Let's Talk Kitchen Knives & Sharpening

[Tony S]

Who cooked that? Enticing.

I did. Goes with the fillet shot immediately above.

 

[JFB]

File like?
A good honing steel should not have teeth or striations. The honing portion should have a matt finish. Smooth to the touch. It's the least aggressive of the three types of honing steel (rod).
Very often the manufacturers market the honing steel to the home cook consumer as "sharpening" steel. Generally their targeted consumers do not sharpen their knives. The fairly aggressive striations on their sharpening steel will actually remove some steel and thus make the knives feel a little "sharper"
A true honing steel has a matt finish and is smooth to the touch. It does not remove any metal from the knives. Basically, the honing rod just aligns the microscopic burrs.

I Tested 11 Honing Steels and Found the Best Ones For Maintaining Your Knives

We tested 11 honing steels to find which ones maintained knives' edges the best and had comfortable, grippy handles. We found three we recommend.

www.seriouseats.com

Both the ceramic and diamond rods remove metal from the knives. A good steel does not.
BTW, the Winware rod recommended in the article is crap. Winware has some of the worst "restaurant quality" stuff out there. Have to say they are cheap though.

I use a 12" Messermeister honing rod. No striations or teeth.
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I still have several 14" ones from the restaurant days. They are totally smooth from use. Love them but they are too big to fit in the block.

Yeah, I have seen the other 2 types, but not this one. Maybe I've only used coarser ones. That said, I (think that) I can see the floppy edge that they re-align but I like that my ceramic stick removes that. It feels sharper and the edge holds longer. I got my generic stick from a restaurant supply house decades ago and it is too long for my block, too.

 

[Uncle-A]

If you you use a sharpening tool with the crossing ceramic rods would you still get a micro fold?

 

[zircon]

Did you bake that? Very pretty.

Thanks! Did indeed. Took up baking in 2014 when I went to grad school and needed a productive looking way to waste time. I need to work on my slashing. Usually get lazy and let it crack open along the seam Ken Forkish style. This recipe makes a reliably attractive loaf with an airy crumb but not so open you can't spread things on it. Low maintenance to make, very mild buttery sourdough flavor, good crowd pleaser.

 

[JFB]

If you you use a sharpening tool with the crossing ceramic rods would you still get a micro fold?

I don't know, I've never tried one. I never saw the point because the knife would only touch the crossed ceramic rods in one tiny spot, which I would expect to get clogged with steel on the first pass of a knife. I can't see how that device would be effective.

 

[Uncle-A]

I don't know, I've never tried one. I never saw the point because the knife would only touch the crossed ceramic rods in one tiny spot, which I would expect to get clogged with steel on the first pass of a knife. I can't see how that device would be effective.

It does get clogged bur it can be cleaned easy with some soap and water. When I am in a hurry or just being lazy I do a quick touch up with one of these devices. The ceramic rods are set at a reasonable angle and can do a quick job.

 

[James]

Yeah, I'm back to your water stones posts, because - looping back to post #1 - my fancy new Japanese style knife is not responding satisfactorily to my standard unmentionable caveman sharpening (not honing) regime.

Mark the whole bevel with a sharpie so you can see what’s happening.