Bara Forge

Bara Forge is the everyday forged line: six shapes and two sets, each blade hammer forged from layered steel around a 10Cr17MoV cutting core hardened to 60 HRC, then fitted with a stabilized burl wood octagonal handle and a signature mosaic pin. No two handles share a grain pattern. Every blade is hand sharpened and oiled before it ships.

Which Bara Forge knife is for you

The 8" Chef Knife is the one most kitchens start with — long enough to break down a chicken, nimble enough for a shallot. If you prefer a flatter Japanese profile, the 9" Gyuto gives you extra length for slicing proteins, while the 9" Kiritsuke adds a reverse-tanto tip for precision work and a commanding look on the board.

For vegetable prep, the 7" Nakiri has a straight edge that meets the board along its full length, so cabbage and onion fall apart in clean push cuts. The 7" Santoku is the shorter, lighter all-rounder for cooks who find an 8-inch chef knife unwieldy. The 5" Paring handles everything in the hand: peeling, hulling, segmenting citrus.

Buying more than one blade is cheaper as a set. The Trinity Set covers the three jobs that account for most prep — an 8-inch chef, a 7-inch nakiri and a 6-inch utility. The Signature Six brings together every flagship shape in the line for a kitchen you are equipping from scratch.

Questions we get asked

What steel is Bara Forge made from?
Layered forged steel around a 10Cr17MoV core, hardened to 60 HRC. That is hard enough to hold a fine edge through weeks of prep, and stainless enough that a rinse and a dry is all the maintenance most cooks ever do.

Is burl wood durable enough for a kitchen handle?
Bara Forge handles are stabilized burl, meaning the wood is resin-impregnated before shaping. It will not shrink, crack or swell the way raw hardwood does. Hand wash and dry it — never the dishwasher.

How is Bara Forge different from our Damascus lines?
Bara Forge is a forged working knife with a plain layered finish, not a patterned Damascus billet. If you want the visible pattern, look at Damascus knives instead. If you want the sharpest possible blade at the lowest weight, this is the line.

Every Bara Forge knife comes with a 99-day home trial and a free lifetime guarantee. Cook with it for three months; if it is not the sharpest blade you have ever used, send it back.

More on the craft: why hand-forged knives cut better, the best handle materials for knives, and what an HRC number really tells you.