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Caring For Your Kitchen Knives

15 Jul 2020, 4:28 PM

Caring for your
kitchen knives

At The Restaurant Store, we have a broad selection of restaurant kitchen knives available from a number of leading brands, such as Giesser, Global, Victorinox, Wusthof, and Sabatier to name just a few.  A good quality kitchen knife is one of the most essential pieces of kitchen equipment you can find - it's a basic. But few chefs understand the importance of proper knife care to prolong the usable life of their blade.
Here are some simple tips for you to help keep your blades as sharp as possible, and make them a long-lasting investment that you can always rely on.

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1. don't put them in the dishwasher

It's tempting to want to throw your knives in the dishwasher with all your pots, pans, and crockery, but if you want to preserve the integrity of your blade it's important to resist that temptation. The high humidity and heat levels of an average dishwasher cycle can warp the material of the handle over time and begin to erode the coating on your blade. Similarly, it will be prone to banging up against other things in the dishwasher, which can gradually start to dull it. The solution is to make sure you always wash your knives immediately after use with hot water and a gentle cloth.

2. Use the right knife for the job

In a busy kitchen, it's easy to simply reach for the nearest knife closest to hand, but the reality is that it can dull your blades. For example, it's important to use a proper cleaver or butchers knife for cutting joints, a boning knife for de-boning meat, and carving knives for carving cooked meat. Specific knives are made to unique tolerances given the job they're designed for - so using your general purpose chef's knife for hacking through a thick joint may end up dulling the blade, for example.

3. Preventing rust

Most knives are treated with a rust-resistant coating, but over time this can wear away leaving the metal prone to rusting. One solution is to use mineral oil - after washing and gently drying your blade you can apply a thin sheen of food-grade mineral oil with a soft cloth. Doing this two or three times a year can help prolong the life of your blade. It's also important to wash your knives immediately after preparing ingredients or cutting food - do not let food dry on the blade of your knife. Wash them under warm water, gentle soap, and pat dry before returning them immediately to your knife block.

4. Don't over-sharpen your blades

It's important to regularly sharpen and hone your blades with knife sharpeners - these processes both make the blade edge sharper and remove any imperfections in the blade surface respectively. It's essential, however, that you don't over-sharpen your blade as you can begin to eat away at the material. Kitchen knives should be sharpened on a regular basis, but take care to avoid doing so excessively. If you have any doubts, it may be worth getting a specialist to sharpen them for you.


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