Kitchen knife maintenance can make the difference between a safe set of knives, and a knife that could cut you through a slip. Here is how you can maintain those knives, so they last a lifetime.
Knife maintenance is the first thing you would learn if you went to cooking school. Your knives are not just cutlery, they are your tools. As with any other profession, if you look after your tools, they will look after you. A chef uses those knives every day for several hours at a time. If they are not sharp, they will give them aching arms and potentially slice into their skin. A good, sharp blade prevents kitchen accidents and makes your job as a chef, cook, parent, or solo eater, an easier one.
The Importance of a Good Blade
A good blade doesn’t just chop your veggies up. A good blade slices cleanly through those vegetables and makes light work of them in the process. A better blade does this consistently throughout the course of years with only a minimal whetstone sharpening.
How to Choose a Good Blade
A good blade isn’t that hard to find, and it will serve you better than any other kitchen gadget. If you want to secure the ultimate chopper, you should buy your new blade from a catering company. They know what they are doing. Even better, find a knife company who caters to the catering industry. They will have spent serious money on the research and development that has gone into making that blade perform well and last longer.
Here’s the best tip, though. Choose a blade which is 100% metal. In most blades, the handle is a secondary material, often wood, which will erode over time. If you buy a blade which is entirely metal, that metal is one piece. The handle won’t fall off over time through wear.
How to Maintain your Knife Collection
There are maintenance rules that everyone should follow to keep their blades secure.
First, examine how you store your blade. Is it thrown in the cutlery drawer to scuff up with the other knives? This could be where you are going wrong. Invest in a knife wrap, which is a long strip of material with knife pockets sewn in. You can roll this up when you need to carry it anywhere. You could alternatively choose a magnetic strip screwed into the kitchen wall. Place your knives on this and they will stay separate.
Lastly, sharpen your blades as they dull. A good whetstone sharpening is all it takes to go from average to perfection with each chop.
What your Knife Collection Should Contain?
Every healthy knife collection starts with just three blades. You need a large slicing knife, also known as the chef’s knife. You need a paring knife, which is a mini version of that larger one. Then finally you need an excellent quality serrated blade. You may call this a bread knife but be warned: a serrated knife works best for certain food types and only one of those is bread. Avoid serrated edges which h for the best results.
If your kitchen or chef knife selection has these three blades, everything else is just extra icing sugar. These three blades can combat most kitchen tasks. Keep them sharp and they will be with you for a long time.
Followed our Knife Maintenance Advice?
If you have followed the advice we gave you in this article, your blades have the potential to last you a lifetime. Treat your knife to a whetstone, its own sheath, or a magnetic wall strip, and you can keep a good knife forever.
