How to Care for Knives Like an Adult
You’ve finally purchased some high quality knives . You won’t regret it. Not only will a good knife make cutting easier, but the materials used will make your knives stay sharper longer. (Unlike a set of knives in a molded plastic box, which cut like spoons after six months.) But like any important tool, you’ll extend the life of these knives with periodic maintenance. There are two things you should do to take care of your knives: honing and sharpening.
What is honing?
Knife sharpening should be part of your daily and frequent knife care routine. It’s like updating your phone: you need to fix the usual bugs. Chefs in professional kitchens, who spend hours using their knives cutting a wide variety of ingredients, sharpen their knives every day, maybe even a couple times a shift. If you cook once or twice a day, your knife will need to be sharpened once or twice a week.
Honing a knife is different from sharpening . When you use a knife, the metal on the edge of the blade gets stuck, especially when you drag it across hard surfaces, across a cutting board, or over bone or cartilage. This is normal, but if it happens repeatedly (for example, during daily use), the blade becomes less sharp. Honing aligns the microscopic metal “teeth” on the edge of the blade so that they all face the same direction, resulting in more precise cuts and less force required. Sharpening is a completely different activity that actually removes metal from the blade (more on this later). I’ve outlined the steps, but to see honing in action, you can watch the video where I show you how to do it.
How to sharpen a knife
Know your knife
Honing in is easy, although it does take some practice because it feels weird at first. You will need honing steel, which will cost you between $15 and $30 on average. In short, you will be running the blade across the steel at a specific angle. Depending on your knife, you will do this on one or both sides of the blade. Most Western knives are sharpened at an angle of 16 to 24 degrees and have bevels on both sides. You can look at the specifications of your knife to find out these details. The chamfer is visible to the naked eye; just look at the blade and you will see if both sides slope towards the edge or if one side is flat.
Find your corner
Place the cutting board securely on the countertop. Hold the steel perpendicular to the cutting board, pressing the tip against the board, and hold the handle in your non-dominant hand. Hold the knife in your dominant hand and find an angle. The easiest way to find an angle without a protractor is to hold the knife at a 90-degree angle to the rod, as if you were about to cut the honing steel in half. Then move the tip of the knife upward to bisect that angle to 45 degrees. Divide this angle and you will get an angle of approximately 22.5 degrees (adjust as needed to find the angle specified by your knife manufacturer). You are human too, so this angle is an approximation, and that’s okay.
Sharpen both sides of the blade equally
Once you have found the angle, run the blade along the shaft, dragging the blade towards you, lowering it towards the cutting board, from heel to tip, with light pressure. Repeat the same on the other side of the blade. Alternately sharpen the two sides of the knife blade until you have sharpened each side eight to ten times. If your knife has a single bevel, you will only have to sharpen one side.
Do this as often as you like, try to hone your skills at least a few times a week if you cook a lot. Be sure to rinse the blade after sharpening to remove any small pieces of metal. Your knife should have optimal sharpness.
Here are some good honing steels at reasonable prices:
Three ways to sharpen kitchen knives
Sharpening a knife requires a little more effort than honing it, but you don’t have to do it as often. If you use your knife frequently, you may want to sharpen it every six months; if you use it occasionally, you can sharpen it maybe once every two years. I use some of my knives daily, and if sharpened frequently, they need to be sharpened about once every eight months.
When it comes to sharpening, you have several options. You can bring your knives to a professional or mail them in for professional sharpening. You can also do this yourself using a sharpener, an automatic electric sharpener, or a whetstone.
How to use a knife sharpener
Broach sharpeners are quite small, with one or more V-shaped notches. They are attractive to beginners because they do not require any skills. Simply stick the blade into your heel and pull it towards you until it stops at the tip. Some sharpeners have a coarse grit to start with and a fine grit to finish.
The problem with broaches is that they can remove more material from the edge of the knife than necessary, which can weaken the blade and shorten the life of the knife. They also have set angles, which can be good if you’re unsure of yourself, but bad if the edge of your knife needs to be sharpened at a different angle than the angle set by your sharpener. If you are on a very tight budget or are reluctant to learn sharpening any other way, this may be the best option for you.
Retractable sharpeners are affordable and take up little space in the kitchen:
How to use an electric knife sharpener
Instead of a rough, static edge that peels away layers of metal, electric knife sharpeners have a series of rotating wheels of varying grits that gradually polish the metal from the edge of the knife. The mechanism pushes the knife forward, which can help if you’re not sure how fast or slow to draw the knife. Starting at the coarse end and gradually moving to the finer grit, simply insert the knife blade into one of the slots, starting at the heel end, and smoothly slide the blade to the point.
Like broach sharpeners, electric sharpeners have set angles, but newer models are considered less aggressive when it comes to removing excess material from the edge of the knife. Please note that some user complaints relate to inconsistent blade sharpening from heel to tip. Since the shape of the sharpening notches does not match the shape of the knife rest, the sharpener can easily miss the part that is closest to the heel. However, if you need to sharpen your knives quickly and often, or don’t like the idea of a whetstone, this might be an option for you.
An electric sharpener can have the largest area and a wide price range:
How to sharpen a knife with a whetstone
The whetstone method is the traditional way of sharpening a knife. It takes a little longer than the other two methods, but you can control how much metal comes off and the angle is not fixed by the machine.
For a beginner sharpener, any of them is suitable:
The whetstone is a rectangular stone with two sides. One side has a coarse grain. Turn it over and you will see that the other one has a finer grain. (This is not the same as touching the pavement, however; both sides will be smooth to the touch.) The sides are labeled with a “grit number” and can range from a coarse one, like 400, to a smooth polishing stone of 8000 grit. To get started. One sharpener with a coarse and a fine side is enough. I’ll go over how to sharpen things further below, but if you’re a visual artist, check out my video on this topic.
1. Soak the stone in water.
To sharpen a knife with a whetstone, you first need to soak the stone in water to soak it. I usually put it in a loaf pan filled with water and do something else for an hour, but 20 minutes is plenty. Place the stone, bottom grain side up, on a kitchen towel (this will prevent water from dripping onto the counter and will stabilize the stone), placing the pan of water at arm’s length. Splash a handful of water on the stone to make it slippery.
2. Find your corner and pull
Place the blade towards the top of the stone (farthest away from you), with the blade facing away from you. Holding the knife handle with your dominant hand, find the angle. Use the same method mentioned in the honing section: place the knife at a 90 degree angle and then lower it. Start with the heel of the knife touching the stone. With your non-dominant hand, apply pressure to the edge of the blade and pull the blade back towards you at an angle so that all parts of the blade end up being pulled towards the stone. The knife will never move towards your body, it will move towards your thigh on the side of your dominant hand.
3. Align the edges of the blade.
Repeat this several times, occasionally sprinkling water on the stone to keep it slippery. Turn the knife over and sharpen the other side of the blade in the same way, making the same number of passes. If I haven’t sharpened a knife in a year, I usually do 10 passes on each side of the knife. If your knife has never seen a sharpening stone during its time on this earth, you should use the countdown method to ensure a sharp edge: start with 10 passes per side, then make nine passes per side, then eight, seven and etc. .
4. Switch to the finer grain side.
Once you’ve finished both sides, flip the whetstone over to the fine-grit side and repeat. This side will smooth out the harshness you made with the rougher side. When finished, wash the knife and you are ready to cut.
These sharpening methods are only for knives with straight blades, serrated ones are specially shaped and should not be sharpened with any of these tools, including a whetstone. Every mountain and valley of the serrated edge needs to be specially sharpened, otherwise you will lose those serrations. In this case, and with any knife with an unusual sharpening, take it to a professional and make sure your knife is sharpened to his specifications. Part of being an adult is knowing when to outsource.