Introduction to Japanese Kitchen Knives Part 1: Stamped VS Forged

Buying a knife at first is simply put, tricky. There are so many kinds out there! We have over 2,000 different types in our store alone - so which one is best for you?

If you're buying from us online you can't easily feel the kitchen knife in your hands, and that makes it even more difficult to figure out. But with some extra knowledge, you can cross that barrier and have a good idea of what you're getting before it arrives.

We've written this four part blog series to help you learn the basics and start to figure out how to choose what is best for you. You'll get to learn how knives are made along the way!

By the end of each guide, you should be able to decide on the next stage of your knife, like a blueprint of sorts. As we work in the food industry though, we prefer to use the term knife recipe! The four parts will showcase the following and can be read in any order, or by themselves:

Part 1 covers forged and stamped knives, plus blade length.
Part 2 introduces steels, such as high-carbon steel and stainless steel.
Part 3 is all about heat treatment quality and layering, such as mono or multi-layering.
Part 4 saves the finish for... the finish! This is all about handles, polishing, and finishing.

This is not a guide to help you decide what knife type you want - we have a different guide for that! This one is to help you learn the process for deciding the components of a knife. We do also have dedicated articles about many of these components, but if you're new to knives we recommend reading this first.

Look at this guide as how to choose a knife instead of what knife to choose. To properly do this, let's start off with the most basic knife recipe we can think of.

I want a knife.

To use a food-related analogy (we work in the food industry after all,) this is like helping you decide how you want a coffee made (what beans are used, how the coffee is extracted, will it have milk and if so what type, is it decaf, how large is it etc.) and our other guide helps you decide what you want the coffee to be (a cappuccino/americano/latte etc.)

Follow along and by the end of the four parts, you'll be able to figure out what you want your knife recipe to be. For this series, we are going to pretend that you are getting a chef's knife! Already your recipe becomes:

I want a chef's knife

Let's keep building!

Yes, there's many other knives out there - some that may be better for you. You can use a different knife for your own recipe!

We chose chef's knives because they are a great entry point to knives, and the knowledge learned from these can be applied to many other kinds of knives. This includes non-Japanese ones, like German and French chef's knives. Plus, as chef's knives are not Japan-specific you've likely seen one in a kitchen before - and may even already own one. Even knowing what country-style or region-style you want improves your knife recipe.

A Japanese chef's knife is called a gyuto. This translates as beef sword in Japanese, but is named that way because beef is what Western people were eating in Japan at the time. The gyuto is a Japanese take on a Western-style knife. Because of that, sometimes you may also see them called yo-bocho or Western kitchen knife.

Many knives are called "chef's knives" throughout the world. However, they all have their own origins and are shaped differently. Look above to see what we mean!

A European chef's knife originally had a blade around 200mm long, with a riveted handle. They were used for cutting down large portions of beef, evolving into the all-purpose kitchen knife of today. Now, you'll find chef's knives ranging from 180mm to 360mm long!

There are four major types of chef's knives you'll find in the market.

• The German-style has a deep curve on the blade's edge.
• The French-style is straighter than it's German counterpart.
• The Japanese-style a.k.a. gyuto is similar to the French-style, with a tighter cutting angle and tipped spine at the front.
• The Chinese-style is akin to a thin cleaver, yet is actually a general purpose knife.

The shape, length, and handle of each different chef's knife has made it the ideal kitchen tool for breaking down cuts of meat, slicing vegetables and doing intricate work in that region of the world. Let's start building our chef's knife recipe by deciding two of those factors here, shape and length—handles we'll cover in Part 4.

A chef knife's shape will mostly be decided by the country-style that you want. A Chinese-style chef knife's shape is nothing like a Japanese-style or German-style one. That said, as this series is an introduction to Japanese kitchen knives, it's likely you've already decided on a Japanese-style knife.

Yet, it's good to be aware that other styles exist, as they influence eachother. For example, French-style and Chinese-style chef's knives were adapted for the Japanese market, and have their own naming conventions.

The French-style chef's knife became the Japanese-style chef's knife (gyuto) in Japan.
The Chinese-style chef's knife became the Chinese Knife (chuka bocho) in Japan.

These two knives are a blending of culture, as they are knives that come from other regions. Yet, they are also now made using Japanese materials and techniques. See our VG-1 Stainless "G-Line" Chinese Knife below for an example.

Other types and regions exist too, each with their own histories, evolutions, and modifications.

While many chef's knives come in a large variety of blade lengths, the one above only comes in 220mm. This means it may not be suitable for you, as you might need something shorter or longer.

Blade length is one of the most important decisions to make, as it heavily influences both what you can and can't cut. A 180mm isn't going to cut a massive pumpkin easily, but in turn a 360mm chef's knife will be nearly impossible to thinly slice garlic with. For example, it would be really hard to use the 220mm Chinese knife above to process larger primal cuts.

Slicing through ingredients in a single cut preserves the ingredient's cell membranes, so keep that in mind when thinking about blade length. It's okay to go one size higher - longer blades have longer lifespans. Think about where you're cutting too - how large is your cooking area? Can you use a large knife efficiently and safely? Also, what knives do you already own and how will this knife complement those?

As a very soft rule, for home use chef's knives we recommend 180 to 240mm.
For professional use chef's knives we recommend anything 240mm or higher.

Every user and situation is different, so be flexible with this. Even the size of your hand or how you hold your knife might change your decision. Again, our recommendation ist a soft rule.

Compared to other countries, Japanese kitchen knives are normally made with harder steel (and thus can be made sharper), and have a tighter cutting angle. This is part of what gives Japanese knives their reputation that they cut like a laser!

Special techniques are used to get Japanese knives to that point. Firstly, the knife's blade and core are created via one of two methods - stamping or forging.

Stamped chef's knives are made from a large, thin sheet of steel. The blade shape is cut out from the sheet with a die, then ground, hardened, and sharpened. Most of this is still done by hand!

Forged chef's knives are made from a piece of a steel called a billet. This billet is heated to temperature so high it's glowing, varying depending on the steel. This is then hammered either by hand or with a belt hammer into shape, after which the same steps of grounding, hardening and sharpening apply.

There are many differences between the two, the largest being the cost performance ratio.

Most high end knives, especially Japanese carbon steel ones are forged. However, high end knives can be stamped too! Certain regions in Japan specialise in certain styles of knife as well. The city of Sakai in Osaka specialises in forged knives - you can read more about this topic here!

We have videos on how both types are made, view them below!

Click here to watch how our stamped SWORD-FV10 line is made

Click here to watch how our carbon steel forged knives are made