quote:Originally posted by Jimeats
America's Test Kitchen recently reviewed some sharpeners. I wish I could remember the name of the one that they were really impressed with. Chow Jim
Written: 11/2006
When your kitchen knives go dull, is there a quick, cheap, and easy way to restore their cutting edge and get back to cooking?
Electric Knife Sharpeners
This updates a previous article from 1997.
The first time you pick up a truly sharp knife and slice through food, it's a revelation. If you are like many home cooks who have been soldiering on with a drawer full of dull knives, you suddenly realize that cooking just got a lot easier. But even the most expensive, well-made knives lose their sharpness quickly when used regularly. And it doesn't take months, or even weeks: A knife can go dull in just a few minutes, especially if you're cutting through tough materials, such as bone.
What's the best way to maintain that snappy edge that makes light work of chopping and slicing? First, it's important to note that there's a difference between tuning up a relatively sharp knife and sharpening a dull knife. A so-called sharpening steel, the metal rod sold with most knife sets, doesn't sharpen at all: It's a tune-up device. As you cut with a sharp knife, the thin cutting edge of the blade can actually turn to the side, making your blade seem duller than it is. Running the knife blade over the steel, as most professional chefs do each time they're about to use a knife, simply realigns that edge and makes it straight again. It can't reshape a truly dull blade that's rounded and worn down. That's when you need a sharpener that can cut away metal and restore the standard 20-degree angle of each side of the edge.
To reshape the edge of a dull knife, you have a few choices, depending on the amount of effort, skill, and money you want to invest. You can send it out (inconvenient, even if you can find someone to do it). You can use a whetstone (very difficult for anyone but a professional). But the best option for most home cooks is to buy a tool (either electric or manual) that does most of the work for you.
Based on previous kitchen tests (March/April 1997), we've said that electric knife sharpeners are the most reliable choice for home cooks.
In 1997, we recommended the Chef'sChoice Model 110 for its easy, reliable sharpening of even the dullest knives. But since that time, new electric sharpeners have come on the market, both from Edge Craft, maker of Chef's Choice, and other companies. Are any better than the trusty machine we've used in the test kitchen for nearly a decade? Given that most electric sharpeners cost around $100, we thought it was also time to revisit manual sharpeners, many of which are available for a fraction of the cost. Is there an inexpensive gem out there?
Designing the Tests
Most sharpeners, both electric and manual, start their work with a coarse material and progress through stages of finer material to polish the edge. In general, the hardest material is diamond, followed by tungsten carbide, followed by high-alumina ceramic, followed by steel. Hardness isn't everything, though; the material is only as good as the angle of the knife being swiped against it, so the design of the sharpener is important. Some models guarantee that even an inexperienced user will get the right angle; other models make this more a matter of chance.
To level the playing field for our testing, we wanted to start with knives of equal dullness. Looking to simulate the
condition of knives that have been used for about a year without sharpening, we turned for advice to Stoddard's, a cutlery shop in Boston.
Although the company has been in the business of sharpening knives since the early 1800s, owner David Marks good-naturedly agreed to "dull" dozens of new knives over the course of our testing. On a 220-grit whetstone, he used a heel-to-tip rocking motion that mimics a chef's slicing, repeating this motion 45 times for each knife.
Marks also used a diamond slipstone to cut 1/16-inch notches in each blade near the heel and near the tip, where he said he often sees nicks appearing in chef's knives that have been roughly used—the kind of damage that might occur if you use your knife to hack through chicken bones or frozen foods.
Back in the test kitchen, we confirmed the knives' dullness by attempting to slice through a sheet of paper—without success. Following the manufacturers' instructions, we sharpened one knife on each sharpener and tried again to slice paper—with decidedly better results. We used the sharp knives to cut paper-thin slices of ripe tomato and chiffonade fresh basil leaves. In the final test, we measured how long it took to regrind the blades and smooth out those notches—a measure of how well the sharpeners could repair severe damage.
Electric Performance
As in our earlier tests, most of the electric sharpeners were up to the job. Only one, the Kershaw Electric Knife Sharpener ($59.95), failed to restore a good cutting edge.
The Waring PRO KS80 ($99.95) aced the paper, tomato, and basil tests, but it also cut a quarter-inch scoop, or swale, out of the heel because the knife dropped down onto the grinding wheel each time it was inserted. The heel of the blade thus no longer made contact with the cutting board, making it unusable.
The Presto EverSharp 8800, the least expensive electric at $39.95, restored a sharp but "moderately rough" edge to the knife that one tester described as "chewed up." Its loud motor stalled frequently and alarmingly, halfway up the blade, whenever we failed to keep a very light touch on the knife.
As for Chef'sChoice, our old model 110 ($79.95) performed well, but improvements on its newer siblings made them quicker and easier to use.
In addition to taking less time and trouble to reach a fine edge, the new models feature spring-loaded blade guides that allow no ambiguous wiggle room as they hold the blade against the sharpening wheels at the proper angle, replacing the trickier magnetic guides on the 110. The sharpening wheels on newer models also reach closer to the edge of the machine, ensuring that the sharpening extends all the way to the end of a knife.
Overall, we preferred the sharper, finer, more polished edge we got with the Chef'sChoice 130 ($139), the quietest and smoothest of the six electric sharpeners we tested.
It sharpened dulled knives quickly. We also liked its nonmotorized slot, which operates like a sharpening steel. Because many people have a hard time mastering the motion needed to use a traditional steel, this is an easy way to get the benefit of steeling.
To keep your knives in prime condition, you would keep this sharpener on the counter and use the built-in steel just as professional chefs do, right before—and every time—you use your knives. If money is no object, the Chef'sChoice Model 130 is our new electric sharpener of choice. If your budget is more modest, the 110 is still worth buying and will keep your knives in top condition.
Going Manual
Manual sharpeners share some similarities: In size, most are a little bigger than a desktop stapler, and the sharpening material used may be diamond, steel, ceramic, tungsten carbide, or a combination of these. In most manual sharpeners, the sharpening material is enclosed in a plastic or metal body, with one, two, or three angled openings for the knife to be drawn through. In a few models, the sharpener consists of a base that holds the exposed honing material, such as ceramic sticks, in a V-shape that the knife is drawn against.
Could manual sharpeners hold a candle to the electric models we tested? In a word, yes.
A few made admirably quick and thorough work of basic sharpening tasks and did so for a fraction of the price of an electric sharpener.
Coming out on top in our testing was the AccuSharp Knife and Tool Sharpener ($11.71), a simple plastic, hand-held device with a single tungsten carbide V-shaped blade.
The AccuSharp produces metal shavings as you draw it over the knife, which you hold against the countertop with the cutting edge up. Once testers got over the strangeness of "straddling" the blade with the sharpener, they found themselves "surprised at how quickly this works," noting that it was "really easy to use . . . I'm impressed."
The second-place model, Anolon's Universal Sharpener ($29.95), has three sets of ceramic stones, from coarse to fine, in a plastic housing that you fill with water to keep the stones from clogging with metal filings, a common problem with ceramic. Testers remarked that it was "very easy, no pressure required," to make the knife cut through paper ("like butter") and that it was "no effort" to slice through tomatoes.
Another single-slot device, the Chantry Knife Sharpener ($39.95), took third place.
Inside a sturdy metal casing, two spring-loaded steel rods are crossed at a 40-degree angle; the knife is pressed down as you saw it back and forth, as if cutting a loaf of bread. Its simplicity and sharp edge appealed to testers. Clearly the sharpening material was not what set these sharpeners ahead of the others. In each case they won over testers with a combination of good results and ease of use—not always a given with a manual sharpener.
Some of the low-rated models were nearly as expensive as an electric but took a lot more work and time to do the job. Other low-rated models were squeaky, jerky, awkward, or even useless.
No Smooth Operators
Now for the bad news: While some of the manual sharpeners could restore a respectable edge to the knives, not one removed the notches. In the attempt, we put the knives through each device 300 times, with no visible effect.
What does this mean? Manual sharpeners take off a good deal less metal than electric sharpeners and simply cannot remove enough, in a reasonable amount of time, to restore a nicked or damaged knife. For these knives (and undoubtedly you have several), an electric sharpener is the only choice.
Should you bother buying a manual knife sharpener? The better options will help you maintain new knives and are fine with moderately dull blades.
At $11.71, the appeal of the easy-to-operate AccuSharp is clear. But be prepared to pay a professional to handle your more challenging sharpening needs.
In the long run, an electric sharpener is a good investment, if you can make the initial cash outlay. If not, pick up a cheap manual sharpener. The best ones are far superior to steeling rods and will keep many of your knives in decent shape.
