Indispensable for any cook, the knife is present in all kitchens. Paring knife, chef’s knife, or carving knife: regardless of the type of blade, it is important to maintain them properly to avoid ending up with little sharp kitchen knives.
Storage, use, cleaning and sharpening: these are 4 important things to maintain the sharpness of your knives. Whether your knife is ceramic or stainless steel, there are rules to follow to preserve the life of your blades, and thus have a Damascus kitchen knife always sharp!
You will see that storage, use, cleaning, and sharpening are the 4 most important points to keep your knives as long as possible. But before that, it is important to know how to choose the right kitchen knives?
Now that you have the knives that suit your needs, let’s take a closer look at each of the important points for your knives to live as long as possible. First of all, let’s start with the storage of your cutting utensils.
Storage of knives
Many people store their knives with all their utensils in a “tote” drawer in their kitchen. However, this is what absolutely must not be done. First, because you risk cutting yourself rummaging in your drawer for one utensil or another. Secondly, because it damages the blade of your knives because it suffers micro-shocks in your drawer.
The ideal for your cutting utensils is to store them on a magnetic bar. In addition, it will allow you to have your knives always at hand! You can also fall for a pretty knife block, be careful that it is clean regularly.
Now that your knives are perfectly store, you need to know how to use them correctly.
The use of knives
First of all, it is important to know that you should use your knives on a suitable cutting board. Which means your board should be wood or plastic. The idea is simple: if your knife doesn’t scratch your cutting board, then it’s wrong. Indeed, a stainless steel or marble cutting board will damage the edge of the blade, unlike a bamboo board.
Of course, do not use your knives in a pan or saucepan, as this will damage your cooking utensil, in addition to damaging your blade!
Once you’ve use your knives, it’s time to clean them.
Cleaning knives
Although brands often indicate that their knives are dishwasher safe, this is strongly discourage for a number of reasons. Indeed, even in your cutlery basket, the knives may suffer small impacts with other cutlery, thus damaging the blade. In addition, this risks damaging the rivets of your knife over time. Finally, if the handle of your knife is made of wood, the dishwasher will quickly wear out the knife.
Of course, if you have a drawer and not a cutlery basket, your blades will be protect from shocks. However, the dishwasher will still damage your rivets and the wooden handles of some of your kitchen knives.
In the end, it is better to clean a knife, directly after use, with a soft sponge and soapy water. Of course, avoid using the abrasive side that would scratch the blade.
If your stainless steel blade loses shine, you can use a raw potato cut in half and rub it against the blade. Another technique is to heat white vinegar and soak a soft cloth to rub your blade with. These two techniques make it possible to restore all their shine to your knife blades.
Finally, after all this, we must talk about an essential part of the maintenance of a knife, although often forgotten: sharpening and sharpening.
Sharpening knives
We are not going to hide it, we all tend to wait until our knife does not cut anymore to sharpen it! This is a very terrible mistake because the best thing to do is to sharpen your knife regularly so that it retains all its sharpness: several times a week for a knife use regularly, once a month or at least every three months for home use.
Wondering the difference between sharpening and sharpening? Sharpening helps keep a blade sharp every day, while sharpening helps revive a dull blade (which no longer cuts at all).
If you don’t think about sharpening your cutting tools regularly, it’s partly because you don’t know-how. So we will answer this question now!
How to sharpen a knife?
There are several utensils to maintain your knives: the sharpening gun, the whetstone, etc. No matter what utensil you use, it is very important to respect the angle of the blade. Most knives have an average blade angle of 40 ° C. However, some brands, such as Arcos, offer knives whose blade edge has an angle of 24-25 ° C. For fast sharpening, it is advisable to use an electric or manual sharpener.
The Chef’s Choice electric sharpener is design to sharpen but also sharpen dull blades. Simply run your knife blade through each of the three slots to get a sharp blade-like day one. This sharpener is adore by professionals in the catering trade.
At a more affordable price for individuals, the Arcos manual sharpener will make sharpening your stainless steel knives easy. Adjust the angle of the blade and run your knives between the sharpener discs several times to achieve perfect sharpness.
For a more complete sharpening, it is possible to use a sharpening gun. For beginners, or for large knife blades (such as a chef’s knife), it is recommend to use an oval-bit sharpener. The sharpening gun can only be use on smooth stainless steel blades. You can also finish the edge of your blade using a diamond sharpener. The use of the gun can impress at first: the secret is to drag your blade tilting your knife and dragging your gun against one side of the blade and then the other. Lightly press the knife against your rifle as you slide it onto the sharpening rifle. Take your time, no need to do it like Philippe Etchebest to have a great result! Over time you will go faster, but it’s not the speed that produces the result, so don’t hesitate any longer and get start.
Besides the sharpening gun, you can also use water stones with different polishing grains: this allows a perfect finish of your blades. These sharpening stones should be soak in water for 10 minutes before each use. There are different grits, the finer grit will allow a perfect finish while the coarse grit will allow the sharpening of a dull blade. This method is the one most recommend by professionals, as it is more precise than a sharpener (manual or electric).
Finally, for the kitchen knife to slide better, you can polish the edge of your blade using leather. Yes, yes: leather can be use to maintain your cutting utensils so that they easily penetrate your food when you cut it.
What about ceramic knives?
Very sharp and increasingly popular: ceramic knives can also sharpen. For this, you must use a diamond sharpener. Whether it is the diamond sharpener or the diamond and ceramic sharpener: there are different tools for sharpening and sharpening a ceramic blade.