Knife sharpening 101
The Story
Did you know it’s much more dangerous to work with a dull knife than a sharp one?
It may seem counterintuitive since a sharp knife can easily pierce through your delicate skin. But working with a dull knife, the risks of it slipping off what you’re cutting and rolling onto your supporting hand with more force than you want to think about go up exponentially.
Whether you’re a home cook or a professional, one of your most valued tools is a good set of knives. One of the biggest parts of taking care of your knives is to adopt a steady knife sharpening regimen to ensure they’re in tip-top condition.
Here’s my knife sharpening kit by Keyre
So, how does knife sharpening work?
The idea is twofold: first, you need to sharpen your knife, creating a sharp edge, and second you need to maintain that edge.
With the knife sharpening process, you are actually removing a small portion of metal on both sides to create two slightly angled lines that come together at a point.
Using a series of whetstones of varying grades (think of this like using rough sandpaper and then transitioning to much smoother sandpaper) you first remove the unwanted material along the edge to create a point (lower number grade like 400 - 1000), and then you polish that edge (higher number grade like 3000 - 8000).
The result is a sharp knife that should easily cut through even the most notoriously difficult-to-cut items (most notably a tomato or anything with skin you need to cut through).
However, with use, the edge you created is misaligned, causing your knife to slowly lose the edge you had created over time until those two angled lines are completely lost and flattened out.
To prolong the life of your sharp edge, you can maintain it with a honing rod. This doesn’t create a new edge like the whetstone…it instead realigns the existing edge.
The honing rod will eventually not help so much, which is when it’s time to pull out the whetstone again to create a new edge all over again.
And don’t worry! It’s not so intimidating. Work slowly at first while you’re getting used to the knife sharpening process. But after just two or three times doing it, you’ll get the hang of it.
Difficulty: 2.5 on a scale of 1-5
Total time to prepare: It depends on how dull your knife is to start. If your knife is suuuuuper dull, it can take as much as a half hour to fully sharpen just one knife.
The Ingredients
To sharpen:
At least two whetstones: one rougher grade and one finer grade
I have two whetstones, each one with two grades: one with 400 and 1000 and the other with 3000 and 8000.
*NOTE: I suggest at least having the 400 and 1000 to start. The easiest way to have everything you need is to get a kit. I have this one from Keyre…it is very complete and reasonably priced.
Everything is optional except for the stones themselves, but each element serves a different purpose.
To maintain:
One ceramic honing rod
*NOTE 1: You can find honing rods made out of steel, diamond-coated steel, or ceramic. I suggest ceramic because it’s harder than steel and works not just with softer German knives, but also harder Japanese knives.
*NOTE 2: And whatever you do, DON’T DROP IT ON THE FLOOR. It will break and then you’ll have to make it work with whatever length of rod you have left.
*NOTE 3: To clean a ceramic rod, take 1 or 2 sheets of paper towel and pour a tablespoon or so of neutral oil. Spread the oil over the honing rod, and rub it back and forth to remove some of the excess metal debris.
I have this one from Global, which is pricy, but this one from MAC is nice as well.
The Recipe
To sharpen:
At least 30 minutes before beginning the knife sharpening process, place your whetstone(s) in a large bowl of room-temperature water to soak.
Place your roughest stone (in my case, I start with the 400 grade) into the rubber stone support and then into the bridge. I place this whole setup on a kitchen towel to provide extra support.
*NOTE: If you only have the stone, that’s okay. Just make sure you use a thicker kitchen towel.
Take your knife in your right hand. Place the tip of the knife plus the first inch/2.5 cm of the knife on the bottom left corner of the stone at a 15 to 20-degree angle.
Incline the knife, imagining there is a 50-cent (EUROS) coin or a quarter (US DOLLARS) coin between the bottom of the knife and the top of the stone.
*NOTE: If you feel uncomfortable about what this looks like, make sure you use a sharpening guide rail. Place it on the non-cutting edge of the knife and it will maintain the correct angle for the whole knife sharpening process.
Place the middle three fingers of your left hand toward the edge of the knife. Maintaining the angle of the knife, the incline, and light pressure from your middle three fingers, move the knife up the stone toward the top left corner. Then back again to the starting point at the bottom right corner.
With each pass up and down the stone, count 1 full pass. Repeat this process until you reach 10 (meaning up the stone 10 times and back down 10 times).
Switch the knife to your left hand. Repeat steps 5 and 6, but starting in the bottom left corner of the stone and ending in the top right corner.
Alternate back and forth between steps 5 and 6 and 7 and 8 until the knife is pretty sharp.
*NOTE: Keep in mind that the majority of the edge is created with the lowest number grade. Your knife doesn’t have to be fully sharp here, but it should be around 65-70% of the way there.
If you have a leveling stone, after you finish each grade, in a circular motion, pass it all over the stone you have finished using to ensure it stays level (concentrate on areas that don’t get used as often, like the bottom and top short edges).
Repeat steps 5 through 8 with each of your stones from the lowest to the highest grade.
*NOTE: As you go through your stones, the time you spend on each one is gradually less. With higher grade stones you are mostly polishing the edge.
I like to ensure my knife is sharp by either lightly gliding my knife across a tomato or cutting a piece of paper. If the knife cuts the tomato/the piece of paper easily without any snags, your knife is sharp.
Wash your stones and let them dry out completely before storing them.
Check out this video from Bon Appetit to see the whole process.
To maintain:
Hold the honing rod in your non-dominant hand and your knife in your dominant hand.
With the same incline between the rod and your knife (a 50-cent (EUROS) coin or a quarter (US DOLLARS) coin), place the last one inch/2.5 cm of the back of your knife against the top inch on the front side of the rod.
In one swift motion, maintaining the incline, drop the knife along the rod moving the handle progressively further away from the rod so that when you reach the bottom the tip of the knife is against the rod.
With the same incline as in step 2, place the last one inch/2.5 cm of the front of your knife against the top inch on the front side of the rod.
Repeat step 3.
Repeat steps 2 through 5 10 times and check the sharpness of your knife. Continue repeating if you want the knife to be sharper.
