No matter what meal you are planning on cooking, every meal begins with preparing the ingredients and more often than not, you need to cut your ingredients. This is why a knife is one of the most important equipment in the kitchen. Since it is perhaps one of the most used items in the kitchen, you should make sure that it is always up to the task.
The blade must always be sharp because if it is dull, not only would it be difficult for you to cut the ingredients, you might even end up hurting yourself. Sharpening your knife is easy and will not take too much of your time as long as you have the appropriate tool to sharpen your knife with.
Whetstone
Perhaps the most common sharpening tool, whetstones are rectangular ceramic or natural sharpening stone block. Knife Sharpeners such as the whetstone can be found in most kitchens. It’s effective as it removes part of the knife’s blade that is already dull. This stone block is not only used to sharpen knives. It is also used to sharpen other household items made of steel such as razors and scissors.
Sharpening steel and knife hone
This might be news to some but sharpening steel and knife hone are only good for knives that are still sharp. From how it is called, knife hone only “hones” your knife’s blade, similar to a sharpening steel. They could not sharpen an already dull knife. They are still considered as tool to sharpen knife blades because they still preserve the knife’s sharpness by removing tiny quantities of material from the blade.
Electric sharpeners
There are those who prefer electric sharpeners because they are easy to use and it sharpens the knife’s blade quickly. They only need to slide the knife in a rectangular box with slots, and presto, the machine will do the sharpening for you instead of pushing or pulling the blade on a whetstone or on a knife hone.
The downside however, is the lack of control on sharpening the blade and being bulkier compared to other tools that could be simply stored in a drawer or a cabinet. Also, if you are purchasing a knife sharpener not only for your kitchen knives, you should choose another tool instead since electric sharpeners only work best on kitchen knives and is less effective on survival, tactical or hunting knives.
Handheld sharpener
Similar to electric sharpener, handheld sharpener is also easy to use and compared to the electric, much easier to control in restoring a dull knife. The only difference is that it could only sharpen one knife at a time compared to the electric that could sharpen to three knives at once. This sharpener is also small and portable making it easy and convenient to bring around anywhere.
If you splurged and bought a really expensive knife, the least you could do is make sure it’s always sharp and stored properly without the risk of being blunt or the blade chipping. A sharp knife is safer compared to a blunt one and would make cooking more enjoyable. Keeping it sharp is essential, whether it’s an expensive or an affordable one.
