Gadget Guru
T3’ s nutty professor of tech is the man to straighten you out
Guru’s got his hand’s full this month with some pretty ‘edgy’ reader queries, involving knives and lighters. But we’re sure it’s all fine really…
Wood, bamboo and synthetic chopping boards are much kinder to knife edges than ceramic and glass ones
How do I keep my kitchen knives sharp?
AOh, for a delicately honed blade. Alas, in Guru’s house his knives are seldom used for their intended purpose; you’re as likely to stumble upon Mrs Guru stabbing GaGu’s precious Zwilling Pro Santoku Knife (£99.95) into the box of her latest Amazon purchase as you are to see Guru the Elder hacking his way through electrical cables with a bread knife. We’ve asked him to stop, but he is alarmingly strong for an old man.
Tip number one, then: use your knives properly, for the job they’re meant for. Be careful with your cutting surfaces. Wood, bamboo and synthetic chopping boards (the brilliant Joseph Joseph does a beautiful four-piece plastic set for £70) are much kinder to knife edges than the pretty ceramic and glass boards some people like for the kitchen. Care for your best blades, too. Wash them by hand, dry them properly and store them out of the reach of cutlery neophytes.
However careful you are, there comes a point where every blade becomes dull, and many argue that a dull blade is more dangerous than a sharp one. They’re wrong, of course, particularly if Guru is getting his chef on after a few glasses of red, but keeping your tools sharp helps them last longer. Every time you come to use a knife, give it a couple of passes with a honing steel (the £47 Wusthof Ceramic Sharpening Steel is significantly lovely) to realign its edge.
Proper sharpening needs a proper tool. Hoity-toity knifenerds will insist that you must use a whetstone like Bearmoo’s 400/1000 grit corundum combo (£17) for the ultimate edge. Guru isn’t about to argue with a crazy-eyed knife fanatic, but there are practical tools that’ll get you a great cut without the messing around. The suction-mounted £20 AnySharp, for example, can handle most blades – including serrated edges and hardened steel – with its tungsten carbide groove.