Three-Step Procedure to Keep Your Knives Sharp and Safe
As we have often said, dull knives are dangerous , not to mention the pain to use when it’s time to cook. Keeping them sharp is surprisingly easy, and this guide from KnifePlanet staff is detailed and rich, but comes down to three simple steps: maintenance, honing, and ultimately sharpening.
The guide walks you through the details of each step in fantastic detail that you will need to bookmark and return to instead of trying to go through everything at once. The guide starts with vigorous sharpening protection, which you probably don’t really need, but there are definitely people out there who think sharpening a knife will do more harm than it’s worth. Maybe refinish or do it too often, but in general? Not so much.
From there, we’ll move on to some solid knife care tips, like learning how to keep your knife in good condition by simply sharpening it to avoid the risk of regrinding. We’ve shown you how to sharpen a knife in the past , but the guide below has a video to help you get started or how to use honing steel correctly, especially if you’re not quite sure how to find a good angle and how to hold your honing steel (or ceramic rod , depending on what you are using). The guide also shows you how to sharpen your knife with fine-grained water stone.
The second step is simple – learning to determine when the knife needs not only sharpening, but also actual sharpening. It’s harder than you might think, but it boils down to what Peter Novlan calls “tomato dough”:
If your knife can still cut through the tomato without bending the tomato, if it can still punch through the skin and slide easily over the tomato, good, good job. Now, if it doesn’t, try taking out your grinder again and hardening the knife. DO NOT apply more pressure than you are used to, it doesn’t matter, just use the same technique and then watch how the knife feels on a tomato tomato. When I chop a tomato, I start at the heel of the knife and pull the blade towards the tip, and by the time the knife has advanced an inch, it’s already going through the skin of the tomato.
The third step is, of course, to actually sharpen your knife, either by finding someone to sharpen it professionally for you, or by learning how to sharpen it yourself , ideally with a water stone.
If you decide to put it in a sharpener, Novlan has some tips to help you get to know the sharpener first so you can be sure your knives are in good hands. Click the link below to read everything.
Three-step program to keep your knives sharp | KnifePlanet