem to change a whole lot on the kai shin so it has a bit more modern feel
and look to it i certainly think that the buffalo horn that they've used on this particular sample
is nicer than the one on the yoshi hero in terms of overall cutting profile specs blade hardness
fit and finish of the spine and the choil and for under 200 i think the kai shin and the yoshi hero
are fantastic buys all these slabs are handmade and all of these knives have hand engraved kanji
so the overall production value of these knives are very high whether it's 200 or up to 350.
and i know i know that somebody's gonna say which knife should i buy so uh my honest opinion is find
the knife that is gonna be in stock if you want the ebony handle go for the akazawa if you don't
really care for the ebony handle and you wanna save the 120 or so 150 then consider either the
yoshihiro or the kaishin if you're looking for a carbon steel knife for under two hundred dollars
handmade with a wall handle these two knives are pretty much unbeatable and if they're both
in stock and you're still trying to figure out which one you should get i would say the yoshi
hero for a slightly more neutral performing knife and i would say the kaioshin for a slightly more
aggressive cutting profile if you enjoyed this format where i go really deep into comparisons
of knives give the video a thumbs up and if you guys are new to the channel subscribe let me
know in the comments that you're here welcome and thank you guys and i'll catch you in the next one