The best fillet knife is essential tool in the kitchen that help remove bones and skin from both thinner items like fish or poultry and thicker items. The most common materials of fillet knife are carbon steel and high carbon stainless steel. Each of them as their own pros and cons and the choice entirely depends on users preference.
Best carbon steel fillet knife vs stainless steel knife, which is better for you? In order to help you makes the right decision, I am going to compare two representatives of carbon steel knife vs stainless steel knife: KastKing Fillet Knife vs Mercer Culinary Millennia Narrow Fillet Knife
#1 Material
Kastking fillet blade is made from razor sharp G4116 German Stainless-Steel and Mercer fillet knife use the high carbon line steel from Japan to make the blade. If you are a home cooks, so you may more prefer the stainless steel blade. This is because stainless steel has the ability of resistance to corrosion and rust. It required less often to be maintained.
However, carbon steel retains the sharpness for longer than stainless. It holds an edge better than stainless steel. Not only that, the carbon steel blade also much easier to be sharpen than stainless. Due to this, if you are the one that cooking frequently, you should go for the high carbon Mercer knife. You will need to frequently sharpen your knife to ensure it do the job reasonably well, so you will want something that can be sharpen with as little effort as possible.
Mercer Culinary Millennia Fillet Knife has the sharp blade, what makes it can do a lot more than just cuts through fish and meat. It also can be used for chopping vegetables, hard fruits, and even bread.
On the other hands, if fillet is not your regularly works, it is better to get German Stainless-Steel Kastking fillet knife. The downside of carbon is that it can be rusts and stains and discolours if it is reacted with some type of foods like onion.
#2 Size
Not only the material and sharpness levels, the correct size of knife and blade also determine how easy it is fillet a fish. The size of the knife basically depends on the type of fish or meats you are filleting. It is obvious that the shorter blades work better with a smaller fish.
KastKing Fillet Knife available in 5”, 6”, 7” and 9 stainless curved blades for you to choose from. However, Mercer Culinary Millennia only comes with two sizes are 7” and 8.5”.
KastKing Fillet Knife also offer more flexible blade than a Mercer knife as Kasking’s blade has the thin tip, that means it will easier for you to move the blade around the body of the fish during the cut.
#3 Handle and Grip
When you are using your fillet knife, you will want to hold on the comfortable grip and handle. The agronomical shape of Mercer fillet knife handle will create the comfortable feeling for you. It is also designed with the finger points, which help you better control and has the firmly grip.
When fishing outside, you might have to use the knife with wet hands, so you will need a non-slip grip. The non slip grip of KastKing knife is made by polymer which makes it more convenient for carrying outside. Mercer Culinary knife also provides a handle with an angled finger guard and non-slip grip.
#4 Price
Both of these knife are the smart investment due to its affordable price, You can get the KastKing Fillet Knife with about $30 and Mercer Culinary Millennia is only under $20. They comes with the lower-end price but still provide the good quality and durability.