Chinese Cleaver VS. (Japanese) Chinese Cleaver - CCK vs. Kurosaki The real deal vs. the reimagined!
Thank you for your continued support. In this video we revisit a fan favorite. We decided to go and get a real Chinese Cleaver. This particular knife was purchased from chef knives to go.
www.chefknivestogo.com/cckcle...
We definitely enjoyed seeing this knife for the first time. It comes in at a price of $84.95. That can be hard to beat, but does it have the performance?
The competitor is very hard to obtain. This Japanese Cleaver is brought to you by the great blacksmith Yu Kurosaki. This particular one is made of super blue steel. It is cladded, and it has a beautiful finish with all of the gorgeous hammer marks. His patterns are unique and design, but does it have the performance and is it worth the price tag?
If you can find one, then it comes in around € 369.00 or US $405.68
It is extremely hard to catch one. I am fortunate to have two of them. Their performance is amazing. You will see in this video that if you have knife sharpening skills than you can really make something amazing out of something very inexpensive.
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6:09 Just for reference, the CCK knifes come with a lacquar coating because the blade is 100% carbon steel, so that affects the Out of Box sharpness. I just bought a CCK 1303 and it's only gotten sharper with use and hitting the honing steel.
Thank you
Very exited to watch this when I get home. I've recently started exclusively using Chinese cleavers and your channel is my favourite knife/sharpening related channel. Can't wait!
I'm super excited about sharpening this knife and seeing the potential
CCK is from Hong Kong. They have knives for vegetables only, bones only and a knife for both. According to the salesman from CCK, they said knives for both vegetables and bones are the most common knife found in traditional Hong Kong family. Knives for both will have a thiner blade at the front and thicker blade at the back.
Thank you for that. I'm going to be sharpening it sometime and I'm excited to see what we can put on it. Some type of crazy Edge would be nice because I really like the size of it.
Number 3 is a common knife size in Hong Kong if i remember correctly.
I had the cck type 1 for nearly 3 years now with intensive use and it’s still sharp. It had 2 or 3 small rusty spots but nothing you can’t easily fix. Since I had it I haven’t used any other of my knives
I need to apologize for taking so long. I've had a surgery on my knee and some other things going on. We've had the court case for my car accident. We had to deal with that as well. We've also had some other major things happening personally. Deaths in the family and lots of arrangements to be made. Also, I'll let you know that I will be having another major surgery in June and will not be making it to the Blade show. I will be out of work for two weeks because I'm having all the extra skin cut off of my body. We do apologize for an interruption of videos if it were to happen. Will try to shoot some head for you guys so we can fill the space. That being said, thank you for checking out the show. Thank you for your support and your comment.
@@nadm I wish you a quick and full recovery and that things will work out well for you
@@dotta4763 thank you so much
There’s also the Fujiwara chuka bocho and the Denka nakiri 195mm that I argue is just as good if not better than the yu kurosaki chuka bocho. There are other knives like the Takeda cleaver, the moritaka cleaver, the moritaka mega nakiri, and the Jiro 180mm nakiri that I haven’t tried yet, but I bet they’re also very good. Edit: I have the 195 Denka nakiri and brought it to work. It’s amazing at breaking down root veg and heads of leafy vegetables without wedging. Although the fit and finish for Fujiwara knives can vary, the ones I got were as good as a knife can get. The only other cleaver I have is a 180mm Chinese cleaver from the local kitchen supply store. I brought that thing to work for a few months and it would need to be honed once an hour, and I would have to sharpen it on my 1k stone once a week. It did well against most tasks, as opposed to the Denkas, which could stand up to all tasks. The main strength that a regular Chinese cleaver has against a Japanese knife is that they can be used as beaters against the scarier jobs at home or at work.
I have the Denka in 185 mm. As you know, very rigid. Beautiful knives. I do like the slightly taller one for putting the vegetables on it to throw in the pan or on the plate. The Fujiwara is just so rigid.
CCK is the last of the great Chinese knife makers. I have two with the original stamped makers mark. One like yours a #3 slicer and a #2 BBQ chopper...both great cleavers. I also have several vintage cleavers from the 50's, 60's and 70's. 3 Three Rams #2, #3, and #4 slicers as well as a couple of big old Ho Ching Kee Lee BBQ Choppers...wonderful knives sadly no longer made. But my favorite is my AS 76mm tall nakiri like yours, except made by Moritaka hamono. Which...are my favorite knife makers in Japan. Thanks for this video...I really enjoyed it...subscribed!
Thank you for your comment and educating me. I really do appreciate that and I love learning the history from you. I am sad that they're not making them. I'm excited to sharpen it and see its potential. I did use it one night and enjoyed picking up all the food with the blade.
@@nadm CCK has always been a Hong Kong based company, but like many revered brands, there are counterfeits from China. In fact many of the famed bladesmiths are/were exclusively in HK, even though some were established in China a fair way back in history, and their original operations had long since closed.
I own the yu kurosaki cleaver got the last 1 about 8 months ago over at knives & stones amazing knife I love how thin it is behind the edge and like you mentioned substantial amount of weight. I was just wondering have you tried sharpening it at different grits I have mine coming off a 3000 naniwa followed by a good stropping I was debating on whether I should go down to a 1000 shapton followed by a strop
Did you see my video where I used my knife to slice blueberries? It's amazing and you can do whatever you want to with his knife. I mean it's a vegetable slicer so you don't have to make it stupid but it's nice to know that you can.
Cck has a line for restaurant, all knives for that line are huge. They have another line for families, those are smaller. And all the Chinese cooks are gonna tell you to sharp the cck before you use it.
I'm really excited about sharpening a knife to see what we can do with it. I'm glad you like yours. I think it's phenomenal for the price of the size. I think it looks amazing and I like the way it feels in my hand. Let's put a good edge on it.
@@nadm Yes, CCK is very cheap compare to the Japanese counterparts, the carbon steel slicer is often compared with the Sugimoto 4106 in terms with the V taper and thinness. CCK is liked by professional cooks mostly because it’s balance, they can bounce the knife up and down really quick. Also since most of the Chinese knife makers only quench 1 to 2 cm of the knife and CCK quenches the whole blade, the restaurants can use them way longer than others. So when you compare the Chinese and Japanese Chinese cleavers/slicers, you have to understand that they have very different ideas behind the design and making. Anyway, I hope you great time using them.
@@keleng9570 absolutely. It’s definitely fun to compare the two. Glad to know all the facts and there’s a significant price difference. Some people out there might’ve wanted to know the answer to the question so we like to give them the answer. I do look forward to sharpening it and having fun with it.
@@keleng9570 Quenching 2 cm is mostly reserved for mono-steel knives. CCK uses claded-steel construction (warikomi). the core steel seems like SK4 or similar grade.
If you’re unaware, the CCK1303 is an S grind!
Definitely unaware of that
Larry, interested about the S grind. Care to explain more? I have a similar CCK slicer and notice the blade is slightly s shaped. I wasn't sure if this was intentional or a defect. Either way these knives glide through most foods due to laser thinness. They are also remarkably ridged given how thin the blade is. Cound be to do with the S grind?
@@Senorbarnez It's intentional. Even Sugimoto slicing cleavers are S grinded.
I've got a couple of Chinese cleavers, one's stainless, the other is carbon. I reserve these for tough large tasks like squash. The go to is a Honmamon keroshi blue steel nakiri. Much lighter and nimble for veg prep.
Very nice
They're very different knives. The CCK you have is meant to be used more like a Western chef knife / cleaver, so its bevel is probably 20 degrees or something. The Kurosaki with AS is going to be much sharper and better edge retention, but it will chip easily if used like the CCK. Other than overall shape and name, the two knives have nothing in common. For Chinese cleavers there's many subtypes. The thinner ones meant for delicate work are also sharpened to very acute angles and heat treated to high hardness. Those are going to be more comparable to Japanese versions.
Definitely aware of the Japanese version. I’ve had one for quite a while. This is another addition. I was interested in finally using one from China. On the other video, there were many people who had used the different Chinese cleavers. They had definitely taken the time to talk about one versus the other. Mostly saying that there were only two of them and that was for meat, butchery and then vegetable shopping or slicing.
"The thinner ones meant for delicate work are also sharpened to very acute angles and heat treated to high hardness." Not sure what you were looking at. This is a CCK slicer, not a meat cleaver. Doesn't matter very much what degree it's sharpened to. Geometry cuts. You can tell it stays very thin far far towards the spine at 2:56. Many Japanese knives microbevel to 30-40 degrees, but cut amazingly well due to geometry.
L26wang is correct. The CCK here is a slicer, not a cleaver like you imply. The blades on these are super thin and take a very good sharp edge likely at a similar angle to the Japanese knife.
Hi Greg, you have the cleaver number 3. They have also number 4 which is smaller(and 2 which is bigger and so far...). I believe the 1 to 4 classification is standard in chinese cleavers.
Thank you sir
I have an old NGA cleaver (multi-purpose veg/bone) number 4. It's about 180mm edge length and 80mm high. It's my beater knife at home - for chinese food, crabs and bone. All things which has to be done, but are too heavy duty for my japanese knives.
Congratulations. I have yet to need a heavy bone breaking meat cleaver. I mean I think I needed it one time and I have one from Europe.
These are low key body building progression videos you're tricking me into watching! 🤣
I appreciate you paying attention. I didn’t no everybody was being such a close attention. I am working on my health. I appreciate your support.
I love how your wife is involved in your hobby, BUT, she knows EVERYTHING you buy now 🤣
It’s true, lol. But I still had something come out of the box the other day that she had never seen and had been in the house for a year and a half.
Aloha brother Greg and the Mrs
Hey buddy
I'll trade all 6 of my CCK for your Kurosaki 🤤
I hear you're my friend
What's wrong with your CCK? Are you just looking for a finer finish and edge retention?
@@peterlai9018 just not as sharp as I’m used to. I’m gonna be sharpening it coming up. I actually love the knife. Been using it a lot lately but I just need it sharper.
Milk Street’s nakiri has had some bad reviews. I really liked Kimball when he was with ATK, but his resent interactions with them have been disappointing.
OOTB sharpness is pretty boring to look at though.
I’m sorry. It does get old, but it is good information.
Actually, Why Japan is making Chinese Cleavers? Just to promote all of their Japanese knives?
I think they appreciate and respect the knife shape and just wanted their opportunity to make one. I know Volkswagen made a sports super beetle because old wagon by Porsche and they just wanted to make a super ramped up car and it was amazing. So a Japanese knife maker just wanted to give respect to the Chinese Cleaver.
@@nadm That's great positivity from your point of view Sir.👌 I appreciate it sincerely. But japanese have tons of knives dedicated to every other task but chinese only use single slicer cleaver for all veg and a meat/bone/butcher cleaver for all non veg purposes. Meaning hardly they use 1 or 2 knives, that's it. They targeted japan directly to use only single cleaver for all such purposes. By this China got so much huge recognition in cleavers world wide and japanese wanted to prove china cleavers wrong so that people switch to japanese knives at the end, is what the purpose I believe behind japanese building chinese cleavers, Sir!😊 Finally, Cause, Chinese cleavers are not a failure, so that someone would rectify it.
@@pranaytony I think the Japanese definitely make knives to be the best at a specific task while the Chinese Kleber is overall good at all task. I know they don’t have a great relationship as far as love and hate, but I do believe they were just paying homage to the knife. Have a great day, sir. God bless and thank you for the support.
@@nadm God Bless and Have a Great Day too!👍
No bc all of japanses Culture and all their knifes are copied from chinses knifes😂 katana is copied from tang Dao. Just go look at their language its a cheap copy of chinses 😂