The best way to sharpen a kitchen knife

Whether you cook from scratch daily or you’re more of a weekend chef, knowing how to sharpen a kitchen knife is an absolutely essential skill. Chopping with a blunt knife isn’t just frustrating, you’re actually more likely to hurt yourself as you’ll apply more pressure to the blade.

To help you keep your kitchen knives in the best possible condition, we asked the experts at the GHI and Leiths School of Food and Wine for they’re top tips. Here’s what they told us.

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How to sharpen a kitchen knife

1. Use a honing steel

Regularly honing a knife on a steel helps maintain the edge of the knife. Use a honing steel that is longer than your knife to do the job effectively.

While you should hone the blade regularly, using a sharpening steel (or a whetstone) too frequently can end up eroding the blade.

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According to Ben Blackburn of Leiths School of Food and Wine, if you’ve purchased a brand-new knife then you shouldn’t need to be using a sharpening steel for a good few months, even if you’re using the knife every day.

2. Sharpen at an angle

When sharpening a western-style kitchen knife, hold the knife against the honing steel at roughly 22.5 degrees. Swipe the knife down and across the entire length of the steel. There is no need to apply force — allow the weight of the knife to do the job. Japanese knives require a more acute sharpening angle of 10-20 degrees.

Ben also says that whilst you’ll see many top chefs sharpening their knives at great speed, if you try to do this it can be easier to miscalculate the angle at which you need the blade to be meeting the steel, thus resulting in a more blunt knife than when you started. He recommends holding the steel upright on a work surface, on a tea towel to ensure it doesn’t slip, and drawing the knife at the required angle just 5 or 6 times on each side of the knife. Imagine the steel is at 12 o’clock and the knife is just a little before 1 o’clock.

The type of knife you should use comes down to personal preference, and how it feels in your hand. A western-style knife is a European-made knife. The distinction is made between European (soft-tempered steel) and Japanese knives (hard tempered steel) as these tend to be the two most common types of knives. European knife blades are thicker and can withstand heavy-handed usage. Japanese knives are lighter, and their blades are thinner.

3. Clean the knife

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When you’ve finished with honing, clean the knife and steel to remove any particles that may have come off.

4. Know when to hone

How often you hone a knife depends on how much you’re using the knife. Chefs in restaurants hone every few hours. A home cook might do it only once a day if they cook every day, or once every few days if they cook less often.

When a honing steel no longer returns a knife’s edge to sharpness, try using a whetstone or a sharpening steel which has a coating of either ceramic or diamond powder. Ben from Leiths School of Food and Wine says if your knife is a good quality and you hone the blade religiously after each time it’s used then you should only need to use a whetstone once or twice a year. These can be bought online (with many videos showing you how to use one) but knife specialist shops will often sharpen them for you, guaranteeing a good blade.

5. Test with a tomato

To test the sharpness of your knife, try cutting a tomato. A dull knife will dent the tomato skin, whereas a sharp knife will cut right through with little or no effort.

General tips

• Don’t put knives in the dishwasher, even if they are dishwasher safe, as they can knock against the baskets or other crockery and the blades can become damaged.
• Wash them by hand with hot soapy water and dry immediately.
• Try not to put knives in a drawer with other cutlery or knives as this can cause blade damage.
• Consider investing in individual protective sleeves or knife guards.
• When shopping for knife blocks, look for those with horizontal slats so that the knives do not rest on their edges.

Source: https://gardencourte.com
Categories: Kitchens