How Do I Sharpen My Set Of Culinary Knives

A sharp knife is both more enjoyable and safer to use, enabling you to use minimum effort to achieve maximum control with your blade. Some of the best culinary knives will hold their edge for a long time, but every knife, no matter how hard the steel or how good the edge geometry, will eventually dull with use. Here are some tips to help you keep your knives cutting well.

Making Your Edge Last As Long As Possible
Before we talk about sharpening, it’s important to cover some basics for how to keep your knife’s edge from dulling as quickly.

Knife Storage - Knife blocks, magnetic racks, and sheaths are all great ways to store your knives and keep their edges safe from harm. Sheaths can be made from wood, leather, plastic, or even cardboard. Knives stored loose in a drawer will chip and dull quickly as they come in contact with one another, and once you sharpen them, the unprotected edges pose a serious risk of injury.

Cutting Board Choice - In the kitchen, the surface you cut on will also determine the longevity of your edges. End-grain wood boards, or butcher blocks are the very best, followed by wood, Richlite, and plastic cutting boards. Bamboo cutting boards are okay in a pinch, but the fibers can be abrasive and cause edge damage. Avoid cutting on glass, ceramic, stone, or metal surfaces (including pie plates and dinner plates).

Signs That Your Knife Needs To Be Sharpened
As soon as you notice that a knife requires more effort to cut than it used to, then it is time to touch up the edge. You can also hold the knife under a bright light source with the edge facing you, and if you see light reflecting off the edge of the knife, the knife is dull in that spot. A sharp edge appears as a thin, dark line.

Touch-up Sharpening (Honing)
Most of the time, a dulled edge only requires a brief honing to restore it to peak performance. I recommend using either a leather strop or a ceramic rod for this step.

The Strop - A leather strop is often associated with honing shaving razors, and it consists of a strap of leather coated in a fine abrasive (I use white buffing compound,) and the strap can be either hung from a hook or mounted on a board. To use the strop, simply hold your knife blade at approximately 15 degrees to the surface and drag it lightly backward across the leather. Repeat this process until the knife is sharp, alternating from side to side with each stroke and checking for sharpness every 10 strokes or so.

The Ceramic Rod - The ceramic rod is an updated version of the traditional butcher’s or honing  steel, with which most of us are familiar. The ceramic serves as a gentle abrasive to lightly sharpen and re-align the edge of the knife. There are a variety of ways to use a ceramic rod, but the safest is to hold the rod vertically, point-down on a cutting board, and gently slice downward with the knife with the edge at approximately 15 degrees to the rod. As with the strop, repeat this process on the other side of the blade, and alternate from side to side until the knife is sharp again.

Edge Restoration
If your knives have been severely chipped or dulled, it may require more aggressive sharpening methods to restore it to full sharpness. A sharpening stone, also known as a whetstone, is the tool of choice for this step. Sharpening stones come in many grits and types, but I recommend a 1000 to 1200 grit stone for general sharpening of culinary and utility knives. 

Using a Whetstone - There are hundreds of different kinds of stones available, and they typically require either oil or water to work properly. Follow the manufacturer’s instructions as to which lubricant to use for sharpening. I prefer Japanese water stones and diamond stones for most of my sharpening purposes. To use a whetstone, hold the knife at a 10-15 degree angle to the surface of the stone and drag the knife from one end of the stone to the other, and from heel to tip of the knife. Use the same number of strokes on each side in order to keep the edge of the knife centered. Once the knife is sharp, hone the edge with either a strop or ceramic rod,  as described above.

The Final Test
Once your knife looks sharp, with no bright spots on the edge, it’s time to test it. My favorite test for edge consistency is to hold up a piece of newspaper and slice through it. A sharp knife will cut cleanly through, while any dull spots or chips will tear the paper, indicating the places on the edge that require further sharpening.

Sharpening Systems
As a knife maker, I confess I am a bit of a purist when it comes to sharpening, preferring free-hand sharpening with whetstones to any of the myriad different sharpening systems or knife sharpeners available on the market. Having tried very few of them, I can’t recommend any particular product, but if sharpening with whetstones seems too challenging (I promise it’s really not,) you may choose to do your own research and try them out. If you choose to go this route, here are two features to avoid:

Carbide Blades - Carbide looks just like steel, but it is much harder, and many knife sharpeners, especially the pull-through variety, use carbide blades to quickly remove metal from the edge of the knife. The carbide blades tend to tear the steel, leaving a jagged edge, and will often chip harder, higher-quality blades. The resulting edge feels very sharp, but will dull quickly, as the jagged points on the edge break off and bend over, requiring more frequent sharpening and shortening the lifespan of the knife.

Motorized Sanders & Grinders - Grinders and sanders are important tools in the knife-making process, but they tend to be too aggressive for sharpening purposes. These motorized tools make it easy to remove too much material from the edge and shorten the lifespan of your knife.

Sharpening Video Tutorial
If you would like to see all of the processes described above in video format, be sure to check out the tutorial I posted on my YouTube Channel: How to Sharpen a Knife

A knife positioned on the stone at an appropriate sharpening angle (wooden wedge for reference)