Do Real Chefs Use an Electric Knife Sharpener?
Answer NO!
Fascinating, This is the search term that was used to find my blog. In a the professional kitchens that I have worked in I have never seen an electric sharpener used. 2 way and 3 way whetstones and of course the steel are about all that I have seen in terms of self sharpening. A few chefs have those cheap draw through sharpeners but anyone with an expensive set of blades would avoid using that type as it takes off metal in an uneven way. Several of the kitchens do use a knife service that comes by once a week and swaps out their knives with a freshly sharpened batch. Most chefs own and use their own knives but some use the knives provided by the service.
Great for Cans-Bad for Knives
Coarse-Medium-Fine 3-Way
The knives provided by the knife services are typically lower quality steel knives that have molded handles and thick blades as in 2 and a half inches at the heel. The reason for this is that they are run through an electric grinder every week and need to be replaced about once a year. When they arrive in the shop they are razor sharp but they quickly loose that edge due to the softness of the steel and the abuse they take. These knives feel to me like I am using a serrated knife, like I am holding a cross-cut saw in my hand instead of a knife. So instead of a soft-butter experience, its like spending a day at the sawmill.
One of the challenges of owning a good knife is keeping a good edge on the knife. I have mentioned here that a knife for home use really needs to be sharpened once every 6 months or a year, but should be put on a steel every day. Electric knife sharpener’s are probably a good thing if you are unsure of how to use a whetstone, but I would be very reluctant to take an expensive blade and grind it down a couple of millimeters while trying to get an edge on it. If you want to an electric knife sharpener look for the type that have a guide that will keep the knife at the proper angle as you draw it through. I just spoke to a lady who uses the type that are attached to an electric can opener… ack please avoid this type of sharpener if you want to have a blade in a couple of years from now. The problem is that an electric knife sharpener will quickly take off much more of the edge than you want and do so in an uneven way. You can quickly loose the center curvature of the blade on a chef’s knife and actually have a hollow spot where the blade doesn’t even touch the cutting board.
Learning to use a basic sharpening stone is probably the best way to go. It is not that difficult. Rather than repeat what has already been said about the subject simply go to this site: http://users.ameritech.net/knives/ward.htm and spend some time you will learn a lot. Also Michael Chu at cookingforengineers.comhas an excellent article with boatloads of comments which is quite educational.
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Tagged with: Electric Knife Sharpener
Filed under: Cooking Knives
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im sorry dude but i don’t think you’re completely right. some cooking professionals do use electric knife sharpener to sharpen their knives. i know most of their knives are of high quality and wouldn’t be very wise to let an electric sharpener to take care of them but it’s more not wise if you sharpen dozen of premium knives manually. im sure they will pick up a top class electric knife sharpener to handle the job rather than spending hours to sharpen their knives.
anyway, i’ve solved the simple math below, I’m a complete human
Ok, I will grant that some chefs might use a sharpener, but in my experience I have never seen one in a professional kitchen. I have seen and even used a professional service that “saves time” and they use electric grinding machines. In my younger years I sent a brand new knife in for sharpening and it came back with a reverse curve in it rendering it unusable until I personally ground the heel down to restore the curvature so it would cut along the whole length of the blade. For home use, I would recommend an electric sharpener, which if used correctly, would keep knives sharp. The knives that usually need sharpening are the kind that have an over abundance of stainless steel in them and they tend not to hold an edge for very long, and they are difficult to sharpen as well, because the steel is so hard (62+ on the rockwell scale). An electric sharpener would work great for this type of inexpensive knife, I would never use it with a good Shun or Henckels, it is not that hard to learn how to use a stone.
Michael Brown
ps. I have to prove I am human too!