Random thing that makes me insanely happy from a cooking perspective; I got my favorite knives professional sharpened this weekend, and slicing vegetables incredibly thin brings me an idiotic amount of happiness. They are stupidly sharp, and I'm very glad I've been focused on improving my knife skills in the last year, particularly in properly holding the food I'm cutting with the other hand.
I randomly bought a Hammer and Stahl 5.5" Santoku knife at a cooking store some years back during a break in a cooking class I was hat, and fell in love with it; when that store closed a couple years ago (RIP Minneapolis' Kitchen Window, I will love you forever), my wife bought my the 7.5" version as well during their close-out sales and, man, it's even better than the smaller version. The straighter blade has made me a lot more focused on slicing cleanly rather than falling back on more chopping motions like a traditional Western-style chef knives, and I think I'm getting much more precise results with the different style of knife I've been relying on. One of these days, I need a big-ass Chinese-style cleaver, just to try it out.
The knife store I hit had, uh, nice knives. If anybody wants to find a beautiful German Santoku knife with a hand engraved blade and lovely walnut handle, they had one for just shy of $6,000. For one knife. Uh . . .
Too rich for my blood! 
Oh man. I wish I had a set of good knives. The ones I have I need to sharpen every week, they go blunt so quickly. Not a huge deal, but still…
My knives need sharpening bad. But that isn't something I can do while the toddler is awake, and not a high enough priority to get to it after bedtime...
The wife and I have always been into cooking, and bought ourselves a nice Henckels set as an engagement gift back in 1999, and they're still going. It was a lot of money at the time (IIRC, like $350, which was a lot to us), but we were in that blissful state where we decided everything was perfect and happy so we went for it. First nice thing we ever really bought I think, but, man, what a good investment.
I have a whetsone and want to get around to using it, but, uh, well, this knife place charges $5 a knife for one hour sharpening, and it's a fun part of Minneapolis and there's a local distillery right across the street, so the odds of me doing it myself seem to head downwards every time.
I have one of these:
2 or 3 passes on "fine" every month and an annual 2-3 passes on coarse followed by fine is enough to keep all my Wusthofs razor sharp.
Discontinued now, but I'd think any good multi-stage electric would work just as well.
Oh man. I wish I had a set of good knives. The ones I have I need to sharpen every week, they go blunt so quickly. Not a huge deal, but still…
Last few years I've replaced a bunch of my knives with the Test Kitchen/Cooks Illustrated recommended Victorinox knives. They're very reasonable, but still good knives that work well.
My latest add was a Breaking Knife to make working with large pieces of meat easier. For instance, cutting a tenderloin into fillets, tips, etc. It is much better to be able to cut a steak with one long slice vs going back and forth with a chef or boning knife.
The wife and I have always been into cooking, and bought ourselves a nice Henckels set as an engagement gift back in 1999, and they're still going. It was a lot of money at the time (IIRC, like $350, which was a lot to us), but we were in that blissful state where we decided everything was perfect and happy so we went for it. First nice thing we ever really bought I think, but, man, what a good investment.
I have a whetsone and want to get around to using it, but, uh, well, this knife place charges $5 a knife for one hour sharpening, and it's a fun part of Minneapolis and there's a local distillery right across the street, so the odds of me doing it myself seem to head downwards every time.
Sharpening kitchen knives is pretty easy with a proper set of whetstones so long as you are patient about learning the methodology. It isn't black magic. It's just a process of keeping a consistent angle and grinding until you feel the burr, flip, and work to finer grits. Then just polish the edge with a strop.
I find it takes about 5-10 minutes per knife and I get razor sharp results.
MilkmanDanimal wrote:The wife and I have always been into cooking, and bought ourselves a nice Henckels set as an engagement gift back in 1999, and they're still going. It was a lot of money at the time (IIRC, like $350, which was a lot to us), but we were in that blissful state where we decided everything was perfect and happy so we went for it. First nice thing we ever really bought I think, but, man, what a good investment.
I have a whetsone and want to get around to using it, but, uh, well, this knife place charges $5 a knife for one hour sharpening, and it's a fun part of Minneapolis and there's a local distillery right across the street, so the odds of me doing it myself seem to head downwards every time.
Sharpening kitchen knives is pretty easy with a proper set of whetstones so long as you are patient about learning the methodology. It isn't black magic. It's just a process of keeping a consistent angle and grinding until you feel the burr, flip, and work to finer grits. Then just polish the edge with a strop.
I find it takes about 5-10 minutes per knife and I get razor sharp results.
I've got another Work Sharp brand kit that works pretty well and is like a glorified whetstone, but I've been eyeing this set that takes a lot of the guess work out of angles. You lock in the blade, then set the angle of sharpening slides, then go through the progressively finer stones/strops.
There's a kit that costs half that that just has less stone attachments.
Jigs like that work great and you don't need to get terribly fancy with them. The cheapo Gatco you can pick up at the hardware store gets close enough to put a hairpopping sharp edge on a kitchen knife.
Jigs like that work great and you don't need to get terribly fancy with them. The cheapo Gatco you can pick up at the hardware store gets close enough to put a hairpopping sharp edge on a kitchen knife.
I'm assuming you're talking this type of kit. I'd probably just go to the $60 Work Sharp version with less stones than the one I originally linked. Seems better made with a similar option of grits? But I've never had one of these style, so don't take my word on it.
I'd seen that Gatco but had forgotten about it. Thanks for putting it out there as an option. For home use, most of us should be able to get very good results without spending too much.
I have a whetstone and had it out last weekend and was going to use it on the old chef's knife that had been sitting in the drawer, but discovered my wife had gotten rid of it for no reason other than it had hardly ever been touched for a solid 20 years. Insane, I know. I realize the process isn't that hard to figure it out, but, well, I just haven't made myself spend the time yet. For five bucks a knife, sharpening may well fall into the "changing a car's oil" category of "I could do this myself but . . ." and it's just easier to have someone else do it because I'm lazy. I don't trust anything mechanized at home to do it myself as it'd grind my knife down too much, and, while those Work Sharp devices look great, it's yet one more thing to store, so my laziness will probably wind up having me pay five bucks every once and a while to have somebody skilled do it for me.
Hah, this showed up in my youtube feed today. I love Project Farm's geeky common sense tool testing. Overkill for this discussion unless you're really into knives
Hah, this showed up in my youtube feed today. I love Project Farm's geeky common sense tool testing. Overkill for this discussion unless you're really into knives
I think Amazon sells a Chinese version of that Russian one that actually works pretty well.
I'm usually a big fan of paying an expert if you can afford it. But when it comes to knife sharpening... I do a lot of work with the Scouts and when I do I need to be able to look people in the eye.
That also means I have plenty of blade sharpening needs in situations where driving them to an expert is not practical, so I have a reason to develop and maintain the skill myself.
I'm currently at the level where I'm embarrassed by the edges on my kitchen knives but my mother-in-law is impressed.
I'm fond of this set currently. I like that for general purpose stuff. For fancier work I have an Edge Pro Apex I bought years ago.
None of them beat Paleocon's system.
I'm usually a big fan of paying an expert if you can afford it.
This.
I'm no expert but i can put a respectable edge on a knife freehand with a set of stones.
BUT, that edge is much less sharp and will dull much more quickly than when they come back from the knife sharpening guy.
This guy is probably the best YouTube instructor on how to get atomsplitting sharpness out of your kitchen knives. He works primarily with Japanese water stones, but has done a number of videos using Arkansas whetstones and gotten similar results. The method is pretty simple and doesn't really require as much practice or talent as you might think. I managed to pick it up after about half an hour of trying and get hairpopping sharpness out of my blades every time now even on "problematic" steels like D2 or M390.
He doesn't do this, but if you want a "cheat" I use from time to time, mark the edge from the bevel with a Sharpie(tm) to make sure that you getting the angle right. Your first few passes will wear away the mark and tell you if you are too steep or shallow. In the end though, it is pretty silly to obsess over the one or two degrees you think you might be off. First, you probably aren't. And second, it doesn't matter as much as you think so long as you are consistent along the edge. Angle matters when you are trying to determine where sharpness and edge durability meet, but after that, futzing around too much is going to drive you crazy.
Lastly, try not to obsess too much about that final 1% of sharpness. This is a tool made for a purpose and it isn't to impress folks with how many sheets of onionskin paper you can cut. If it can slice a tomato without ripping the skin or cut through a roast without having to saw through it, it is sharp enough and you should stop being a f*cking nerd with tools.
I'm fond of this set currently. I like that for general purpose stuff. For fancier work I have an Edge Pro Apex I bought years ago.
None of them beat Paleocon's system. :-)
I've got this one: https://www.worksharptools.com/shop/...
Wait! That's the one I have! I just thought they had an odd camera angle on it... Sorry folks I messed up with my link.
Wait! That's the one I have! I just thought they had an odd camera angle on it... Sorry folks I messed up with my link.
Difference is this one pivots and I think is a bit bigger.
I did buy one of their smaller field sharpener models for a gift, and it looked nice as well, but I'm not sure if it wouldn't be a bit annoying using on something like a 8" chef's knife due to the size. Not that it would be impossible, just harder to get a smooth stroke with due to the size.
It also has the separate ceramic sharpener.
I should emphasize that if you are not stropping your edges, you are leaving your sharpening job half done. In fact, most of the time you think your knife is "dull", it is just misaligned and you should be pulling your strop out of the drawer.
Also, throw your chef's steel in the trash where it belongs. It isn't going to realign your edge.
It also has the separate ceramic sharpener.
And to Paleocon's note, I bought the upgrade kit that includes additional attachments for a strop, a coarser coarse stone, and an ultra fine stone.
Robear wrote:It also has the separate ceramic sharpener.
And to Paleocon's note, I bought the upgrade kit that includes additional attachments for a strop, a coarser coarse stone, and an ultra fine stone.
I just get free paint stirring sticks from my local hardware store and rubber cement scrap leather to them and embed them with jeweler's rouge. Get the sticks made for 7 gallon buckets and you have a lot of stropping real estate.
lol. If am constantly telling my brother in law that if he doesn't want burnt meat and flare ups, he has to clean his grill more than once every three years. He swears that is where "the flavor" comes from.
SMH
From germs? Interesting viewpoint.
MannishBoy wrote:Robear wrote:It also has the separate ceramic sharpener.
And to Paleocon's note, I bought the upgrade kit that includes additional attachments for a strop, a coarser coarse stone, and an ultra fine stone.
I just get free paint stirring sticks from my local hardware store and rubber cement scrap leather to them and embed them with jeweler's rouge. Get the sticks made for 7 gallon buckets and you have a lot of stropping real estate.
I wish we'd kept my dad's straight razor strop that he had hung on the bathroom door my whole childhood
I know I didn't go the cheapest path, I wanted the other stones that fit that sharper, and it came with the leather, lubricant, and stroping compound.
From germs? Interesting viewpoint.
I don't think germs survive a lit grill very long.
Pages