Shun Dual Core Kiritsuke Named Kitchen Knife of the Year

Dual Core Kiritsuke

Shun Cutlery’s latest introduction, the Dual Core series, features a new type of blade that blends two cutting edge steels together for the first time. The Dual Core Kiritsuke from the line, introduced to the retail market just this past December, has already taken home the award for 2014 Kitchen Knife of the Year at The Blade Show.

The series features a Damascus blade made from two premium-quality high-carbon stainless steels. Seventy-one alternating micro layers of high carbon, high chromium VG10 and VG2 stainless steels are roll-forged to produce a finer grain in the steel and to give it both strength and beauty. The laminated steel is then hot-forged to create the herringbone pattern that allows the layers to alternate along the cutting edge. During normal use, the two steels will wear at different rates, creating micro serrations along the edge so that the Dual Core’s extremely sharp edge feels sharp longer.

Dual Core Honesuki

Whereas other Shun knives may be clad on the sides with different steels to emphasize corrosion resistance, appearance, or to protect the inner core, the Dual Series actually blends the two different steels to create the unique blade.

“Any time there’s a new steel, designers get excited for sure, because it’s really rare,” says Tommie Lucas, Vice President of Product Design and Development Kai USA. “Usually most of the cutlery industry is stealing from other industries – like ball bearings or dashboards or some other industry – because we use so little steel in general compared to other markets. So any time there’s a new steel we’re super excited. This was an opportunity for us to combine these two steels that already exist – the VG2 and VG10 have been around for a long time, but this is the first time they’ve been laminated together, giving us an opportunity to try out this new cutting edge.”

Dual Core Utility

The series includes three different knives, the Kiritsuke, Honesuki and a Utility/Butchery knife, all with a traditional Japanese octagon-shaped handle in ebony PakkaWood. The Honesuki is mainly for boning poultry, with a 4.5-inch blade that can maneuver around bones and in between joints. It’s also small enough to work as an excellent prep knife, scoring and trimming with ease, and the spine can be used for scraping. The Utility/Butchery knife has a 6-inch blade for all the tasks that fall between the uses of a paring knife and a chef’s knife. The Kirtisuke is known as the master chef’s knife in Japan and is meant to tackle any cutting task in the kitchen with its 8-inch blade. Japanese chefs use the Kirtisuke shape upon reaching master status, and it becomes the single knife used for all tasks.

A typical Shun knife requires 100 steps of handcrafting to complete; the Dual Core series requires 161 hand steps that take at least two months to complete — or an entire year, if the process of forging the steel is included as well.

“People that use their knives a lot, anybody that is in the kitchen a lot will definitely appreciate the performance,” says Lucas. “I think it’s probably going to exceed many of our upper class knives, just as far as edge retention and the long-term usability.”

The Dual Core Kiritsuke won the award for 2014 Kitchen Knife of the Year at The Blade Show held in Atlanta, Georgia. Winners are judged on a range of criteria from design, innovation, and function to craftsmanship and quality and are selected by an overwhelming vote of industry members.

Shun’s Dual Core series is available now: Dual Core Kiritsuke (model VG0017), suggested retail price $375, the Dual Core Honesuki (model VG0018), suggested retail price $313, and the Dual Core Utility/Butchery (model VG0019), suggested retail price $325.

This story was originally published in the February 2015 issue of Kitchenware News, a publication of Oser Communications Group.