How to sharpen steel knives
A sharp knife is essential in any kitchen, whether it's in a professional restaurant or a vacation home.
Buying a sharp knife is only half the battle; you must also maintain its sharpness over time; otherwise, buying a new knife every month or so will become a habit.
So, “how to keep a knife sharp?” You might wonder. Sharpening a kitchen knife on a regular basis is the best way to keep it sharp for a long time. Now, you don’t have to gather all your kitchen knives and take them to a sharpening service every week. And since professional knife sharpeners are almost a thing of the past, you can do it yourself at home for free.
Knife sharpening may seem intimidating when done by experts, especially chefs on TV, but you can do it yourself if you carefully read our tutorial and proceed with caution.
Today, we'll cover everything you need to know about sharpening steel knives, especially since they require a lot of maintenance, as many chefs assure us.
2. The whetstone method
A whetstone or waterstone is essentially a rectangular block of stone used to sharpen and hone the edge of a knife. This method requires more effort and even more practice, but once you get good at it, you’ll know it’s worth it. It’s especially great for larger chef’s knives and, honestly, for all sizes of kitchen knives.
Whetstones come with different grit levels, indicating the coarseness. Around 1,000 grit is perfect for sharpening a knife. Some whetstones have two grits. This tool makes sharpening with this method much easier.
So now, when you have your whetstone, you will need a more detailed guide for using it because, as we mentioned earlier, this method is not the easiest.
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Prepare the stone: Soak the stone in water for about 10 minutes, until it absorbs the water and a liquid film appears on the surface. After that, splash some water on top of it, and feel free to re-splash during the sharpening process if it ever gets too dry. Then, place the stone on something solid and smooth so it doesn’t move during the process. You can put it on a tea towel on the table. The stone should be roughly perpendicular to your body or slightly to the right if you’re right-handed.
- The sharpening: This is the hard part but also the most rewarding. You will need to hold the knife in your dominant hand, holding it at a 45° angle across the stone with the edge facing yourself and the knife’s heel pointing toward your belly. The hardest part is finding the angle at which you will sharpen the blade’s edge. A good test is to leave about half an index finger’s gap between the spine of the knife and the stone. Now very gently apply some pressure to the middle of the blade with your left hand. Starting at the tip, glide the blade up and down the stone – about five strokes up and down is good. Then move to the middle – five more strokes. Finally, five strokes up and down on the heel. Now you need to sharpen the other side, but remember not to switch the hand holding the blade. Lead with the heel this time, rather than the tip, but repeat the process in three parts. After five strokes on each third of the blade, check the blade. But if you sharpen your knife regularly, just a few strokes will probably be enough.
- Clean the burr: A burr is a tiny whisper of metal left on one side of the blade. When you can feel one smooth and one rough side to the edge, that means you have a burr on your knife. Grab a fibrous tea towel or some newspaper and repeat the same sharpening motions with it. After that, you will need to check the sharpness of your knife. To do this, hold a piece of newspaper at about 45° and lightly slash it with each point of the blade. If the blade cuts through easily, your knife is sharp and ready to use.
- Polish the blade: You will need to switch from the coarse grit to the finer grit and make sure this side is wet, too. The motion is exactly the same as with sharpening, but you can apply slightly less pressure and limit yourself to about 30 strokes on each side, and you will have a freshly sharpened blade. Clean your knife with a dry cloth and return to using it as before.
3. The honing steel method
Using a honing rod between sharpenings will keep your knives from dulling and make actual sharpening easier.
It will also reduce how often you need to use whetstones, which can shave metal from the blade’s edge, shortening the knife’s lifespan. Honing rods are not meant for sharpening old and blunt knives; they are meant to be used between sharpenings to keep your blades fresh. If you take care of your knives, you won’t need to sharpen them as often.
A honing rod realigns the metal in a blade, smoothing out small nicks, dents, and flat spots. It doesn’t remove any significant metal from the blade and extends the knife’s life.
Here is a step-by-step guide on how to use a honing rod:
- Hold the honing rod in your non-dominant hand at a comfortable angle facing away from your body, with the rod tip elevated above its handle.
- Hold the knife firmly in your dominant hand with your four fingers gripping the handle, while your thumb rests on the spine of the knife, away from the blade edge.
- Hold your knife at about a 20° angle relative to the honing rod. Your angle doesn’t need to be exact, just approximate, and make sure to maintain the same angle throughout the honing process. Changing the angle during honing won’t smooth out the metal properly.
- Move the knife across the top half of the honing rod while maintaining a 20° angle. Start the motion with the heel of the knife touching the rod and end with the tip touching the rod. Move your arm, hand, and wrist. Pay attention to moving your wrist to get the motion right because without wrist movement, you won’t be able to sweep the entire blade—from heel to tip—across the honing rod.
- Move the knife across the bottom half of the honing rod while maintaining a 20° angle. Gently sweep the knife across the lower half of the rod using the same arm, hand, and wrist motion. Use only as much pressure as the weight of the knife. After completing both the top and bottom sweeps, you’re done.
Another way to prevent your knives from dulling quickly is by removing rust. That’s why you need to know how to clean rust from a kitchen knife.
In Conclusion: Whichever method you choose, as a beginner, you might need a few tries to learn how to sharpen steel knives properly. But as a wise saying goes: “Only through practice and more practice, until you can do something without conscious effort.”
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