The Best Way To Sharpen & Clean Knives (And The Worst) | Epicurious 101

i'm frank proto i'm a professional chef

and a culinary instructor and this is

everything you need to know about taking

care of and sharpening your knives

i did it

i am a fruit ninja

i'm going to show you different methods

on how to sharpen your knives maintain

them and how to be safe while you use

them

this is knife care 101.

grandma might have sharpened her knives

by rubbing two knives together it

doesn't work i'm going to show you the

right way chefs are always focused on

having sharp knives because dull knives

are a danger in the kitchen dull knives

take more pressure to cut with more of a

chance you're going to slip and hurt

yourself a sharp knife gives you

precision cuts that lets your food cook

evenly taking about 20 minutes every few

months to sharpen your knives makes all

the difference let's get into how we

maintain them

the way that i test the knife to see if

it's sharp as i turn it over i take my

thumb and i run it over the blade

lightly and what you'll feel is it drags

on your fingerprint right you can feel

that there's a little bit of a tug on

your finger if your knife was dull it

would feel like you're running over kind

of like a nice smooth bump with things

like scallions you can actually hear a

sharp knife right you barely hear a

whisper when i cut with a dull knife

though

it makes a much louder noise because

it's crushing the scallion and then

cutting it you can also see that there's

a lot more moisture on my board when i

use the dull knife whereas the sharp

knife no moisture you can see that i

have to put a fair amount of pressure on

it you can see that i'm getting tearing

when i cut so we're crushing our food

rather than slicing it and that's not

what we want with a sharp knife you see

how thin we can cut if it was a dull

knife you would not get that beautiful

paper thin slice it's like a whisper

it's like a whisper

my favorite way to sharpen knives is by

hand with a water stone there are other

types of stones there's an oil stone and

a water stone with an oil stone you need

to buy mineral oil that won't go bad or

rancid it's sticky they get gummy i find

the water stone is the easiest to

maintain all i need is some cool water

first thing i like to do with the water

stone is soak it right generally i like

to soak my water stone for about 30

minutes just put it in water

you'll see there's lots of bubbles and

that basically means

that the water stone is absorbing some

water we soak this on so it keeps our

knife cool and lubricated when we're

sharpening i know my water stone is

ready to use when i stop seeing lots of

bubbles and this looks like it's soaked

pretty well this stone has two grits on

it it has a six thousand and a one

thousand one thousand being a rougher

grit six thousand being super smooth i

always start with the rougher grip

because that's going to basically give

our blade shape and define our blade

whereas the higher grit is going to give

it that nice sharp edge i like to put my

stone in front of me facing away from me

a lot of times this is slippery what you

can do is you can use a wet towel

underneath to keep this from sliding

this little piece is a guide this slides

onto the back of the knife and it gives

you a really good angle for your knife

it's probably more like a 17 or 18

degree angle the problem i have with

these guides is that i could lose this

this can end up in the trash right this

ends up in the trash and then what do i

do if you're just beginning by all means

use the guide but as a professional i

like to do it without the guide so let's

go this is basically a 90 degree angle

to the stone we cut that in half it's a

45 degree angle and then in half again

it's about 22 and a half it's not the

angle for every knife this is just how i

teach it to get a really good result and

i like to just make sure that my stone

stays a little wet i'm going to start

with that angle and i'm using my right

hand to push down i'm using my fingers

to push down as well i'm putting about

three to four pounds of pressure on this

how do i know it's three to four pounds

of pressure i know what it feels like

i've been doing this for years but if

you don't know you can always get a

scale and push down and feel what three

or four pounds of pressure feels like

start at the tip

push the knife away from me turn it over

and pull the knife towards me so there's

a little bit of particles on the

sharpener and that's basically just the

knife kind of being worn away anytime i

start to see them i'm going to add a

little more water

and i'm going to go back into it and i'm

going to use this side

until i start to get a nice sharp blade

and once i can start to feel that it's

getting sharp that's when i'm going to

turn it over

and go to the finer grit it doesn't have

to take a long time right and now we're

going to do is we're going to take the

stone and we're going to turn it over

and now i'm going to go on the fine side

and do the same thing make sure you make

a mess

it's starting to feel good

i can feel that i'm getting that nice

sharp edge

do i look like uh like a maniac when i

do this

[Applause]

this is the method that i choose to

sharpen my knives i give it a five out

of five it definitely takes a little bit

of skill and practice but it's well

worth it all i'm going to do now is run

it over a steel just to hone that edge

and i think we're good to go this piece

of equipment is not a knife sharpener we

call it a honing steel it's for honing

whenever i'm prepping every 10 15

minutes

run my knife over the steel put it back

it's part of my kit basically what this

does is it takes your blade and keeps

your blade tuned up between sharpenings

right you can take a dull blade and run

it over this holding steel for a month

and it's not going to make it sharper

but what it does do is it takes our

blade that's fairly sharp and it tunes

it up your blade has like micro

serrations and they kind of get a little

twisted occasionally and when you run it

over the steel it lines them up again

and keeps your blade sharp the way that

i use the honing steel is i'm basically

starting at the same angle that i

sharpen with and i start at the bottom

of the knife with a bolster i'm going to

run it over and down

over and down and basically i'm just

going to run it over until i feel that

that edge is nice and sharp right some

people don't want to cut towards

themselves or or hone towards themselves

you can go like this

away from you or some people actually

put on the table so they can hone

straight down

i find that serrated knives are really

hard to sharpen i'm not sure people even

sharpen their serrated knives when i was

a cook i use this knife a lot and

basically when it got dull

i would probably recycle it but what i

do when i'm using serrated knives is

while they're sharp i tend to hone them

a little bit more and basically what i

do is i get in

between

the serrations and i just kind of run

my knife at that angle that i sharpen at

and then on the flat side i'm just going

to run my flat side over right this

doesn't sharpen the knife but it does

keep it in tune on the franco-meter

honing is super important it's a 5 out

of 5. let's move on to other methods

that i prefer a lot less

this is a manual sharpener and basically

what this has is two ceramic or metal

blades in it that you drag your knife

through and i tend to use this with

knives that aren't really expensive in

order to use the manual sharpener what

i'm going to do is i'm going to hold it

firmly it has kind of sticky things here

there's a course and a fine and what i'm

going to do is i'm going to hold it

straight up and down and drag it across

now what i find is this if you can see

i'm getting metal shavings right which i

don't really want in my food metal

shavings do not equal food and this is

why i don't use it with my good knives

because basically what this is doing is

it's shaving the metal down to get it

sharp so if you have a knife that's kind

of not super expensive

drag it straight across a couple of

times go from the course

to the fine

it also is very noisy and kind of like

gives you the shivers

and it gives you an okay sharpness but

whenever i use this method i'm

constantly going back and re-sharpening

it's not a lasting sharpness so on the

franco-meter scale of one to five i kind

of give this

i don't know maybe a two i just don't

think that this is the best way to

maintain your knives properly another

option is one of these doohickeys

this is an electric sharpener it has two

abrasive wheels in it you know anytime

we get into

abrasives that are moving really fast i

get a little worried that the knife's

going to get heated up and lose some of

that temper what temper is is they heat

treat the knife and they're heat treated

to keep them not only flexible but also

for them to hold their edge really well

so this i feel it might heat it up and

that's why i kind of stay away from them

this little machine there's two sides

there's a left side on the right side

you turn it on and all you do is start

at the bottom

pull it through

and this model will shut off when it's

ready it says

the sound is horrible it's kind of like

you know giving me a little chills up my

spine

this is like a mad max orchestra right

here right that's what dubstep sounds

like if that's what dubstep sounds like

i don't like it

these old ears don't like the dubstep

once it goes down to low they say they

run it through the horner

and i don't know what that does it

sounds to me like it's just dulling the

knife not my favorite thing on a franco

meter this is basically a one as far as

i'm concerned if i can give it a zero

i'd give it a zero maybe i'm going to

give it a zero

if someone put my good knives through

this we might have a problem don't come

to my house and do that i don't want to

go to jail here's a method that i've

seen in a lot of restaurants i've seen

cooks do this and it's not necessarily

sharpening knife but it's kind of giving

it a nice hone so i'm looking to use

that unglazed portion of the plate so if

the whole thing is glazed it's not going

to work and that's what you're going to

do

it's kind of like one of those methods

that it might work for you it might not

this knife is pretty sharp

i feel like it's honing it pretty good

i'd say this is probably a 6 000 grit

and i can feel that the knife is just

getting a little sharper on the franco

meter i'm gonna give this a three three

and a half

now that you know how to sharpen the

knives let's talk about proper use and

cleaning part of taking carry knives is

using the right tool for the right job i

would never get a chef knife and try and

peel something with it not only is it

inefficient it's dangerous you never

really want to take a chef knife like

this that's got a nice fine blade and

like open a can with it or try and chop

bones with it that's why we have

cleavers and can openers the other

important consideration with knives are

the type of materials you're cutting on

right i've seen like old grandmothers

have glass cutting boards and you never

want to use a hard surface you always

want to use either a plastic a rubber a

bamboo or a wooden cutting board when

you're cutting your food if you use a

hard surface like metal or glass it

definitely dulls your knife and you'll

have to sharpen it more often another

quick tip to keep yourself safe is this

get yourself a wet paper towel

put it under your cutting board and

it'll stop your cutter board from

sliding so you can see the bottom

cutting board doesn't have the towel but

the top board is really firm because it

has the towel under it another important

step in maintaining your knives is

cleaning them properly a couple of

things that are no no's right i do not

put my knives in a dishwasher

putting your knives in a dishwasher

heats them past a critical point it

ruins the temper of the knives and the

knives will not hold an edge the other

thing that i do as far as safety is i

never put a knife into a sudsy sink if i

put this in the bottom of this uh bowl

with all the suds i can't see it and if

i walk away and someone reaches into

that sink they're going to get cut so

knives always get put on the side and

are cleaned by hand and put away

immediately this is how i like to clean

my knives i have some warm soapy water

here i get a sponge sponge goes in the

water i get my knife i'm holding it away

from me what i like to do is not run

along the blade because this will cut

through a sponge i like to run the top

of the blade right or i like to go on

the sides but i'm always paying

attention and being very focused when i

do this right i dry my knives as soon as

i wash them so they don't get rusted or

stained

look at that it's gorgeous our knives

are clean and dry the last step for

maintenance is how we store our knives

the way you store your knives is really

important in the maintenance of them if

you store them improperly they'd get

dented and dinged and they will lose

their edge really quickly if you put

them in a drawer they're going to

clatter around and beat each other up

and you'll end up with chips and dents

and dull knives two of the ways that i

like to store knives the block

generally i don't have a block in my

house just for the fact that it takes up

a lot of counter space but if you want

to store knives efficiently a block

works really well they're easy to get to

the other way that you can store them is

on a magnetic strip these hang on the

wall the knives stick to them keeping

the blades safe and away they're not

banging into each other and they stay

nice and sharp as a chef we're always on

the go and when we take our knives with

us we use a knife roll and this is my

knife roll it is heavy duty canvas with

kind of a plastic interior and i have

all my knives here they're stored in

individual pockets so they don't bang

against each other it's compact it's

easy it's a quick grab-and-go when

you're on the move i hope you learned

how to be safe keep your knife sharp and

maintain your fruit ninja status i want

you to remember dull knives are

dangerous knives

dull knives suck

keep your knives sharp or i'm coming to

your house and i'll sharpen them for you

people are going to call me on that one

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