The difference between sharpening a knife and sharpening (and why it matters)

Image of the article titled

I didn’t learn to take care of the knife from my parents, and that’s a good thing.Their preferred method of knife maintenance it’s simple. Buy a knife block from the big box store, use it until it gets dull, then buy a new knife block from the big box store. It seems to work for them. If you’ve bought one of these knife blocks, you’ve probably noticed that it comes with a textured metal rod, sometimes called a “honing steel”.

However, this stick does not sharpen.It Sharpen. Honing is also an important part of knife care, but it does not deny the need to sharpen knives. Sharpening doesn’t mean you don’t You need to polish them. In fact, you should sharpen much more than you sharpen.

What is honing?

To understand the difference between honing and a grindstone, you need to understand how the knife blade works. Even the thinnest and smoothest looking blades are serrated and you just can’t see the teeth. However, those fine teeth are the ones that make the cut and work best when they are all pointing in the right direction. Honing is to align your teeth.Sharpening scrapes blunt objects to create new teeth metal.

Which should you do first?

un-Sharpened blades with misaligned teeth can still be cut, it does not Smoothly Or exactly, You need to sharpen more often.The blunt blade is a bit more obvious: you will need to put more pressure on it to make the cut, which will lead to most kitchen cut accidents.Ent..

Not sure if you need to sharpen your knife? TTry the onion test As recommended by Misaeng:

If you’re trying to determine if you need to sharpen your knife, onions will tell you. A sharp enough knife will cut the onions cleanly. If the knife is dull, trying to cut the onion’s cellular structure will damage it.

If all the onion slices come out irregularly, Sharpen the blade and maintain your teeth on a regular basis Honing. If you have a knife that you really care about, it’s a best practice to sharpen it every time you use it.

How to polish

As KitchenKnifeGuru As explained in the video above, honing is the delicate act of returning those small teeth to their original position. ThThere are three things to keep in mind when brushing your knife:

1) Find a right angle and keep it there. (I’ll talk about this soon.)

2) Do not press hard. It’s just a little more than the weight of the knife itself.

3) Please do not overdo. Swipe one side three to four times is usually sufficient.

The The required angle depends on where the knife was made.. According to KitchenKnifeGuru, although some Henkels and Wüsthof factories, most German and Western knives should be sharpened using an angle of about 20 degrees. Sharpen to 14 to 15 degrees. Most Japanese knives are sharpened between 11-15 degrees. If you have any questions, please contact the knife manufacturer.

Hold honing to polish Steel perpendicular to the table or countertop With a non-dominant handMaintain Place the chips on the folded towel. Hold the knife at the proper angle with your dominant hand so that the base of the knife is at the top of the horn. Pull the knife toward you and gently press the steel and slide it down to finish the tip. Repeat on the other side of the blade. Repeat a few more times on one side, then try slicing a piece of paper. Slice it clean and you’re done. If not, polish it a few more times until it is done.

When If Honing doesn’t seem to cut it, maybe It’s time to sharpen.The knife Sharp, polish it You need to maintain it on a regular basis For a while, in the order of slicing and dicing.. (A well-maintained knife only needs to be sharpened a few times a year.)