How do you know if a knife has "high quality steel" compared to other blades? 🤔 🔪 The easiest way to determine this is by the degree of hardness of a steel. The degree of hardness is given in Rockwell and shortened to HRC. Knives with an HRC value of 60 or higher are harder. This hardness allows a finer grind on the cutting edge and makes a long edge retention - even with intensive use. We recommend sharpening knife steel with this hardness to 15°