Wondering! how many times can you sharpen a knife? Your knives should be sharpened every few months depending on how often they are used.
There are general guidelines we are going to explore to help you know how often you should sharpen a knife to maintain its perfect sharp blade.
However, I would recommend having your knives professionally sharpened once or twice a year and hone your knives after every 2-4 uses at home. For regular home usage, you should hone the edges of the blade with steel once or twice a week.
However, the amount of usage, the type of food you cut, and the quality of the knife all factor into how keeping your knives in top working condition.
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How many times can you sharpen a knife?
A knife needs to be sharpened every 1-3 times a year. The process of sharpening a knife is simply restoring the damaged or dull edge of the blade. During this process, you are slowly shaving off to restore the edge of your knife.
Also, you should note that sharpening a knife is not the same thing as honing. Honing a knife is done with steel, by realigning the microscopic teeth in the blade after use or after sharpening the blade to make it feel sharper.
Honing should be done every 2-3 times you use your knife to ensure that your knife stays in good condition and slow the dulling process.
With the few tips discussed below, you will know how many times you should sharpen your knife.
Read: How to Sharpen a Knife with Household Items (9 Easy Items)
Why Do You Need To Sharpen Your Knife?
Yes, you absolutely need to sharpen your knives because a dull knife is more dangerous than a sharp one.
A dull blade can slip, which becomes even more dangerous when you add more pressure to cut.it can still hurt you. It’s important to always keep your knives sharp for safety reasons.
When Should You Sharpen Your Knife?
A knife should be sharpened, every few months to avoid over-sharpening. Then periodically use a sharpening steel to hone the knife.
Honing the knife regularly will keep you from having to sharpen the knife frequently, which will damage the blade.
How to test the Sharpness of your knife
One of the best ways to test the sharpness of your knife is by slicing a paper. Fold a piece of paper in half, lay the blade against the top edge, gently slice effortlessly, if it doesn’t, catch and tear then your knife sharp. If it does, try honing your knife.
What happens, when You Sharpen Your Blade Too Much?
Every time you sharpen your blade, you remove bits of steel from the edge of the blade to create a new edge.
Each time a knife is sharpened, a small amount of steel from the blade is taken off, weakening the blade and eventually causing it to lose the original blade shape.
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Here are four tips to help you sharpen your knives in a professional manner.
- Maintain a consistent angle when sharpening. An angle between 10-20 degree will sharpen the edge of your blade well enough to cut through meat and other soft materials easy.
- Apply moderate pressure. Apply less pressure and Keep a light grip on the knife while sharpening. This will help keep a constant angle.
- Tool sharpening options. There are different opinions on the right sharpening tool to use, from manual and electric sharpeners to whetstones and water stones. Water stones are very effective and is believe to be perfect route to go.
- Test the blade after sharpening. You need to be sure whether the edge of your knife is sharp of enough.
Read: Can you Make Smoothies in a Food Processor? (Let’s Find Out)
Tips on how to keep your knife in good condition.
- Remember to hone your knife regularly.
- Hand wash your knife. The dishwasher doesn’t have a healthy relationship with knives. So don’t use.
- Dry and carefully store in the knife box immediately after washing.
- Be careful about the background that you cut on. They can blunt and damage the knife. The perfect background to cut on is a chopping board.
Read: Can I use a Blender Instead of a Mixer?
Conclusion
A standard knife needs to be sharpened a few times in a year, with honing in between. With this in mind, you’ll be able to understand how many times you should sharpen your knife.
Sharpen and Use your knife with care and avoid cutting through hard things for the long durability of your knife.
I hope this article was useful and I was able to bring a bit of clarity to your understanding of this topic. Thanks for sticking around!