Rest your fingers on the flat of the blade except your thumb. Your thumb remains on the handle grip. Drag the knife across the whetstone in a circular motion, making sure to keep the angle constant. Do this three to four times. Flip the knife over and repeat. Next, follow the same procedure but on the whetstone's smoother side. Your once-dull kitchen knife should now have a sharpened edge. Read more: The best knife sharpeners of You can use an electric sharpener, too.
The process is much the same, with the added benefit of speed. Instead of a whetstone, these products have both honing and sharpening slots. Dragging a knife through the slots accomplishes the same task. Grinding wheels spin inside the slots, and they're spring loaded. That means they should polish knife edges at the correct angle automatically. Be sure to follow instructions laid out in the manual carefully.
Incorrect use of electric sharpeners may damage blade edges. Common mistakes include twisting, pressing downward, or pausing the stroke of knives as you pull them through the sharpener slot.
This can cause over sharpening loss of too much metal , or result in an uneven edge. The company also sells a line of kitchen knives, under the same EdgeKeeper brand, with sleeves designed to "sharpen" their blades every time you use them. Most likely they're honing, not sharpening their knives but it's helpful nonetheless. It sounds crazy, but we've tried this ourselves. Flip a ceramic mug over, so its bottom faces upward. Place it on a flat surface.
There should be a ring that's raised, and unglazed. The ring's surface is rough and is harder than steel. Use it as you would a whetstone. But be aware that if things go badly, you might scrape and mangle the blade edge useless. Try this on a cheap knife, not fancy cutlery. For some, sharpening cutlery is too much hassle. Before we go any further, let's talk about what sharpening is and isn't.
The cutting edge of a typical kitchen knife is shaped like a V. If you looked at a brand-new knife with a factory edge under magnification, that's what you'd see. Different knives have different angles, and some of them even have what are called double-beveled edges, where you have a primary edge face which is ground to, say, 20 degrees, and a bevel, at the very edge of the edge, if you will, that's, say 15 degrees or sharper.
Remember, all this is visible only under magnification. The smaller the angle, the sharper the blade, and the more difficult it is to maintain that edge.
After using it for a while, or letting it bang around in your drawer, that V turns into a U. And you won't need magnification to know it; it'll be obvious by how poorly the knife cuts. You'll have come to a moment of reckoning. Or actually, sharpening. Sharpening a knife requires grinding away a certain amount of steel while maintaining that degree angle. There's no way to turn a U into a V without grinding away some of your knife.
To do that, you have three choices:. You may have noticed that I didn't mention anything about using a knife steel, which is sometimes misleadingly called a sharpening steel. And the reason for that is, a knife steel doesn't sharpen i. What in the world is the difference? Don't worry about it yet.
We'll get to it shortly. In my more militant days, I would swear that manual i. Yes, that may be true. You can usually find used sharpeners at thrift stores and yard sales, and especially in your parents' cupboards. If you want to pick up a new one, the Chef's Choice is a decent manual sharpener, as is the Chef's Choice in the electric category. If you're using one of these types of sharpeners, follow the manufacturer's instructions, and most importantly, don't blame me. Let's move on to whetstones.
The nice thing about whetstones is that, unlike so many other kitchen gadgets, a whetstone will never stop working. Indeed, a whetstone is nothing but a flat piece of stone, and it will go on being a flat piece of stone for a very long time.
As with the other types of sharpeners, if you're going to experiment with a whetstone, it's only sensible to start off with a knife you don't particularly care about. Get yourself a two-sided whetstone , with a coarse grit on one side and a fine grit on the other. Start off with the coarse side, giving the knife ten strokes on each side of the blade, keeping it at a or-so degree angle.
Then flip the stone over and give the knife the same treatment on the fine-grit side. By the way, people sometimes hear the word whetstone and get the idea that it's referring to a wet stone. Which is an easy mistake to make, and the fact that there's a type of sharpening stone called a waterstone only adds to the confusion. But waterstones are a different beast.
They need to be soaked before using and require a steady stream of water to be dribbled onto them during sharpening. Ordinary whetstones work best dry. In fact, the tiny particles of steel that the stone grinds off can become suspended in the liquid and actually damage the blade. This is true of water and especially oil, which is another substance people often misguidedly apply to their whetstones, presumably with the goal of lubricating it.
Here's more about sharpening a knife with a whetstone. Finally, once you've refreshed the edge on your knife, you need to hone the edge to make it true. What happens when you grind a new edge onto your knife is that the extreme edge of the blade becomes microscopically thin. BigTray has merged with Chefs' Toys. The sales team at BigTray will continue to be here to serve you under the Chefs' Toys brand.
For more information, click here. How to Properly Sharpen a Kitchen Knife Using a Sharpening Steel There are many sharpening tools and devices that can help you restore even the dullest of blades. Step 1: Positioning the Steel Sharpener To accurately and safely operate the steel sharpener, take hold of the handle with your non-dominant hand.
Step 4: Testing Your Sharpened Knife Now, if this is your first time sharpening a knife, you might want to run some tests along the way to make sure that you are getting the best results. Other Notable Knife Sharpening Tools Professional knife sharpening tools have advanced throughout the years. Speciality Knives If you have an expensive or decorative knives, using stainless steel sharpeners may not be the best option. Daily Use Knives Automatic pull sharpeners are a great option for quick and easy sharpening.
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