Question
Evelyne Taylor
I use a knife sharpener because I am intimidated by the advanced whetstone method. I cook most days with lots of prep work. So how often can I use my knife sharpener & how many passes front to back should I use?
Answer
Well, gosh, I mean number one. Congratulations for even being kind of aware. To your knife sharpening status, I would say, you know by and large even for a person who's cooking a lot. You shouldn't really need to put your knife on a sharpener whether it's a whetstone or electric type sharpener. All that often you really want to sharpen well, and then you want to maintain that edge by honing it with a steel and we go into detail around the difference between sharpening which is actually kind of the removal of the metal to make that edge a certain shape versus honing, which is essentially just fine-tuning. You know that top Burr at the very very point to make sure that it's lining up evenly and not bent over or a little bit twisted or kind of sideways which could essentially give the appearance that your knife is very dull, but really just needs to almost be adjusted versus re-sharpened. I would say, you know, it shouldn't take that many passes. Once your knife is sharp. It might take 15 or 20 passes. If you kind of go up from a course Grant maybe 400 or 600 grit all the way up to a medium maybe a thousand and then a finer finishing, you know, 2004,000 plus might be in that Realm. But I wouldn't I wouldn't be using your sharpener on a daily basis. That seems like too much you're gonna be grinding down your knife and that sort of a situation but certainly if you're using your sharpener, you know weekly or a few times a month that really should be sufficient. If you're not either otherwise don't link quickly. You might ask. You know, where are you storing those knives? Are they being washed by hand or a dishwasher? Those other factors handling wise might impact how long those knives keep an edge, but it sounds like you just need to get a good a good Edge to start with and you might be struggling because you might not have a great edge and a lot of the work you're doing is almost just more superficial more topical. Versus actually creating that better. sharp knife Foundation You know in all else fails, you might just also for those top two or three knives that you use all the time. You might also just you know, bring it to a professional knife sharpener typically for ten dollars or fifteen dollars. They can put a really good Edge on that knife. You'll get it back. It'll be like brand new and it might be easier for you to maintain after you've got that professional Edge again, not a requirement, but something just to maybe think about if you've been unhappy with your knife sharpening thus far.
