How to Sharpen a Knife with a Whetstone | Kenji's Cooking Show

(As always, I don't receive anything from those knife sales, and I never do any kind of paid sponsorships or paid endorsements of any kind.)

[cliang]

Using your book "the food lab" to raise up your gopro was next level product placement

[justgivemethetruth]

4:06 - The most useful thing I have heard after watching about 12 knife-sharpening videos. Thank you. Width of the knife divided by 4 . tan( 15 degrees ) = 0.27 or about 1/4

[princeofcats]

“...easiest way is to just use come basic trigonometry.”

So I’ll just guess. Got it.

[eireyouok]

Started watching Kenji during lockdown and I'm happy to say I'm here to stay

[ZainxIqbal]

I swear every time I watch a Kenji video I add something new to my never-ending list of "things I'll buy when I get rich" haha. Knives look gorgeous. Great video as always, man.

[wolfingitdown]

Whetstone knife sharpening has to be one of the most meditative things I do regularly outside of cooking itself

[Mark-jqen]

There's a good tip on finding angles by using a sharpie to fill in the edge up to the bevel. Do 1-2 passes in the whetstone, then take a look. If you're too high, it'll just get rid of the tip of the edge, if you're too low it'll just get rid of the "shoulder" of the bevel and not the edge.

[ΚώσταςΜπέκος-ιι]

A nice and easy way to flatten your stone at first, before you pass it with the fixer, is to "divide" the wet stone in nice little squares with a pencil, then use the fixer. When all the pencil marks are gone, your stone is as flat as you'll get with the fixer and ready for sharpening.

[cooperkane]

I just recently bought a whetstone. Perfect timing Kenji!

[markgebo]

Gave this a try after watching and all I can say is I’ll never have a dull knife again. As a total noob I was able to get my knife sharp enough to shave. Thanks.

[tree]

wtf. i watch your channel all the time and had just bought a couple wetstones today to sharpen my knives and came to youtube for a this simulation is breaking down.

[sciencebug]

literally everything you need to know about knives and sharpening, in 14 minutes!
<3 i love it

[andytunnah]

I've watched so many sharpening vids and they all leave something out, this is the first one where as someone who has never done it before can get it. Also you record it over your shoulder! Everyone records it facing the opposite way making it SO difficult to replicate.

[MCWilson]

This is one of the best videos JKLA's ever published. Seriously, thank you.

[Justin_Alfeche]

Knife sharpening was a skill I refined earlier in the lockdown! I even brought my kit when visiting my folks and in-laws (partly for my benefit too =p).

Japanese Knife Imports has great videos for anyone wanting to go more in depth on technique or tutorials for different knives.

Good stuff though, Kenji!

[mfreeman]

A bit of advice for you folks who are nervous about getting started—don't be. Get one of your cheaper knives and tilt it up until the cutting edge is on the stone and just get started. Take it slow and get the feel of it. You really can't do it perfectly at first. If you get the knife somewhat sharper, you're doing great. If not, don't worry, you're not alone. Watch another video or two and get back on that horse. As you get more practice you'll do better and it'll be more satisfying. It's a great feeling to keep your knives sharp.

[RyanTaylor-pigq]

A little advice for you Kenji, try sharpening in sections. For one thing, doing so will allow you to keep pressure over the stone at all times, a substantial improvement over trying to press on the end of the blade and the handle. Pressing on the edges, as you do here, is much harder to control, and could distort the steel during sharpening. Also, there's a lot of misinformation about sharpening angles around on the internet, but the two largest German knife manufacturers, Wusthof and Henckels, factory sharpen to 14 and 15 degrees per side respectively. Believe it or not, knives made with very hard steel (much harder than VG-10) will frequently be sharpened to 8-12 degrees per side! Also, you mention that a single bevel knife should be sharpened 90/10... unfortunately, this is wrong. The flat face (or more typically, concave face) of single bevel knives should remain flat. Look up uraoshi sharpening for more info!

If it so happens that you have a yanagi ba that you've sharpened the back of (and it sounds like you might), I have a little shop in oakland that does repair on knives. I'd be happy to try to help.

[scottrowe]

Great primer on using a whetstone to sharpen high-quality kitchen knives. As always, Kenji, thank you. And a special thanks to Barney. Stay safe, be well and take care of those you love.

[justinvia]

Barney brought tomatoes and bread in that bag. In my head I like to imagine Kenji's bacon friend came over and they all enjoyed some BLTs after shooting this vid

[joer]

I knew there was a reason I haven't used my new whetstone I bought months ago... I was waiting on Kenji to tell me how to use it :)