KNIFE CARE
There’s hardly much you can do in the kitchen without a knife or with a bad knife. A knife is an essential element of the cooking process, just like food, frying pans and fire.
Since materials are subject to natural wear and tear during use, you should treat knives with the same care and attention as you do when storing and preparing food.
It’s as simple as that – keep your knife clean and sharp.
If you take care of your knife, your knife will take care of you.
- Don’t leave your knife dirty and/or in the water for long periods of time and don’t put a dirty knife in its sheath.
- Don’t wash your knives in the dishwasher as the lye will corrode the protective coating of the wood on the handle. Hand wash with a soft sponge and wipe the knife dry immediately. Hand wash with a soft sponge and wipe the knife dry immediately.
- Always use wooden or plastic boards when working with knives. When working on stone, ceramic, glass the knife will dull quickly.
- Professional kitchen knives have an acute sharpening angle for better cutting performance and easier grinding. You should therefore take care to protect the cutting edge from hard knocks and twisting movements.
- Do not chop large bones with the knives, do not slice frozen food or open metal tins.
SHARPENING KNIVES
You should sharpen knives on the stone with medium force, maintaining the specified angle. Our knives are sharpened at the angle of 15° on both sides.
For the sharpening of knives you should use stones with different grit sizes: the higher the grit size is the finer the work, and the lower the grit size is the coarser the work you’ll get.
The best way to sharpen knives is to use water stones with a grit size of 1000 to 3000, always starting with coarse grit stones and finishing with fine ones.
Wet sharpening (wet stone and blade) softens the mechanical action and results in a more even and gentle sharpening.
GRINDING WITH A MUSAT
In everyday use, it is sufficient to grind the knife with a musat sharpening rod. This can be done before working or during the cooking process.
However, you should always remember that sharpening with a musat is just a quick fix, and it only makes the knife a little sharper.
So, any knife requires periodic sharpening on stones.
It is important to maintain the sharpening angle and to wash the knife, the stone and the musat thoroughly after each procedure.