Seen at Sam’s Club for $119.
Discuss.
I see three knives that are utterly impossible to sharpen by any “block mounted” arrangement.
so , , , I’m calling large amounts of marketing BS.
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They’re cheap… possibly Henckels’ least expensive knives. They are made in China, have stamped blades (despite the advertising of a “forged bolster”), and a lot of reviews say they are prone to rust.
For the person considering this set I would ask “do you need the 4 steak knives and the shears?” If not, there are really only 3 knives in this set you’ll really need/use (pairing, chef’s, and bread). And if that is the case you may be better off shopping for higher quality models of those three.
On the other hand, if you want all of those pieces and you are not fussy about your knives, it is a very low price point for knives seemingly well rated by the average consumer.
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There are a lot of knives that are very hard to sharpen. I generally find carbon steel much easier to sharpen.,
Not to threadjack, but is there a way to sharpen those serrated knives at home? Like with a semi high end electric knife sharpener? i know, I know, but none of my knives are precious, with Wusthof being the most high end. I have a couple of serrated ones that have been around for a very long time.
Promoting carbon steel again?
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Not particularly. It just works for me. Plus, l like the straight edge, minimal rocking, and lightness of the old French knives. I like Japanese blades, too, but I find the bolsters helps me keep from shredding towels.
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Not simple, but doable. You’ll need a rat-tail stone that fits the scalloped edge… working them one by one. Then you can remove the burr created on the straight sided edge with a flat stone.
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So, I’ll take this as a collective ‘nay.’
Thx for chiming in - I’m not in the market for this as I’m quite content with the knifes I own. Now, a good knife block/storage, that’s a whole other question (that I shall research now).
It’s actually 6 steak knives.
But be it 4 or 6, why wouldn’t a person need multiple steak knives? Perhaps they will have guests over for steak?
More importantly, one can use “steak knives” for more than just steaks. Steak knives are essentially fancy pairing knives, and can be quite versatile.
I would buy this if I was in the market for knives. As I am not a knife snob and consider knives to be disposable, like dish rags.
I just wrap some wet/dry around a pencil of appropriate size - takes perhaps 6-7 minutes to touch up a 10" bread knife . . .
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I have heard some people say their xyz electric works - never pursued the idea.
Note though, that they do not claim the serrated knives are self-sharpening. The self-sharpening descriptor is only on the 3 knives on the left.
I’ve been sharpening my serrated bread knives (mass-market, cheapo) for at least 20 years on a regular stone, and honing them in-between. They’re both single-bevel blades, like many (most?) serrated knives, so I just sharpen the back/flatter edge and this works well. The honing takes a very light stroke on both sides and keeps them in shape pretty well until they need a bit more sharpening (which is maybe 3 times a year).
I’ve also got a “serrated” 10-inch slicer that has a sort of scalloped design to the teeth, with them being rounded. Also a single-bevel knife. I hone it like above, fairly low pressure. Haven’t had to sharpen it yet and hope I don’t have to, because I’m not so sure how well the “just sharpen the back” technique will work on it.
I think this is a fine starter set at the price, like Scott said. Maybe I need to re-join Sam’s and grab a few for my youngest 3 kids. I like that it has 6 steak knives too - if you have friends over, you’ll need them, and my 3 daughters all like to have “cooking parties” with friends. [edit - although “full disclaimer”, I’m already on record in another thread as much preferring non-serrated steak knives.]
Also the shears having the bone-crunch divot is good. I’ve got one KA and one Zwilling kitchen shears and neither do, and let me tell you, trying to rip the spine out of a turkey is no easy task without that divot. And I’m not good enough to do it with a cleaver; I want to keep all my fingers.
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If they already had some.
My grandfather used to sharpen handsaw blades to relax …. Beck when they weren’t disposable.
My butcher swore that’s a task I wouldn’t be able to do by myself. I proved him wrong, of course. My kitchen shears (Krenshaw/Shun) are big and old and have the bone notch, but I used poultry shears).
I think kitchen shears are pretty essential.
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I can handle chicken okay with my straight-bladed/no notch kitchen shears (well, I guess they’re really just scissors?), but doing that turkey really cramped up my hand. Luckily it wasn’t the 20+ pound monster I normally get.
So the next week I got these from Amazon. I looked at a bunch of brands and the reviews were pretty unusual, mostly being love-hate relationships. These had 93% positive (4- and 5-star ratings) out of thousands of ratings, but it’s hard to know for sure because Amazon has mixed in together the reviews of all types of Zwilling kitchen scissors/shears.
And there are still a fair lot of complaints (by number if not by percentage) of that notched blade snapping at the downstream side of the pivot point. Hopefully I didn’t get one of the “lemons”.
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