The Best Way To Sharpen & Clean Knives (And The Worst) | Epicurious 101

Chef Frank Proto demonstrates and explains everything you need to know in order to properly sharpen, clean, and store the knives in your kitchen. Frank breaks down his preferred methods and go-to accessories for every aspect of knife maintenance, giving you all the knowledge you need to keep your blades sharp and ready for action.

Learn more with Chef Frank on his YouTube Channel ProtoCooks!
and follow him on Instagram @protocooks

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0:00 Introduction
0:46 Is Your Knife Sharp Enough?
1:42 Sharpening With A Water Stone
4:54 Honing The Edge
6:46 Sharpening With A Manual Sharpener
7:55 Sharpening With An Electric Sharpener
9:17 The Ceramic Plate Method
9:47 Use & Cleaning
12:02 Storing Your Knives
12:22 Knife Block
12:35 Magnetic Strip
12:47 Knife Roll
13:06 Conclusion



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[epicurious]

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[ProtoCookswithChefFrank]

This was a lot of fun to shoot. Thanks to the Epicurious team for always making it a good time.

[eldibs]

Frank isn't just a skilled chef, he's a skilled teacher too. He explains everything so well.

[claytonfs]

Another tip that's not in the video, but might be in the comments already, is to NOT scrape food off the cutting board with the blade of the knife. I like to use the back of the knife to push food into the pot, etc.

[olk]

I ordered the Sharp Pebble waterstone you recommended, and watched the technique section of the video a few times. Great tip on using a food scale to get the right finger pressure. I’ve never sharpened anything before, but WOW it worked great. The tomato test was a success. Thank you for putting this instructional together! Outstanding demo.

[HansMaximum]

Pro Tip. If you do drop a knife into your soapy water, use a clear glass tray or bowl and put it into the water (without filling it). It will push the soap suds out of the way and allow you to see the bottom of the sink like a see-through kayak.

[Jorf]

There was one extremely important detail that was omitted here... This demo was done with a medium hardness (German) knife. For German steel, I totally agree with all of the details Frank mentioned. However, if you have a harder Japanese knife (or any high-carbon steel knife), you can't hone it with a steel honing rod like he showed. With some hardness levels, you can get away with a ceramic honing rod... but for many Japanese knives, you just really can't hone it. When those need a touch up, you have to go to a stone. That being said, those harder Japanese knives also need fewer touchups because of how hard they are.

[wladfiggs]

Hey Chef, great video!
Note from a mech engineer here who worked only about a decade with metals quality: 8:00 Don't worry about the temper on the blade, the temperature you will get with these grinders are not going to be high enough to mess up with the temper.
True, you can get burns from the hot knives after sharpening, so safety is indeed a concern. In my experience, people tend to resist up to approx. 120 degrees (50 C) on the palm of their hands (please, don't use this as a temperature check), and a grinding process may get WAY higher than that, but you'd need it to get to the 400-450 degrees range (200-230C) on a 1/16 -1/8 inch (1.5-3 mm) blade to start messing around with it. If it's stainless Steel, the temp can go even higher.

[thomascorner]

One trick that I find works really well to sharpen serrated knives is a string with a circular cross section (like a shoe lace) and some metal polish (i.e. in paste form). I tie one end of the string to a steady object, put some paste on the string, tension it by pulling on it with one hand, and with the other hand run the knife back and forth at an angle (of course) so that the string slides in each serration. I did this for a set of old table knives and they came out very well. :)

[fashionmwah]

I see Frank. I click.

Anyway, he’s a great teacher. I learned a lot in the first minute already!

[jamesf]

My mother in law came to visit for a month one time. She likes to cook, but like Dale Doback in Step Brothers I told her “DON’T TOUCH MY WÜSTHOF KNIVES…DON’T TOUCH THEM!’ I showed her the Costco set of kitchen knives she was welcome to use. I went away on a business trip for 3 days, and when I returned I found some of my knives missing. I asked about them and she told me they were in the dishwasher. I immediately took them out and also discovered the tip on one was a little mangled. Upon further inquiry, I discovered she used the knife to pry difficult lids off of glass jars. I was close to going out into the garage to get my shovel and some lye! 🙃😉🤣🤣🤣 She wanted to go to Target to buy replacements. But I said “no” and took her to Sur La Table, where I originally purchased the knives, and a few hundred dollars later she learned to NEVER use my personal kitchen knives again!

[gerardlongobardi]

As a Boy Scout, we visited the Grohman Knives factory in Pictou, NS. They taught us to sharpen our knives EXACTLY like this. A few years later in a competition, I used this method and was blasted because it wasn’t “Scout book” method. After feeling the sharpness of the blade, and relaying the story of how I learned it, I received a perfect score! That was some 40 years ago, and technology hasn’t improved it!
Great video!

[austintorney]

I just want to say thank you! I have had nice knifes for a while now and I thought I was doing a good job of sharpening them. I realized after I watched this video and tried the techniques out that I was wrong. In two minutes he was able to explain proper knife sharpening techniques better than any of the 25 minute videos I’ve watched before. So thank you!

[elizabethparedes]

As a 60 yr. old culinary student this video is great to share with my classmates. I have not sharpened with a wet stone but can't wait to give it a go. The cleaning and storing I have always done as you have demonstrated, and my friends always said I was too picky, LOL! Thank you, Chef!!👨‍🍳

[sigfreed]

I’ve watched a lot of whetstone sharpening videos, thank you Chef Frank for making it so much less complicated than everyone else! Great video!

[PHawk-nozn]

Frank, I’ve been watching a bunch of vids on sharpening kitchen knives. I appreciate your approach in saying a bunch in a short amount of time. All solid info - Thanks!

[angusmac]

Everything you've said in this video is bang on and any good chef out there would agree.I remember cooking when I was 18 and was very fortunate to be working at a Michelin star restaurant, though I didn't appreciate it at the time.I remember a chef showing me how to sharpen knifes with a water stone. He then took my knifes(Henckels set of 3) while I was prepping for evening service and put the most ridiculously sharp edge on all 3 of them. He came back and said "give those a try"....I was blown away. I didn't think a knife could get that sharp and cut with such little effort and accuracy.

[daviddesouza]

Packed with Easy to follow Instructions, Systematically presented resulting in maintaining (perhaps) the most important kitchen tool safely and for a lifetime. Thanks a million Chef!

[loriboufford]

Sir, you're great at teaching knife knowledge. Clear, relatable, complete. Thank you.

[hugheffo]

Thank you for this. You are the first person who explained in simple plain English how to sharpen a knife. Myself, like a lot of other people, thought the steel sharpened the knife, now I know better.