How To Sharpen Knives
Being able to sharpen your own knives is one of the most important skills to have inorder to prepare beautiful food and appreciate a fine knife.
- Expensive knives do tend to have superior edge-holding but that does not mean they do not need to be sharpened. Kitchen knives receive more wear on their edge than any other knife.
- It takes much less skill to maintain a knife's edge than it does to re-sharpen a totally dull knife. As soon as a knife will not cleanly slice a tomato it should be sharpened. This could be once a day for a professional chef who is using the knife all day, or once a month or more in light to moderate use.
- Practice makes perfect! You will not do permanent damage to a knife by trying to sharpen it. The more you do it the more proficient you will become.
- It's all about angle. Sharpening is nothing more than grinding a V or angle on the edge of a blade. Holding a consistent angle throughout the sharpening process is what's really important.
- Some are faster at sharpening than others. Some may give you a sharper edge at the end of the day. Using a steel or stone, some draw the knife against the steel or stone towards the knife's the edge. Some draw the knife away from the edge. Some go back and forth. Some go in circles.
- When I am in a hurry, the bottom of a ceramic dish, mug or bowl works nicely too.
