Today I am talking about the task of keeping kitchen knives sharp, which is a very important safety and efficiency practice. Let’s be clear, dull knives are dangerous! Many people feel sharp knives are dangerous but they are much safer than attempting to use a dull knife for cutting food.

While many devices and contraptions exist to keep knives sharp many are hard to use, even for pros.

I have been around kitchen knives since age 14 and likely spend 5-10 hours per week cutting, chopping, butchering, carving, etc. with said knives. I believe I own several thousand dollars worth of chef’s knives and my drawer is loaded with knives of all types.

Because of my work in culinary media, I have been fortunate to try and use the most expensive knives at no cost to me. My collection includes knives from”

• Cutco ( I served on their culinary advisory board for two years)

• Mac

• Wusthof

• Henckels

• Global

• MT Knives

• Shun

to name a few….

All of these knives are pretty darn useless once dull. The action of cutting food, and scraping against cutting boards all contribute to the edge going dull. Different blade materials hold an edge for different amounts of time. My Cutco Santoku holds an edge longer than my Mac chef’s knife but I still prefer the Mac anyway. I overall prefer. The precision of Japanese knives which are often much thinner than German knives for example. But this is not about choice but sharpness and the tools to maintain an edge.

There are abundant choices in tools that can sharpen knives and each takes a certain skill to properly use. In my opinion, the wet stone if the best to achieve razor-sharp edges that last. I have a wet stone with both 400 and 1000 to really turn the dullest knives into razor-sharp daggers!

I own these devices:

1. A Japanese contraption-piece of garbage

2. A wet stone

3. Hand Held sharpeners

4. Honing steels……these really only straighten

5. Plus a bunch I threw out because they sucked!

6. A Horl 2 roller system from Germany, more on this in a bit.

The trouble with using a wet stone is that it’s very hard to maintain the angle needed. In all my years of professional kitchen work, I have found one guy who was the master of knife sharpening. The guy trained in Germany could take my dull knives and make them better than new. He is precise in everything he does in life so this is just part of his personality.

I used to watch him in awe as he could maintain the proper angle like a robot. Simply perfect, simple…German! I have the same stone he uses but I am just not nearly as good as he at using it. I can get one side very sharp but the other..not so much.

The handheld devices that you pull the blade through do work, but not for long. I recently decided to try a few more sharpeners other than a wet stone to provide my listeners and readers with a better way. Once I had the Horl 2 I realized this is about the best device a layperson can use to sharpen a knife quickly, safely, and reliably.

The Horl 2 is so simple, just select the degree of angle (I prefer 15 degrees) and roll the stone against the knife about 15 times, turn over and do 15 more times, then use the honing side a few rolls and you will achieve a very, very sharp even edge, every time.

I did not get paid anything to promote this device, this is my opinion and I stand by it. See the non-affiliate link below.

To learn more just visit their website. or watch their video that demonstrates the product here.