Wusthof Classic 8-Inch Cook’s Knife Review – Best All Purpose Chef’s Knife

Knife Style: Wusthof Classic 8-inch Cook’s Knife

Our Reviewer Rating: 4.8 / 5.0

Brand: Wusthof

Buyer Rating: 4.8 out of 5 Stars with 163 Reviews

Model Number: Classic Knife 4582

Best Used For: Consumer High End Use

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What’s So Good About This Wusthof Classic Knife?

This model 4582 Wusthof knife can be the mainstay of any starter knife set. The 8-inch size is the most commonly purchased because it is flexible enough to handle both smaller and larger tasks, making it one of the best all-purpose kitchen knives you could own. This Wusthof 8-inch chef knife is an excellent choice for culinary students just starting out, home cooking enthusiasts or hobby cooks, and even professional chefs looking for a German-made replacement knife.

This cook’s knife is made with a straight-edge blade. You may know this knife as a chef knife instead of a cook’s knife, but ultimately it’s all about function and multipurpose use, not name. The knife is forged and hand-honed to an incredibly sharp edge and Wusthof won a German knife competition a few years ago for the sharpest blades. The cook’s knife is a high-carbon steel kitchen knife with a full tang, precision bolster, and composition handle to ensure the best strength, heft, and balance.

While Wusthof says it is dishwasher-safe, I highly recommend against cleaning this knife, or any knife, that way. You can read our article about the best way to clean your knives to find out why I feel so strongly about that. Dishwashers are just not the way to keep your high-end knives sharp, unpitted, and stain- and corrosion-free.

Pros and Cons of Wusthof Classic Knives

No matter how fabulous any knife may appear, there are pros and cons to each, whether it is because of features or context of use, such as being a match to a particular user’s needs. Here are some of my observations from our review.

Pros:

• Straight-edge blades like this knife, rather than hollow edge or serrated blades, have the most flexible use case of all the knives in your kitchen. The 8″ chef knife length can handle a tremendous portion of your kitchen tasks. The straight edge and near-perfect balance and heft allows your knife to slice cleanly and easily without tearing fibers when cutting so you get an even slice or cut whether you are cutting meats, vegetables, or fruit.
• Wusthof’s knives are constructed to the highest standards in the Solingen area of Germany. These are forged blades honed to 14 degrees on each side, designed with a triple-riveted full tang and composition handles, and sharpened with their special PEtec manufacturing process. This process makes them incredibly sharp — and you can keep them that way with proper care.
• Wusthof adds to the knife’s performance by adding a precision bolster. This provides excellent heft and balance, which seriously improves your knife’s ability to cut, slice, or chop easily. Because of this excellent balance, these knives don’t put a strain on your hand or arm, and are comfortable for extended daily use in your kitchen.
• Many knives have an inferior handle design, leaving them less ergonomic than you might prefer, especially if you are going to use them for long periods every day, like professional chefs. Other manufacturers don’t always spend as much time on comfortable handles, meaning no matter how good a knife they produce, they can’t match a Wusthof Classic knife for comfortable ease of use.
• This Wusthof product line will be around for a very long time to come. Unlike specialty lines that come and go, the Classic knives have been around and will continue to be around for years to come. You won’t have to worry about mismatching knives if you buy them one by one or need to replace a knife.

Cons:

• Wusthof designs their knives for ergonomic use, which tends to mean a somewhat hefty handle. The extra weighting in the handles, bolster, and guard means a good-sized handle to balance the knife. This can cause some issues for people with really small hands, especially if your knife technique is limited and you try to grip the knife too tightly. If you have small hands, you should know that it may take some adjusting in your grip and technique compared to using lesser quality knives.
• The Classic knife line isn’t cheap in price. Or cheap in quality. But not everyone can afford $120 to buy any one knife, no matter how versatile or sharp. So if you’re on a tight budget or buying a gift where your price limit is lower, this knife may not suit you.
• If you prefer a lighter-weight knife, these knives aren’t likely to be your favorite unless your preference is based on having used inferior and poorly balanced knives. You may find that this knife isn’t as heavy as you’d think, and I’d suggest you give it a try to be sure before rejecting it out of hand. Weight can be subjective, and when a knife cuts cleanly and easily, the strain on your hand you are used to feeling may not be an issue with a Wusthof knife. However, some reviewers do stress the weight as an issue for them.
• Professional chefs comment that with extended heavy professional use (and they’re talking 17 hour days all week long for a year or two), polymer handles are prone to cracking. However they add that this is not likely to happen with a home chef under even heavy use. Professional cooks rarely get more than 2 years out of any knife, and the reviewers freely added that the Wusthof Classic line was an extremely durable and solid knife not prone to issues other than the handles cracking.

Versatility of Use With This Knife

This chef knife is perfect for chopping, slicing, dicing, and carving, and great for meat and both soft and hard vegetables. The 8-inch size is the most versatile; a longer knife can get in your way while cutting smaller items, and a shorter knife like the 5-inch or 6-inch chef’s knife just isn’t long enough to do all your kitchen work. I find that the 8-inch version also fits best in more people’s hands.

However, best size does have a bit of subjectivity to it. If you happen to be really short, or really tall, you may need a shorter or longer blade due to the distance between you and the food you’re working on.

You can learn more about chef’s knives here.

Quality and Manufacturing

No Wusthof knives review can be complete without some discussion of the manufacturing process involved in making these some of the best culinary knives in the world. Their knives are regularly rated among the top knives of any brand for sharpness and usability and Good Housekeeping regularly rates Wusthof extremely high in side-by-side tests with other top brands.

Wusthof constructs the Classic blades through a forged method involving over 40 distinct steps, using a manufacturing process developed over the 200 year history of the Solingen, Germany, company. Using a solid piece of blade steel, Wusthof craftsmen create a hand-forged knife starting from a single piece of their high-carbon steel alloy, which many professionals acknowledge as one of the best knife steels available.

Then they measure the knife by laser and sharpen the blade. Lastly they hand-hone the knife to a precision edge. They use a unique “Precision Edge Technology” (PEtec) that Wusthof says will give the knife the ability to hold its edge 30% longer than competing knives from other manufacturers.

After hand-polishing the final knife, the finished blade is hard enough to resist dulling but soft enough to take a keen edge when honed or sharpened during your regular use. Often knives from competitors are made from a steel that is too hard, so they aren’t capable of being honed or sharpened back to a precision edge, or too soft, so that they dull easily.

The final finishing process creates an extremely stain-resistant blade that is exceptionally sharp but also allows for an easily restorable edge through honing after regular use and periodic sharpening. The full tang makes the knife much stronger, and much less likely to snap or break free of the blade with extended use. They also add a finger guard to protect your hands, and the guard improves the knife’s heft and balance even further.

What Buyers Say About Their Wusthof Knives

One regular comment is that buyers feel the investment in these knives is absolutely worth it over purchasing lesser quality knives that won’t hold their edge. And with 140 5-Star reviews, and 14 4-Star reviews out of the current 163 reviews, that’s a rousing approval rating from buyers. The few bad ratings seemed to cluster around price.

One comment echoed over and over by reviewers was that Wusthof Classic knives were particularly well balanced with solid heft for easy cutting and slicing and the ergonomic grips were comfortable. Another felt that the this line is the best trade-off between price and quality compared to the less-expensive Wusthof Gourmet line (a stamped blade) or Wusthof’s Culinar line (more expensive).

One reviewer said that the slightly thinner blade of the Wusthof cook’s knife — designed to enhance its cutting ability — is fabulous for cutting and chopping. They said that you should imagine running a hot knife through a room temperature stick of butter. And that’s what using this knife is like for chopping hard vegetables, slicing meats, or the like.

When it comes to sharpness, most reviewers mention being extremely pleased with how sharp their new Wusthof knives are. Enough so that you have to pay extra care to keep all of your body parts intact. One reviewer even had to take their friend to the ER for 5 stitches, so respect this knife’s sharpness. If you have kids around your kitchen and they aren’t taught knife safety, you’ll need to take care when leaving your knives loose on the counter.

Reviewers also strongly recommend buying the sharpening steel. A honing steel should be used after cleaning on each use to smooth and realign the worn carbon steel and straighten any small bends from use since tiny misalignments occur during everyday use. One professional cook recommended using a Wusthof steel specifically because it ensures that the steel is high enough on the Moh’s hardness scale to properly hone that particular brand and line’s blade edge. A couple of times a year the knives should be sharpened either by sharpener or through professional sharpening to fix the nicks and dulling that occur over time. This is done by removing metal and fining down the blade, which sharpens the edge.

Wusthof actually offers a service for all of their non-serrated blades to sharpen the knives if you send them in for only $3 per knife. They must be confident in the sharpness of their blades.

Who Should Buy This Wusthof Cook’s Knife

Wusthof is one of the most popular knife brands among professional chefs and home cooking enthusiasts. The quality manufacturing process produces knives with incredible quality and versatility. Most serious cooks will agree that a chef’s knife is the backbone of any cooking knives tool set, and the knife you’ll use the most often.

If you aren’t on a tight budget and trying to fill out all your knife needs in one go, and especially if you are looking for a solid main knife for yourself or family or friends, this 8-inch chef’s knife is one of the best investments you can make for your kitchen.

And if you’re looking for gift ideas for chefs or even a home cook wanting the best quality knives, this Wusthof knife makes one of the best gifts you can buy for a cook (or yourself).

Who Shouldn’t Buy This Knife

Are you on a tight budget — either buying for yourself or as a gift? While this knife offers incredible value for the price, it isn’t cheap and may not fit your budget, no matter how good the deal.

Accessories and Related Items

There are any number of Wusthof Classic knives you can purchase to round out your knife set. For starter sets, I recommend the serrated bread knife, a 6″ boning knife, the hollow edge Santoku knife, and the 3-1/2-inch paring knife. You’ll probably find the blade cover and the honing steel of great use as well.

• Wusthof Classic Double-Serrated 9-inch Bread Knife
• Wusthof Classic 6-inch Boning Knife
• Wusthof Classic 7-inch Santoku Knife with Hollow Edge
• Wusthof Classic 3-1/2-inch Paring Knife (read our review here)
• Wusthof blade guard 8-Inch Chef’s Knife
• Wusthof 10-inch Honing or Sharpening Steel

Our Recommendation and Why

In our review of this all-purpose chef’s knife, we’ve covered a lot of ground, from quality and manufacturing, to flexibility of use, to the pros and cons of the knife and its specifics. And any knife chosen and used by professional chefs such as Martha Stewart and Jamie Oliver has merit.

Depending on your particular kitchen needs, especially if you are only cooking for 1 or 2, you might not even need many other knives. If you’re a cooking enthusiast or cooking for a group, this knife can form the basis of a solid set of knives you’ll never regret buying.

And in the end, what you’ll really appreciate about this Wusthof chef’s knife is exceptional quality, ease of use, and value. We don’t give out 4.5+ star ratings easily, but this knife really does rate it. You’ll get a well-rounded, high-quality knife that will make up the backbone of your kitchen knife set for years to come.

And for that price, AND qualifying for Free Shipping, you’ve got to check out the Wusthof Classic 8-inch Cook’s Knife.

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