We all use knives in the kitchen, but very few people use them correctly. Proper care and proper use of knives is critical for their long lasting life. It is a handy and effective tool of your kitchen when you use and maintain them properly.
Many people ruin their expensive knives because they don’t know how to maintain them, how to take care of these tools and how to take proper care of these. Here we will give you some essential tips that will help you to take care of your kitchen knives.
Sharpen Your Knife
Always keep your kitchen knives sharp. Using a dull knife is not only time consuming but also dangerous for yourself because “A dull knife is more dangerous than a sharp one”. Dull knife requires larger force to cut anything, so it might slip from your hand and injure you.
Hence, you need to sharp your knives at regular intervals to maintain the proper edge. There are many knife sharpeners available the market. But for kitchen knives, we highly recommend you to use best electric knife sharpener. Because in these electric knife sharpener, you don’t need to maintain a proper edge by yourself, knife sharpener will it.
Use a Proper Cutting Board
The type of the surface on which you are cutting on greatly affect your knives’ condition. The surface you are cutting on always should be softer than your knives’ material. You should avoid hard surfaces like stainless steel, aluminium, etc. Hence, no glass cutting board and also never chop directly on your marble or granite countertop.
We suggest you, always use a wood or plastic cutting board. Your knife will be safe as long as you are using a cutting board that is made of soft material.
Store Your Knife Properly
After properly washing your knife, you need to put it properly. But the question is, where will you put your knife??
Many people put their kitchen knife in a drawer full of other kitchen utensils, and it’s really harmful not only for your knife, but also for yourself too, because you may got yourself injured when searching for something in that drawer.
Even a light blow can damage the edge of your knife, so you need to put the knives separately in proper space.
Wash By Hand
A lot of people throw their expensive knives in the dishwasher without thinking. Because they think it’s a great way to clean knives properly, but the water and detergent across the blades can dull them easily.
So, it’s a better practice to wash them properly by hand. Because washing your knives by hand will help them to retain a sharper edge for a long time.
Dry After Washing
After washing your knives, you need to dry them properly. Don’t let them to try themselves. Because some knives are made up of carbon steel. Although carbon steel is very famous for edge retention. But carbon steel is also very prone to corrosion too. So always dry your knives properly after washing.
Whetstone or Honing Rod
Sharpening a knife is most important point in knife sharpening. But electric knife sharpeners are bit expensive. So if you don’t want to purchase electric sharpeners, then you have the option of whetstones and honing rods, they are really cheaper.
Whetstone are used for knife sharpening from centuries. But now we have some high quality whetstones and honing rods, which can give you razor sharp edge.
But the only problem with these is that, both of these require a little practice. You need to maintain the required angle of your knife by yourself. So if you are new to knife sharpening, we highly recommend you to do a little practice on cheaper knives before sharpening an expensive one.
When you take proper care of your kitchen knives, then you’re probably never run into problems. Knives are very important tool in kitchen. Like all other tools, in order to get the good results from them, you need to make sure that your knives always be in a best condition possible.
If you store your knives properly, keep them sharp, use them on an appropriate surface, they will not only give you good results but also lasts for a long time.
