Kitchen Care Basics with Babish
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Date: 2020-08-18
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Comments and reviews: 10
Ark
2: 19-4: 05 Take some advice from a retired chef. dont sharpen your knives yourself, and DEFINITELY dont use one of those crap quick sharpeners. They actually reduce the functional life of your knives, not to mention the knives go blunt much more quickly after using them.
As for home sharpening. Andrew did a reasonably good job, but he made a couple mistakes:
For one, while, yes, MOST knives can be sharpened at 17-20 degrees, sometimes you want 23-25 on one side and 15-17 on the other. depends on what kind of knife and what you're using it for. And for things like boning/filet knives, you actually want a very acute angle of around 14-16, since you are going to want to make long draw cuts with them. All that being said, yes, for chef's knives, he's right about the angle, but most people are going to several different knives in their kitchen, and most people wont know the best angle to sharpen their knives at.
Secondly, and far, FAR more important, he didn't keep the same angle the whole time. You can see that on nearly every pass, he brings the angle of the knife up for the last couple of inches, which results in uneven sharpening. This is A Bad Thing.
There's a reason the pros take their knives to other pros. Professional knife sharpening is reasonably inexpensive (you can usually find a restaurant supply store in any medium sized city where you can get it done for about 5 per knife, and a lot more effective than anything you can do at home. Plus, professional knife sharpeners can grind the edge in such a way that you retain the edge longer. Most chefs have their knives sharpened for extreme sharpness, which results in the knives needing to be sharpened more often, but if you do it for a living, it's just another business expense. For a home user, you want it sharpened so that it's not quite so razor sharp, and the blade will retain a good edge for several months. Personally, I have my knives sharpened about every 6 months, but then. retired chef. :) Most people can do it once a year, depending on how much they use them, and call it a day.
AFA honing, or 'steeling', as it's usually known (and BTW, literally noone calls that a 'honing rod'. it's a steel: ), STEEL YOUR KNIVES EVERY SINGLE TIME YOU USE THEM. I cannot stress that point enough. EVERY! SINGLE! TIME! you use your knives, steel them. I steel mine before using them, and if I'm going to be cutting/chopping/slicing stuff for longer than a minute or two, I steel them again. You want your blade to be as sharp as possible the whole time you're using it, both for consistency in your chopping/slicing/whatever and to keep from adding unintentional protein to your dish (ie not cutting off the tip of your thumb/fingers. ;D.
FWIW, Andrew's steeling/honing technique is pretty good. :)
reply
2: 19-4: 05 Take some advice from a retired chef. dont sharpen your knives yourself, and DEFINITELY dont use one of those crap quick sharpeners. They actually reduce the functional life of your knives, not to mention the knives go blunt much more quickly after using them.
As for home sharpening. Andrew did a reasonably good job, but he made a couple mistakes:
For one, while, yes, MOST knives can be sharpened at 17-20 degrees, sometimes you want 23-25 on one side and 15-17 on the other. depends on what kind of knife and what you're using it for. And for things like boning/filet knives, you actually want a very acute angle of around 14-16, since you are going to want to make long draw cuts with them. All that being said, yes, for chef's knives, he's right about the angle, but most people are going to several different knives in their kitchen, and most people wont know the best angle to sharpen their knives at.
Secondly, and far, FAR more important, he didn't keep the same angle the whole time. You can see that on nearly every pass, he brings the angle of the knife up for the last couple of inches, which results in uneven sharpening. This is A Bad Thing.
There's a reason the pros take their knives to other pros. Professional knife sharpening is reasonably inexpensive (you can usually find a restaurant supply store in any medium sized city where you can get it done for about 5 per knife, and a lot more effective than anything you can do at home. Plus, professional knife sharpeners can grind the edge in such a way that you retain the edge longer. Most chefs have their knives sharpened for extreme sharpness, which results in the knives needing to be sharpened more often, but if you do it for a living, it's just another business expense. For a home user, you want it sharpened so that it's not quite so razor sharp, and the blade will retain a good edge for several months. Personally, I have my knives sharpened about every 6 months, but then. retired chef. :) Most people can do it once a year, depending on how much they use them, and call it a day.
AFA honing, or 'steeling', as it's usually known (and BTW, literally noone calls that a 'honing rod'. it's a steel: ), STEEL YOUR KNIVES EVERY SINGLE TIME YOU USE THEM. I cannot stress that point enough. EVERY! SINGLE! TIME! you use your knives, steel them. I steel mine before using them, and if I'm going to be cutting/chopping/slicing stuff for longer than a minute or two, I steel them again. You want your blade to be as sharp as possible the whole time you're using it, both for consistency in your chopping/slicing/whatever and to keep from adding unintentional protein to your dish (ie not cutting off the tip of your thumb/fingers. ;D.
FWIW, Andrew's steeling/honing technique is pretty good. :)
reply
Jason
O_o PSA kids: Never use a pullthrough sharpener on a kitchen knife unless it's a cheap piece of junk or you hate it and want to kill it. Because it will. Any carbide pullthrough sharpener will remove way too much steel and chew through your blade. If you must use pullthrough, use ceramics and sharpening stones are the best. If that all sounds like too much work, show your Henkels or Wusthof some repect and just have them professionally sharpened by someone nearby.
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O_o PSA kids: Never use a pullthrough sharpener on a kitchen knife unless it's a cheap piece of junk or you hate it and want to kill it. Because it will. Any carbide pullthrough sharpener will remove way too much steel and chew through your blade. If you must use pullthrough, use ceramics and sharpening stones are the best. If that all sounds like too much work, show your Henkels or Wusthof some repect and just have them professionally sharpened by someone nearby.
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Darkfafi
It's not to sharpen but hone your edge. But 'honing' means 'sharpening'. I found this always to be confusing, because a blade is thin enough, so to get the bumps out is making it sharp again as far as I can logically tell. I can understand it does not sharpen a messed up blade, but as long as you keep a new blade sharp with it, I think it should do fine.
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It's not to sharpen but hone your edge. But 'honing' means 'sharpening'. I found this always to be confusing, because a blade is thin enough, so to get the bumps out is making it sharp again as far as I can logically tell. I can understand it does not sharpen a messed up blade, but as long as you keep a new blade sharp with it, I think it should do fine.
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Megan
You got me randomly reseasoning my cast iron skillet. it really needed it, and I don't think I did it correctly the first time i did it. it was severely rusted and it took a very lengthy time of scrubbing to get it down to the actual iron. But thank you for the video!
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You got me randomly reseasoning my cast iron skillet. it really needed it, and I don't think I did it correctly the first time i did it. it was severely rusted and it took a very lengthy time of scrubbing to get it down to the actual iron. But thank you for the video!
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Bastion
I think I caught a mistake. You said. flip the stone over to the 1000 (or fine grit) side. Isn't fine grit 3000 or higher? But maybe I'm wrong. Before today, I just thought of whetstones as something from World of Warcraft, so what do I know lol
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I think I caught a mistake. You said. flip the stone over to the 1000 (or fine grit) side. Isn't fine grit 3000 or higher? But maybe I'm wrong. Before today, I just thought of whetstones as something from World of Warcraft, so what do I know lol
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Jacob
Also quick tip with the whetstone
Use the coarse side like normal
But then test it on the paper before you use the fine side
If it's fine and cuts well move on to the fine side
If it's not run it on the coarse side a few more times
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Also quick tip with the whetstone
Use the coarse side like normal
But then test it on the paper before you use the fine side
If it's fine and cuts well move on to the fine side
If it's not run it on the coarse side a few more times
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Echo
Ive found what works best is honestly just leaving my cast iron dish dirty. I clean it when Im about to cook. You avoid a lot of the issues like rusting if you do it like that. It takes a little more elbow grease to clean later but its worth it
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Ive found what works best is honestly just leaving my cast iron dish dirty. I clean it when Im about to cook. You avoid a lot of the issues like rusting if you do it like that. It takes a little more elbow grease to clean later but its worth it
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knownchild
Rapeseed oil/Canola oil of high grade works best for me, also turn the cast iron upside-down in the oven otherwise you will need to blot the skillet with a paper towel every 20 min to avoid a ugly spider web effect on the pan.
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Rapeseed oil/Canola oil of high grade works best for me, also turn the cast iron upside-down in the oven otherwise you will need to blot the skillet with a paper towel every 20 min to avoid a ugly spider web effect on the pan.
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Robin
Babby babyyyyy!
You ground yr knife the wrong way bubby!
Only drag to backhone and remove burrs
Grind against, remove burrs with a backhone to prevent peeling!
Love u babby, C u soon u weird weeby dude.
:
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Babby babyyyyy!
You ground yr knife the wrong way bubby!
Only drag to backhone and remove burrs
Grind against, remove burrs with a backhone to prevent peeling!
Love u babby, C u soon u weird weeby dude.
:
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bossrobotdad
Don't forget about sharpening strops and compound. Those really finish the edge off if you need something insanely sharp. I know of outdoors55 and the business he works for, Knife Point Gear.
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Don't forget about sharpening strops and compound. Those really finish the edge off if you need something insanely sharp. I know of outdoors55 and the business he works for, Knife Point Gear.
reply
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