Why don’t chefs clean the knife after they hone it?
You can check the answer of the people under the question at Quora “chefologist knife sharpener“
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Written by: Daisy
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Why don’t chefs clean the knife after they hone it?
You can check the answer of the people under the question at Quora “chefologist knife sharpener“
About Daisy
Presumably, they do. Most often, though, what we see a chef doing isn’t sharpening his knife, but honing. This is usually done with a steel or ceramic rod upon which he slides his knife’s edge up and down. As a knife is used, the blade’s apex or edge will begin to be bent over causing it to become dull. By regularly honing the blade, the edge is straightened and realigned.
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I would guess you’re refering to those that use a steel to resharpen their knives.
I always used a steel, and then gave the knife a wipe, but I’ve known plenty, that don’t.
The steel doesn’t technically shapren a knife, it just helps to restore the edge. So it’s less likely using this method that you’d get much metal dust.
When using other methods to sharpen, your filing a new edge. This is when you get the dust, as you’re actually removing metal.
As someone said, this should ideally be done after shift, if using a whetstone etc.
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After you sharpen the blade, cut off the end of some fruit like a lemon or cucumber; keep slicing off tiny shavings until you no longer see the dark stain of microscopic metal particles.
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I was professional cook for 35 years. I always washed and wiped my knives off after sharpening. During service sometimes a steel was used to redress the edge. It didn’t require wiping because a steel is magnetic and will keep micro-filings off the knife. So there is a difference between sharpening on a stone with oil/water and steeling to redress the edge. I wore two steels out during my career along with many knives.
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I don’t know. Lazy or not trained properly.
I went to a Chipotle out here when they first opened and was in line waiting for food. I saw a work sharpening his knife right over the cutting table. He then grabbed and started to cut it. Right over the table. He didn’t wipe the knife off or the table. That’s gotta be a health violation, right?
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If you know a chef that doesn’t remove metal slurry from his knives you need to report him to the manager at the very least and the restaurant to the health board, and tell your friends to boycot the blace. Metal poisoning is no joke. And is absolutely unacceptable and completely unprofessional.
The only potential exception is a butter smooth steel being used to realign the edge before a cut. A smooth steel doesn’t remove metal only straightens the edge.
But a stone or a diamond steel…knife needs cleaned afterwards.
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Question as posted: “Why don’t chefs wipe their knives after sharpening?”
Every response says that chefs do wash and wipe dry their knives after sharpening.
Indicating how contrary to fact questions starting with “Why (false statement)?” Is so common in Quora.
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I have never heard that before. The only thing I can think of is that they’re in a hurry. And that should only occur if they’re using a honing rod*, also known as a sharpening steel, right before using the knife. But the latter is a misnomer because you really can’t remove enough metal with those few light strokes to sharpen metal. The real purpose of the rod is to straighten, or align, the blade’s edge after it has warped from use.
Does a honing rod sharpen a knife at all? Perhaps minimally, if it’s made of something harder than the knife. But real sharpening needs a whetstone or some other source of friction to shave off the metal in a more controlled manner. You’d also need more pressure as well as more strokes. And of course, the abrasive material needs to harder than the knife. Popular materials include diamond dust, carbide and ceramics. And ideally, the angle should be precisely controlled to match the original blade (e.g. Asian knives differ from European knives, and some Japanese knives have only one bevel, that is, one side is straight).
Because metal is removed from the knife, you indeed need to wipe and even wash the knife. A wet towel often turns black even after 4–5 wipes, indicating the presence of metal dust. There is much less dust after using a honing rod, but washing or wiping is still warranted. I assume that you are referring to honing since diners rarely see a chef actually sharpen their knives but it’s common to see them use the rod right before slicing.
*BONUS TIP : in a knife sharpening video, one foreign chef repeatedly mispronounces “honing rod” as “my horny rod,” which elicited a lot of mockery. So make sure you pronounce it correctly. Or say, “sharpening steel,” even though it is technically incorrect.
Great video from America’s Test Kitchen explaining the honing rod and reviewing various rods.
Japanese/Asian knives generally have a thinner edge than German/European knives. That makes them sharper and more precise but also more fragile. Some Japanese knives also only have one bevel, where the other side is straight. This is great for precision and fileting fish, but hard to cut straight for the untrained. I was gifted a $150 Shun single bevel knife which I’ve only used twice because I can’t control it.
My dream knife, currently on sale for $1099. None of my friends took the hints, but I did get a set of Cangshans for Christmas though. But not the $1199 Thomas Keller set, which they claimed was out of stock. Cheap bastards! *
The famous award-winning Cangshan Thomas Keller set. Unlike European knifemakers, which are steeped in tradition, Cangshan has only been around for a few years and is still largely unknown among casual cooks. And they’re Chinese, famous for cheap quality products and but not for knifemaking (they’re actually designed by a Chinese-American but unabashedly manufactured in China). But since bursting on the scene, their attention to science and aesthetics has won several major international awards as well as patents. Many experts now place them on par with the best European knifemakers. Even Thomas Keller, arguably the world’s most-awarded chef, has endorsed them.
* I’m just kidding. Prior to receiving a Cangshan set, which I’d guess is valued around only $300, my most expensive knife was a $25 Victorinox and a Kyocera ceramic santoku. And a whole bunch of Dollar Store knives from college. I simply don’t have the time to cook too much (but I do love reading about the science of cooking). In fact, my friends only gifted me that set because I recently injured myself using a dull knife. That particular knife struggled cutting through a tomato — I sh*t you not. The forementioned $150 single-beveled Shun is for show only because I find it unusable.
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I was not aware that chefs do not wipe their knives after sharpening. How do we know they don’t? We only see snippets of their actions. I personally wipe my knife after sharpening and assumed that everyone else did as well.
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I have seem chefs steel their knives on television without wiping them. While not quite the same, there are bits of steel from the knife floating around on the knife surface. Most get stuck in the groves of the steel used to true the knife, but some remain on the knife.
I wipe down my steel and rinse my knife and wipe it dry. If you pull the just-steeled blade along the edge of a paper towel, you will get a line of grey particles of steel dust.
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Only a disgusting amateur doesn’t wash the knife before using it on food. If they do this get up and leave the restaurant because they probably don’t properly wash their hands either. 🤮
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I don’t know where you’re getting your information from, but the only chefs I’ve worked with that didn’t at least wipe the knife off afterwards were already sloppy, dirty pieces of shit to begin with.
The majority of professional cooks/chefs will absolutely clean their knife afterwards.
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sounds like you used an electric knife sharpener… Most chefs use a steel to hone the edge of the knife after each cutting…. No metal dust
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I have never seen or heard of that before, as it would be reckless. When you sharpen a knife you have metal and stone fragments covering the blade. With each progression of stone fineness, the fragments are finer, but they are still there. It absolutely needs to be wiped off and then the knife dried with another cloth. You also have to clean your knife before switching grits, or you will damage the finer stone.
Side note: quality water stones can easily cost more than a handful of good knives, so you want to treat them with respect.
With normal steel, all it does is straighten the edge of the knife, however, some high carbon steels and all diamond steels will remove metal from the blade, (I would never recommend diamond for knives you care about, they are nasty things and can destroy a blade in the wrong hands).
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“Honing” a knife isn’t actually honing or sharpening it. A honing steel realigns and fixes the small curls that develop in a knife blade after it has been used. Honing removes no material, like sharpening a knife does. It just straightens the edge out a bit.
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Yes, sharpening a knife with a water stone creates a burr of fine metal shavings. That is because you are actually removing some of the metal. What I have read is that you gently wipe the blade against the stone while holding it relatively flat. Washing the knife will get rid of it too.
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Most of the chefs you see sharpening their knives are likely just using honing rods. These rods don’t remove any material, they just serve to reallign the edge when it gets folded or bent. They straighten the material without removing any, so there are no shavings.
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You should absolutely clean and sanitize a knife after sharpening. During the sharpening process you will notice a mixture of very fine metal, stone, and water that will have the consistency of a paste. You do not want to remove that during the sharpening process. That helps to achieve your final edge.
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I wipe the steel and the knife. And the stone. No excuse not too. Whether it’s stone or metal, not enough to make anyone ill but who wants grit in their food. Unless maybe they sharpened their knives when they were dirty and contaminated. Yuk.
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I have known four professional chefs in my lifetime so far. One was a nationally recognized instructor and chef, and the other three worked in the better restaurants of the time here in the Lehigh Valley. All of them always wiped the filings off the blade before use. My cousin Dusty, an instructor, made it a point with me. Home cooks were more at risk simply because every item sliced we consumed. Dusty was adamant about safety, and rightly so. This does not mean a…
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(photo: breakthrough sushi. )
I was trained in Sushi/Japanese kitchen (in Los Angeles and San Francisco).
For sharpening a knife, I was taught the following:
Never to sharpen your knife during the business hours. Sharpen it either before or after your shift. It is said a recently sharpened knife can transfer the subtle flavor of metal to the ingredients.
It is also common practice to wash and dry the knife after being sharpened.
I use whetstones to sharpen my knives, never used honing rod to “sharpen” a knife, as it does not “sharpen.” It adjusts the bent blade.
Even if a chef used a honing rod to adjust the knife, the knife should always be washed and dried before use, in my opinion.
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Every chef and butcher that I’ve ever seen has wiped their knives after sharpening. They do it even after “steeling” their knives, which isn’t the same as sharpening. “Steeling” is when you use a round “steel” to realign the edge — you’re not really removing any steel, just bringing the very fine edge of the blade back into alignment with the rest of the blade.
Now, is there any harm from not wiping the blade after these operations?
Probably not much. The lubricant for sharpening is likely either mineral oil or water, neither of which is harmful. If the chef uses something odd like kerosene, that’s a different story, but why would she?
And ingesting trace amounts of steel is harmless. There are many metals that are harmful — lead and cadmium, for starters — but they are not used in the production of steel.
If they’re are using a stone, there could be a little slurry from the stone itself, but I really cannot imagine anyone not wiping that off.
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I don’t know where this is coming from. I think even “Dexter” would wash his knife after sharpening.
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Poor training – I was taught to wipe a blade – my father was a butcher and he wiped his blades – Which Chef’s are you observing this behavior in?
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Most honing steels have a magnet in it that collects the filings.
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We do. Occasionally during and always after after the sharpening process. The caveat is one must pay attention to the “slurry” on the stone, which may call for more and/or thicker water and less grit (stone and metal alike) or the reverse
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There is a difference between sharpening and honing. Sharpening you knife will take off tiny bits of your knife blade. This is then cleaned off with a towel. Honing on the other hand is just realigning the angle of the blade. There are no filings or lose pieces of metal from honing alone. You are just simply re-shaping the blade angle to make it cut evenly.
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