Carbon steel knives are popular among chefs and people who love to cook for a number of reasons, but they are also much more expensive than stainless steel. To find out if the performance delta was worth the price, America’s Test Kitchen turned to some serious science. Here’s what they found.
The video above is worth watching – they put carbon steel knives and stainless steel knives through serious stress and repetitive testing to see which dull and lose their sharpness faster with regular use , doing everything from slicing chickens to dicing onions to some tests we’ve described before, like cut out sheets of paper to test sharpness. They even placed them against glass cutting boards – the bane of all knives everywhere. Then they take them to the MIT Digital Imaging Center for comparison, then back to the Boston University Photonics Center and place them under an electron microscope for a closer look.
If this all sounds like an incredible amount of science, it should be – they tested a handful of carbon steel knives and compared them to their preferred budget (and our favorite affordable chef’s knife), the Victorinox Fibrox 8 inch chef’s knife. The Victorinox has withstood its most successful carbon steel knife test after test, and only began to fail after simulated months of stressful, regular use.
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Their bottom line was that carbon steel will last longer and is more durable than stainless steel, so it’s worth it, only if you have the extra cash to throw at those much more expensive carbon steel knives. Additionally, you must choose a Well carbon steel knife too – not all carbon steels are better than all stainless steel knives, and in fact many are much worse and cost more. They suggested the 8″ Bob Kramer chef’s knife if you are a carbon steel lover, but it costs $300. For the rest of us though, if you’re on a budget, there are great stainless steel models that work just as well.
Carbon steel knives | Illustrated Cooks via American Test Kitchen (YouTube)
