The Wusthof Ikon knives line article is part of a series of articles we have prepared in order for you to get to know and select the best Wusthof knives for your needs. Also make sure you check out the Wusthof Epicure, Wusthof Classic Ikon, Wusthof Classic, Wusthof Grand Prix II and Wusthof Pro lines in order to get a complete view of the entire product lines.
Wusthof Ikon Product line
The Wusthof Ikon knives product line includes 4 sets of knives, 3 chef knives, 3 utility knives, 2 bread knives, 2 santoku knives, 1 paring knife, 1 steak knife, 1 carving knife, 1 fillet knife, 1 boning knife, 1 pair of scissors, 1 meat fork, 1 steel, 1 Wood Care Kit.
Wusthof Ikon Set
The Wusthof Ikon line is one of the most prized Wusthof knife lines. Thus it was featured with a new, modern design and luxurious materials like Grenadill wood for the handles. Grenadill wood also known as African Blackwood is a very hard and heavy wood, probably one of the heaviest in the world. This will confer high resistance to damage but also gives the knife a very sturdy feel. Also the redesigned, full tanged, double bolster knives are precision forged out of high carbon stainless steel and sharpened with Wusthof’s innovative PEtec technology. The Wusthof Ikon knife set comes with a lifetime warranty so you can be sure you are making a quality buy.
Ikon 9 Piece Block Set
The 9 piece Wusthof Ikon block set is one of the biggest sets on the Ikon line. Off course you can get other custom made sets with a larger number of knives but this is the Wusthof standard. This set is all you need for your complete kitchen. Probably the only thing I would add is a slicing knife. The 3 1/2 inch paring knife along side the 8 inch chef knife, bread knife and sharpening steel are all the basics you would need in a kitchen. But in order to have a well equipped knife set with all you will ever need, Wusthof has added a utility, santoku, carving knife and scissors so you don’t have to worry about not having the proper tools.
- One 3 ½ inch Paring knife
- One 6 inch Utility knife
- One 7 inch Santoku knife
- One 8 inch Bread knife
- One 8 inch Chef Knife
- One Hollow Edge Carving Knife
- One 10 inch Steel
- One Pair Scissors
- One 15 Slot knife block
Ikon 7 Piece Block Set
The 7 piece Ikon Walnut Block set is probably the best basic knives set you would need in your kitchen The only thing I would probably change would be the Utility knife and I would change it with again, a slicing knife. No other knives to the job of a slicing knife better and most of the times you could use a chef knife to do a utility knives job. But the paring knife, chef knife, bread knife steel and scissors are all the basics you would need to start cooking.
- One 3 ½ inch Paring knife
- One 6 inch Utility knife
- One 8 inch Bread knife
- One 8 inch Chef Knife
- One 10 inch Steel
- One Pair Scissors
- One 15 Slot knife block
Ikon 5 Piece block Set
The Ikon 5 Piece Studio Block set from Wusthof is the smallest set you could buy with a 4 slot walnut block. It has the basic chef knife, paring knife and scissors with the added utility knife but I would recommend buy a bread knife and slicing knife also. Just to make sure you have everything. But at the same time this is a studio block set so it is supposed to have just a few basics.
- One 3 ½ Paring knife
- One 4 ½ Utility knife
- One 6 inch Chef Knife
- One Pair Scissors
- One 4 Slot Knife Block
Ikon 4 piece Steak knives set
Precision forged from a single piece of high carbon stainless steel and sharpened with the innovative PEtec technology, the 4 piece steak knives set are all you need to glide through a huge steak. The triple riveted, comfortable and durable Blackwood handle will always feel sturdy in your hand.
Wusthof Ikon Chef Knife
Ikon 9 inch Chef Knife
The Ikon 9 inch chef knife is a dream come true for any professional chef. The 9 inch blade is all you need to do tones of cutting on a daily basis. Even the largest squash won’t stand a chance to its high carbon stainless steel blade sharpened with PEtech technology. Also the modern, African Blackwood handle will feel extremely comfortable in your hand allowing you to do continuous work without stopping.
Ikon 8 inch Chef Knife
The 8 inch Ikon Chef knife is a great tool for home cooks or professional chefs alike. The 8 inch blade is the perfect size for everyone. It is not as big that you would feel uncomfortable but big enough that it will cut through any task you put in front of it. The 8 inch Ikon chef knife is probably the best variant of all sizes.
Ikon 6 inch Chef Knife
The 6 inch Ikon chef knife is the best tool for beginners in the kitchen or people that have to do lots of prep work. At 6 inch in size it might be difficult to shred a large cabbage on its full width but it will cut through any other vegetable like through butter. If you are a beginner in the kitchen you might want to start off with a smaller blade until you get comfortable with the knife and the cutting techniques. Thus this would be a great option for you.
Wusthof Ikon Utility Knife
Ikon 4 ½ inch Utility Knife
The 4 1/2 Ikon Utility knife is a good addition to your knife set. If you are a home cook and probably prepare sandwiches ot just cut a lot of sandwich meat, a utility knife being smaller than a chef’s knife is a great addition. Because of its smaller size it is much easier maneuvered through meat thus making your job easier.
Ikon 6 inch Utility Knife
The 6 inch Ikon Utility is basically a small chef knife. It is great for prep work as well as cutting sandwich meat. When slicing a wider piece of salami a 4 1/2 inch utility knife might be a bit too small for the task at hand. Thus the 6 inch Ikon utility knife is there to do the job for you.
Ikon 5 inch Serrated Utility Knife
The 5 inch serrated Utility knife is great when cutting any ingredient with hard or crusty exterior and soft interior. The serrations help you knife slide through these ingredients without you having to exert lots of pressure. Take a baguette or a tomato for example. If you push down on the ingredient no matter the sharpness of your knife you will most probably squish it. In this case the added serrations do the job right.
Wusthof Ikon Bread Knife
Ikon 9 inch Bread Knife
The Ikon 9 inch bread knife is all you need when slicing a large bread. The serrations will help you knife slide through the crust without squishing the interior. Also the Ikon’s special serrations will produce a minimal amount of crumbs on your cutting board.
Ikon 8 inch Bread Knife
The 8 inch bread knife is the best size bread knife you could have. Probably the 9 inch bread knife is a bit long if you don’t intend on cutting huge breads. Thus the 8 inch is the best size. The serrations will slice through bread with ease and with almost no crumbs on the cutting board.
Wusthof Ikon Santoku Knives
Ikon 7 inch Santoku Knife
The 7 inch Hollow edge Santoku is the perfect tool to do lots of prep work in the kitchen. The 7 inch size is optimal and you will mostly appreciate the hollow edge. Doesn’t it get annoying for example when you slice a onion and slice after slice gets stuck to the blade? This will not happen with the 7 inch hollow edge santoku because of the pockets of air that form in between your slices.
Ikon 5 inch Santoku Knife
The Ikon 5 inch Santoku knife is great for beginners in the kitchen. Because of its smaller size you will feel comfortable doing prep work in no time. Also because of the featured hollow edge, air pockets will form between your slices thus food won’t stick to the blade.
Ikon 3 ½ Paring knife
A paring knife is the basic tool you need in your kitchen cabinet. Probably the chef knife is the most important tool that you will use almost 90% of the time but the paring knife comes second. You will never be able to peel a small onion or a apple with a large chef knife. Thus the paring knife is indispensable for peeling or intricate cuts.
Ikon 4 ½ Steak Knife
If you don’t want to buy a whole set of 4 steak knives or maybe you want to buy anything in between, maybe 2 or three or even 5, 6 ot 7, Wusthof gives you the option of buying individual steak knives. The knives are made of the same super steel, precision forged and triple riveted with the extremely comfortable Blackwood handle.
Ikon 9 inch Carving Knife
The 9 inch Ikon hollow edge carving knife is a great knife to have when carving turkey or any other meat by that matter. The pointed tip is created to help you move around bones with ease. Also the hollow edge allows for pockets of air to form thus no slice will stick to the blade.
Ikon 6 inch Flexible Fillet Knife
If you are interested in filleting fish or any other meat from the bone the flexible 6 inch fillet knife is the tool for you. Its narrow blade is designed to move along bones with ease and the flexibility of the blade will help you move around small bones with no effort required.
Ikon 5 inch Boning Knife
The Ikon 5 inch boning knife is perfect for deboning chicken, pork or beef. The narrow blade will move around bones with ease and you will have a clean cut every time.
Ikon 8 ½ Stain Free Scissors
The beautiful design Stain free scissors are a great addition in your kitchen. The scissors also feature a nutcracker on the handles which helps improve the product. The only issue with these scissors are that some have complained about them rusting after just a few wash cycles. But if you wash and wipe them thoroughly you will not have this issue.
Ikon 6 inch Straight Meat Fork
When carving a large piece of roast or a whole turkey the carving knife will do the job. But you will need to hold you slices in place. Here is where the meat fork comes in play. If you already own most wusthof Ikon knives it would be cool to also have the meat fork to match the knives design.
Ikon 10 inch Steel
The Wusthof Ikon 10 inch Steel is a must have. No knives set is complete without a steel. Actually you need the steel before you have any other knife besides your chef knife. The Wusthof knives are precision forged and sharpened to perfection but if you do not maintain your blades they will lose their sharpened in time. Also it is recommended you have the right steel for the right knife. If you have a softer material steel then your knives blade it really won’t do the job.
Ikon Wood Care Kit
The only issue with the Ikon line of knives comes with the Blackwood handle. Inherently wood reacts with water. Thus if you somehow scratch your knife’s handle, water might sip in and damage it. Thus Wusthof provides a wood care kit to be applied regularly on the handle so that the damages won’t occur.
Wusthof Ikon Features
The Wusthof Ikon series of knives is basically a modern take on the Classic. The steel is the same, the forging, tempering, annealing and sharpening processes are the same with exception of the bolster and contemporary design. The Ikon series comes in three variants, all the same with exception of the handles material. Thus you have the Ikon Blackwood, the Classic Ikon Creme and the Classic Ikon.
Design
Everything is more rounded with the Ikon series and the knives feature just a partial bolster at the beginning. This fact is great as it makes it much more easier to sharpen the knives blade. But you might think that the knives balance is jeopardy because of this fact. Do not worry, the end of the handle features a second half bolster which makes for a perfectly balanced knife. Also the rounded handle will fit perfectly in your hand. This is probably one of the most comfortable knife handles of a German knife we have tested so far.
Steel
The Wusthof Ikon series of knives are forged knives. In fact most Wusthof series are forged knives except for the Gourmet, Grand Prix 2 and Pro line which are stamped. But no matter the process in which the knives are made, they are created from the same super steel made exclusively for Wusthof.
The steel is called the “X50 Cr MoV 15” which is a pretty sciencey name that probably does not tell you much. But it’s in fact very smart as it tells you all you need to know about the make of the steel. Bassically the metal used is a is a High Carbon Stainless Steel made with a few more elements that give the blade, edge retention properties as well as corrosion resistance.
So now, let’s get a bit into detail and break down the name. The first part of the name is “x50” which stands for the basic material from which the blade is made from. Meaning the high carbon steel, where “X” represents the steel and “50” the 0.5% carbon content. The steel is in fact a High Carbon Stainless Steel thus the “Cr” in the name which represents Chromium. Chromium content is a basic ingredient in stainless steel and in this case it comes in a quantity of 15% which you see represented at the end of the name. But there are still two more basic elements in the composition of this super steel. “Mo” which represents the element Molybdenum and “V” which represent Vanadium. Both of these elements enhance the durability, hardness, edge retention and corrosion resistance of the Ikon blades.
Hardening the Blade
The blade edge of the Ikon knives is very hard and reaches 58 on the Rockwell scale. But this is not only because of the super steel used in the construction of the knives. This fact is mostly due to the forging, tempering and annealing process used in the creation of the blades. But how does Wusthof do this?
Wusthof has a tradition of over 200 years in making high quality German knives involving high-end German engineering to create the perfect blades and nothing is left to chance. As most Wusthof knives the Ikon is also a forged knives series. Thus, at the modern Wusthof factory the super steel received is first heated at 2000 degrees Fahrenheit (1093 Celsius) and precision forged. Then the knives are cut into the desired shape by robots and quality checked. With the basic shape done the hardening process is next and this is called tempering the steel.
In order for the blade to reach a very high hardness the steel is heated up again at 1850 Fahrenheit (1010 Celsius) then, rapidly cooled down. This tempering process ensures that the blades become extremely hard but at the same time the steel becomes too brittle to use. A knife blade doesn’t only have to be hard but also flexible. If the blade is brittle it will most surely break on impact. In this case an annealing process is required to remove tension from the blades thus increasing flexibility. So, the blades are heated up again in a different oven at 390 Fahrenheit (198 Celsius) then slowly cooled down. This process ensures the blades become flexible again, maintaining the required hardness of 58 HRC on the Rockwell scale.
The Wusthof factory is highly advanced as it employs only around 350 people worldwide. Most of the knife production process is automated and done by robots. In this case you will receive consistency in every product. But not everything can be automated thus human quality control is employed at every stage of production.
Assembly, Grinding and Sharpening
By now the entire process of building the perfect blade is done at the factory and only the assembly of the handle and finishing steps are required. First the blade’s edge is ground at a 14 degree angle on both sides, polished and corrosion protected. After the basic edge of the knife is formed the blade is etched and cleaned in order for the handle to be fixed in place. In the case of the Ikon the two sides of Blackwood are attached on the full tanged blade and fixed in place by three strong stainless steel rivets. This ensures you have a great fixture that will last you decades. As a finishing process of the construction of the blade the entire knife (knife spine, bolster and handle) are polished to a fine shape and cleaned.
But what about sharpening? The Wusthof Ikon as well as all wusthof knives are precision sharpened at the end of the construction process. Wusthof uses its own developed PEtec sharpening technology which as we got used to by now, employes space age machines like robots and lasers. But how does it work?
Before any robotic arm starts sharpening the knives, lasers measure each blade’s edge and calculate the exact angle for which it has to be sharpened at. Then robots take each blade and apply the exact calculations specific for it in order to precision sharpen the edge. As a final process the blades are finely polished on a spherical blade. By applying the PEtc technology on each knife, Wusthof ensures consistency throughout and thus you will receive a great knife every time. .
Handle
As specified before the 3 Ikon lines of knives, the Ikon Blackwood, the Classic Ikon Creme and the Classic Ikon, all have the same shape and characteristics but different handle materials. The Ikon knife has a Blackwood handle, the Classic Ikon features a Black Palm handle and the Classic Ikon Creme has a polyethylene cream handle.
But how do this materials differ from one another?
The Wusthof Ikon Blackwood which we are talking about in this article, features a Blackwood handle. This is Wusthof’s first line of Ikon knives and they’ve featured it with this beautiful natural Blackwood. The feel and look of natural wood is stunning but it might have issues over time. And this can be the case here too. If scratched water might sip in through and the wood can get damaged. For this reason Wusthof suggest you also acquire the Wood care kit usually provided together with some knife packs.
The Wusthof Classic Ikon Black Palm handle is different in this respect. It also uses natural wood but the Palm wood is not susceptible to water damage as the Blackwood is. Thus a improvement on the overall design of the knife.
The Wusthof Classic Ikon Creme is a line of Ikon knives exclusively made for Cutlery and More. Thus made with the specific creme handle. The material used here is the same as in the Wusthof Classic and namely a creme polyethylene. Polyethylene is a very hard material which does not react to water and scratches or damages hard.
All Ikon handles are great. The one you choose has to be about preference and the level of care you intend to put into your knives.
Warranty
The Wusthof Ikon knives are very high quality knives that will last and perform great for decades if cared for in the right way. Because of Wusthof’s trust in their products the Ikon comes with a lifetime warranty.
