Tools of the Trade: Edge Pro Apex
Just a couple of more weeks of bento hiatus since everyone is still out for the holidays. It's been a nice little break for me, time with family and all that. None the less, I've queued up a few themes for the new year so I'm eager to get back to cooking, I do confess that having my Sundays to myself have been nice.
A lot of people ask me what my most indispensable kitchen tool is and without a doubt it's my Chinese cleaver it's usually the only knife I ever use in the kitchen. It's cheap, but more to the point it's the ultimate multi-tasker, it does all the obvious cutting and chopping, but also delicate garnish work, has a huge face making it a good bench scraper, you can use it as a garlic masher, and it's lighter than a regular cleaver, but heavy enough that it does most of the work for you when doing a lot of chopping. And as with every knife it needs care and love to perform at it's peak, which is a nice lead-in to our post today.
I went ahead and setup the sharpening system and testing my cleaver on a paper test. If you've never done this it's a nice test on checking sharpness, grab a standard sheet of paper, hold it vertically in front of you, now take your knife and run it down the top edge, a sharp knife should slice into it easily (and smoothly). As expected my knife was ridiculously dull, it only really nicked the paper and bent it. So I set about going from the lowest grit stone (I obviously needed to reset my edge) moving my way up. Between stones, I would wet the stone to make going over the knife a bit smoother.
As you can see even with the 1000 grit before and after shot, I was clearly taking off a lot of steel to get the edge to the nice 18 degrees that my research indicated was my optimal edge. There are whole blog entries and websites that tell you all about the science of sharpening knives so I'll spare you the details but if you want, go here to read more about it. After all my hardwork my knife passed the paper cut test with ease.
I highly recommend the Edge Pro Apex for your knife sharpening needs. It's that or knowing someone that has an Edge Pro and begging them the favor of using it. Either way, a sharp knife is one of the best if not safest things you can do in maintaining your kitchen gear (and fingers).
Have a Happy New Year folks! We'll see you guys next year.
Comments
I believe from my reading the honing rod/steel helps bend the steel back into shape if it's slightly misaligned, but when it's really out of line the knife steel is not effective and then it's time to bust out the sharpener.
So to answer your question: It depends ;) yeah that's a cop out answer. But it really does depend on how often you use your knife, what all you're cutting, your cutting technique (slicing does less harm than chopping etc), and of course the surface (AVOID GLASS CUTTING BOARDS)
Thanks for visiting!
Thanks a ton for the mention Jack!
Lemme see what I can pull together. Expect tweets from me.