Best knife sharpener? I have one, its the electric Chef's Choice, its about $120. How much do I use it? Not much.
What I DO use is my cheap pull knife sharpener. Its right there in the top drawer. The best knife sharpener is in a cabinet somewhere. You have to plug it in, and it makes a bit of noise. The cheap sharpener has a very low carbon footprint...
The cheap pull knife sharpener I have is from Chef's Choice, its low tech and handy. They also make the electric model I use every few months. I like the simple knife sharpener because of its ease of use. Just pull it out of the drawer and start pulling the knife through it.
Works for me, how about you?
I know there's all this talk on the knife discussion groups about angle and all, but I just want to be able to cut onions with a sharp knife.
On a few tangents here, I do think you should store your knives in those plastic sleeves to keep them sharp. Get some here. Throwing a sharp knife into a drawer is a quick way to unsharpen that knife. One thing with the sleeve protector, be sure the knife is dry before storing it.
I'm not a fan of the knife block, its one more thing on my counter and who knows what's in the bottom of that knife slot... At least you can clean kitchen drawer partitions.
And there's a few good cheap restaurant kitchen type knives that are almost as good as a $100 knife. Check them out here. Mark Bittman pointed out a few years back that most of your food in restaurant kitchens is cut up with cheap knives they buy in bulk:
I started with an eight-inch, plastic-handle stainless alloy chef’s knife for $10. This is probably the most essential tool in the kitchen. People not only obsess about knives (and write entire articles about them), but you can easily spend over $100 on just one. Yet go into any restaurant kitchen and you will see most of the cooks using this same ... tool. NY Times
How to you keep your knives sharp? Let me know in the comments below.
Dave Lenweaver
I use a steel to put the edge back on my knives, which I only sharpen with stones every few months. If you start with a good edge and use a steel every so often your knives should be good to go. A steel realigns the edge, not sharpens it, as they tend to bend over on a micro scale.
I use protectors on dry knives and wouldn't be without them.
My favorite knives are two inexpensive blades...one is an old Calphalon Santoku shape and the other is my Culinary Institute of America issued kit knife from 2003. The Calphalon cost me $30 and the CIA issue was $46,000 (well, that was tuition). Learning how to sharpen a knife is a skill taught at the CIA and has served me well. My expensive name brand knives are not as good at holding an edge so I rarely use them....go figure.
Geoff Stuart
FMP Accu-Sharp. 8 bucks on the web or at Walmart. My Chef's Choice motorized sharpener doesn't do as good a job, so it's buried in a box somewhere.
Deborah Burkhart
CBC did a segment on this just last week. The top chef they interviewed about knives said " the shorter the chef, the bigger the knife". LOl
Eric
@Deborah 🙂