— Cathy Chapman

Okay. So the honing tool we usually refer to as a steel and it's gonna be that long cylindrical tool. It's not always cylindrical but often it is often made of metal but not always sometimes there are ceramic. Sometimes they have a gold or no a diamond dust adhering to the surface and and some different treatments but nonetheless that particular tool is intended to be used daily to maintain The Cutting Edge of your knife. Okay, so in other words As you use your knife, okay? And we look at The Cutting Edge. This Cutting Edge will roll over with use throughout the day and it depends on. How much use you give it depends on what you're cutting softer items versus harder items. It can also depend upon the material of your cutting board is they will vary in softness or hardness. Okay, so as this Cutting Edge rolls over a little bit, you're knife will start to feel dull. And so this is when we use the steel, okay, which is the daily honing tool or maintenance tool and you're going to apply the knife to the steel in this manner. Okay, you're going to try to Replicate the angle of your bevel or Cutting Edge start with your heel and as you pull the knife through you also want to rotate. The knife so you're gonna pull down as you rotate, okay? And then you'll repeat that on the other side again maintaining the angle of the bevel that you have put on the knife and then you're going to rotate and pull that through. All right, excuse me a second. As you do or after you do that. feel the edge go ahead and just pull your finger perpendicular to the blade in both directions to feel. if it's even okay, and if you have a kind of a smoother side, it tells you that it's rolled over in that direction if your finger Catches more it tells you that right you're catching this Edge that sticking out so you'll want to just lightly. Straighten that up again by applying your blade to the steel. Okay until you feel it. And it's even on both sides all the way up and down the blade. Okay, another question that I get every once in a while is How many strokes? On the steel are required. Okay. And the short answer is one. All right, you know in order to straighten up and Edge that's rolled over if you can nail it with just one stroke Hallelujah, right? It's a good day. But usually it's gonna take two or three Strokes maybe on each side. You probably don't need to do more than that. I know that on TV. I can remember seeing these celebrity chefs that will be gazing into the camera as they're just doing this off to the side many many times because that's part of their show now. It's not a requirement. Okay, if you can just do it once maybe once on both sides you might have a nice even Cutting Edge. Okay, once you apply it, you also need to check to see that it's even so again, and if you see celebrity chefs doing all this fancy stuff off to the side and they don't even check to see if it's even you know, it's about the show. Okay, rather than the function and in my world form must always follow function. Okay, and so I hope that helps in terms of the use of the steel and what to look for when you're honing your knife on a daily basis at home. Usually once a day is fine. Okay, maybe that's just starting out your your work, you know in a professional kitchen if you do a lot of work on the night on the knife, you might hone your blade multiple times just as needed. Okay.