How To Do Just About Everything
By eHow Food & Drink Editor
How to Sharpen Kitchen Knives
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One of the most annoying things to encounter when cooking is a blunt knife, and this becomes very evident when you try to slice a tomato or dice an onion. A sharp knife is a chef's best friend and therefore it's helpful if you know how to sharpen kitchen knives. Home sharpening methods include using a sharpening steel, drawing knives across a flat sharpening stone, or using a commercial knife sharpener.
Hold the steel - a metal rod designed for sharpening knives - in one hand.
With the other hand, hold the knife by its handle.
Place the knife just under the handle of the steel, with the knife handle touching the bottom of the steel handle.
With the knife at a 10- to 25-degree angle to the steel, hold the steel rod steady and draw the knife blade down the steel.
eHow Food & Drink Editor
Comments
hortman76 said
on 9/3/2008 Good advice.
spellbound said
on 10/21/2007 ppl plz help me out! i bought a new grater set but unfortunately it turned out to be blunt, and this makes using it very difficult, so i dont know does n e one know how to sharpen its tiny little knives?
Anonymous said
on 11/22/2005 1. Position a large, flat, two-sided stone on a non-slip surface parallel to your shoulders and toward the edge of your work surface. The rough side is up.
2. Add water or oil to the stone if needed.
3. Your most familiar grip is easier to start out with, so use that hand to grab the handle of your knife firmly. With the blade toward you, approach the stone with your knife parallel to it and on the same plane as the surface of the stone.
4. You will need to practice the motion before it becomes natural, so don't jump right in.
5. The tip of the knife should be near the bottom left corner of the stone to begin. Now, using this point as a pivot (the point should stay here), bring the handle of the knife toward you several inches. This may vary with the size of the knife and stone, but you will be able to adjust once you understand the concept.
6. So far in this explanation the knife is level with the stone, but before we move it across, tilt the back of the knife up to about 20 degrees or slightly less.
7. If you've followed to here, good, but let's see where we are before actually edging the knife. The point is on the close left corner, the handle is toward you by about 20-30 degrees and the knife is tilted up toward you at about a 20 degree angle from the stone.
8. Starting with contact at the tip, and keeping the edge smoothly on the stone, push the knife away from you in a single motion with the entire blade passing over the entire stone. The tip should start at the bottom left and leave at the top left as the rest of the blade follows through the middle and the tang leaves at the top right.
9. To understand what you are doing is key to success, especially since this is written and not shown. You are drawing out new steel to form microscopic teeth on the edge of your blade. It takes a little coaxing and experimentation, but after only a few weeks of practice I could now shave with my knives. The hardest part is switching sides because the coordination is difficult. Also, it's tough to keep even pressure on the blade the whole way across.
Good Luck!
-Chef Brian Dicey
Raleigh, NC.
Anonymous said
on 11/22/2005 These work really well, except they will put a non-standard edge on your knives. So, you're sort of stuck with using these electric wonders, or re-doing the angles (probably through a sharpening service initially) should you choose to stray from Chef's Choice.
Anonymous said
on 6/11/2007 Most of what's discussed here is honing, not sharpening. A chef's trick: If you don't have a steel, then try using two similar knives one against the other at the described angle. You can put a nice smooth edge on a knife that isn't too dull.