I do most of the cooking in our house and Mrs Mooky bought me some nice knives in a block last year. They should last me a lifetime but what's the best way to keep them sharp?

I have an old sharpening steel but either it is blunt or I am not very good at using it - can anyone recommend a good knife sharpener or method?

cheers

Mooky

DO NOT use glass chopping boards, great for hygeine awful if you like sharp knives.

Apparently the steel sharpner is generally pants because most people don't go along the angle of the blade, so they end up carving their own and it does very little to sharpen them.

I've seen some stone ones like a tiny yo-yo in the supermarket... I should get one seeing as ours are blunt as a baseball bat

kitchen devils do a couple of sharpeners

Oh Dear

More skills being lost!

A Wetstone,a can of oil + the correct technique.
You get razor sharp knves and they last longer.

Best tip is to buy professional quality knives in the first place.
They are much better. They become cheaper in the long run.

Cuts from sharp knives heal more quickly as the cut edges of the skin are less ragged and knit up better. (more microscopic gaps in a garred cut from a blunt knife.

Always slide the blade away from the body / Hands etc. then if it slips you dont cut or stab yourself.

You know it makes sense.

Louise

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Originally posted by RichardK
Louise

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Ive never learnt the art of using a steel, got one of those plas plugs sharpening stations but I think the knives will be about 3 mill wide if I carry on using it.
A super sharp knife is a thing of joy if you love cooking.
Cheers,
Bob

Simplest, fastest, cheapest has two pieces of hardened steel set in a V shape. Buy a new one every two years. Three or four runs of a blade through it and you have a razor. I also have a steel and a yoyo effort. Both tedious, slow and variable results.


[Edited on 25/7/11 by Dusty]

Tupperware do a brilliant kitchen knife sharpener.

Gerber do one for 3.50 on amazon, free delivery too I think. Not sure how well it works but I've just ordered one and at under a fiver I won't be too upset if it isn't great. Must admit, I find stone sharpening to be theraputic if you don't need a sharp knife immediately, and pretty annoying if you need something sharp ASAP.

The steels that you see chefs and butchers use are not intended to sharpen the knife - they only use them to maintain a sharp edge. They will not sharpen a blunt knife!

I used to work near Smithfields meat market in London - early every morning there used to be a van parked in a corner of the yard, with a bloke inside re-grinding knives for the market's butchers. I used to see some scary-looking knives in that van!

We use one of these Any Sharp things - it's a bit brutal to the knife, but it does give a good edge. I'm sure that most chefs would cringe at the thing though...

Steels don't sharpen knives they re-align the rolled edge you get when you use them. You can get sharpening systems like Lansky or Spyderco. This is a cheap and cheerful drag sharpener which is by Lansky and works on the crock stick principle but the edge geometry is fixed. Get an end grain chopping board like this to save your edge a bit, you can find them for £10 in local kitchen shops.

[Edited on 26/7/11 by Peteff]

Here we go

Steel works great for me. I just use it every time I use a knife and they cut thro meat like warm butter.
Knives were not costly either. Steel is not so good at all when the knife is blunt but why are you letting it get blunt - you notice it dragging aftr you get used to a sharp knife and just sharpen it up again as you are using it

Thanks chaps some good ideas there

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Originally posted by mad-butcher
Here we go

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Buy a decent japanese whetstone with two faces : 1000/3000 or 1000/6000

There are decent videos on how to sharpen here : https://www.knivesshipfree.com/pages.php?pID=4&CDpath=0

It takes time to get used to sharpen with the traditional method but it's the best to keep a nice cutting edge.

As said, a steel is only good to "refresh" a rolled edge but, if used incorrectly or too often, will be destructive for your expensive knife...

Never put a knife in the dishwasher, always wipe it directly after use, even if it's the best stainless steel.

Seriously, this is the very best way to get the right angled edge on your expensive knives everytime. They use whetstone wheels with water, but the angles are pre-set. There's two grades of wheel two, course and fine. I've got a set of top quality german Henkel chefs knives I've had for years and they keep them like razors:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Shinkansen-Water-Sharpener-Black-Red/dp/B0000A33LJ/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1311685678&sr=8-7

What Jasper said!

I use Global knives and I used to use the manual whetstones and got pretty good at it, but then I found the Minosharp plus 3 which is basically the same as what Jasper linked to but there are three different grades of whetstone wheel. I now exclusively use the minosharp, as although I can get a very slightly better result with the whetstones, this thing is sooooo much quicker I can run the knives through them every few uses to keep them sharp and dont have to bother using a steel (which I cant anyway). Only get the whetstones out now to sharpen a really bad blade for somebody else or did an axe once. Really no need to have a whetstone out regularly like some kind of samurai hero anymore - it's the 21st century!

I've looked for years for a proper knife sharpening system, and while the set angle whetstone ones are very good, they need the angles available for the knife you have - also they can't regrind knives to different angles for different requirements, and can't rescue knives that have been badly dealt with.

The 'drag through' 'sharpeners' are bloody awful and rip up the edge something rotten, I wouldn't treat a decent tool like that...

The best bit of kit available, that I can find anywhere, is the edgepro series here. The apex model is fine, unless you are sharpening for a large restaurant kitchen!

Its expensive, but you'll never have to buy another knife sharpener, or even probably another knife, ever again. It is great! I've got no connection to them at all, just a great bit of kit, and good customer service.

Chris