Knife Care and Sharpening or why you wouldn't like me when I'm angry...
Knife care is something that is very important to me. For a chef, which I am very hesitant to call myself but in general, knives are the most important tools you own and are highly personal. You never touch a person’s knife without asking. I have a personal favorite knife, as most people who are serious about cooking do.
This is Baby Knife. She is named in honor of Baby Hammer, My youth leader Enos’ hammer from when we went on mission trips. He taught so many kids how to hammer with Baby hammer, so it was only appropriate that my knife became Baby Knife. She is a 10 inch chef knife that came in my kit from culinary school. It’s not a Wustoff or anything terribly expensive, (I paid $109 for the kit in 2002.) but it has served me extremely well in teaching and using at home. In retrospect, I should have purchased the 8 inch chef knife kit, because I have small hands, but Baby Knife has never let me down. I have a few rules for baby knife. Don’t touch her without permission. (This applies to any lady, by the way) Don’t put her in the dishwasher, or I will cut you with her. And, nobody sharpens her but me.
I also have a least favorite knife.
This is the offender. It came in the same kit as baby knife, but you can tell how rarely I used it by the fact that the grease pen that I wrote my initials on the handle hasn't washed off. By comparison, Baby Knife had to be remarked during culinary school multiple times. The grease pen marking on Baby Knife has been gone since I left Culinary School. As you can see, the initials are EEB, my unmarried initials. I got married in 2009. So… it rarely gets used. One of the main reasons that it doesn’t get used much is because it is for deboning, something I only do a couple of times a year. (Thanksgiving and maybe one other time) The other reason that I rarely use it is, almost every time I use this daggum knife, I get cut. Baby knife has only cut me once. (I ended up needing stitches. I deserved it though, I used her to open a bag of frozen spinach, the knife slipped, and boom. ER visit with 5 stitches in my finger. I barely have a scar though because Baby knife is so sharp it healed very well.
I covered briefly sharpening within this video, but knife care is super important for anyone. So, I want to cover some things about knives that are important for the long term quality of and safety of your blades.
NEVER, NEVER, NEVER put your knives in the dishwasher. They bang up against other items in the dishwasher and that can dull the blade. Also, the soap you use in the dishwasher is more corrosive than regular dish soap. And finally, when you put knives in the silverware basket, getting them out becomes a danger. If you put them blade up, you could accidentally get cut.
Knife sharpeners are the devil.
If you have a knife sharpener like this that you drag your knife through, walk to your kitchen, and throw it away. I’ll wait…
Did you do it? I was serious! Oh! Yours is attached to the can opener? Throw that away. Seriously, when was the last time you cleaned that thing. Electric can openers are an abomination. Buy a manual one that you can fully wash. Do you really want to think about the bacteria that can grow between you opening your can of tuna and your can of fruit?
Now that you are back from throwing away your terrible kitchen gadgets, this is the reason why. Knife sharpeners like that tend to damage blades. They can remove too much metal and often that can be in chucks that require crazy equipment to grind down the blade correctly. Instead, get a whetstone like the one you see in the video. You can buy them very inexpensively at a restaurant supply or at Harbor Freight. You can pay someone to professionally sharpen your knives, but one sharpening probably costs more than a whetstone and those you can use forever.
This is my whetstone that I have had since 2003. If your whetstone stops working as well and the surface is gummy, soak it in degreaser, rinse it off, let it dry, and it will work almost as good as new. Sometimes the oil gums up over time. My Daddy let me know that if you use mineral oil, that doesn’t happen. I grew up watching him sharpen his pocket knives, so that was the first experience I had with knife sharpening.
Here is a link to a food service grade whetstone that will serve you well. https://amzn.to/3oq49wG
When washing your knives, never let them drop into dish water. If you drop them into the water, you may not be able to see it and could reach into the water and cut your hand. If you accidentally drop it, grab some tongs and open the drain with the tongs.
Knife steels are not sharpeners, they are straighteners. Over time when using your knives on a cutting board, the blade can go from a straight angle like this ^ to a wave shaped angle that is curved over. This inhibits your ability to cut because the sharp part of the blade is on the side instead of the edge.
This is my knife steel. Knife steels should be used in between sharpening to keep you from needing to sharpen as often.
There is a link below to one on amazon
If you drop a knife, just step back, don’t try to catch it. This one is obvious. It also goes without saying that you should not use knives barefooted so that if you drop a knife, you don’t cut your foot off, but I always cook barefooted so….
Sidenote: I did step on a mini chopper blade in high school and end up with several stitches in my heel. I dropped the blade and when I turned around to pick it up, I cut my foot. I still have that scar. It’s a smile shaped scar. :)
If you want cheap knives that will work well and last a while, buy food service grade knives.
Like these: https://amzn.to/2VDG3lR
Or these: https://amzn.to/3g8KBKy
I purchased the Baker’s and Chef’s knives from Sam’s Club years ago for my classroom and they have put up with a ton of abuse and still work well. I also bought those for my brother’s wedding present years ago and they are still using them.
Store your knives either in a block, in drawer slots, or my favorite, on a magnetic strip. This keeps you from reaching into a drawer and accidently grabbing a knife blade. It also protects your edge.
This is my magnetic strip, purchased from Ikea. It is also against our backsplash which is made of about $70 worth of pennies. (Much cheaper than penny tile. )
Here is a link to the Ikea Magnetic knife rack: https://amzn.to/2VDHIrB
There is more that I could say about knives, but I am sure there will be videos to follow, so I will save it for then. Watch the video below and don’t forget to subscribe!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWKfLRgNcZg&feature=youtu.be