How often should I get my kitchen knives sharpened?
That’s a difficult question to answer. Every person uses, stores, and washes their knives differently. This means that one person’s knife can become dull quicker than another person’s knife even if the two people are using the exact same knife.
My recommendations?
Do not use your knife as a scraper on your cutting board. Knives edges are designed to slice and cut, not scrape. If you have to scrape food off your cutting board, turn your knife over and use the spine of the knife instead of the edge. Another option? Use a bench scraper. Click HERE to see an example if you’re not sure what a bench scraper is.
Store your knives on a knife magnet or use edge guards or sheaths or sayas. Use anything other than a knife block. Knife blocks are typically filthy inside. Also, if you look at the slots of almost every wooden knife block you can see where the edge of each knife has been hitting the slots over and over. This dulls the knife with every pull from the block and every return to the block.
Hand wash and immediately dry your knives. The harsh chemicals and abrasives in dishwasher soaps can dull the super thin edge of a knife over time. Also the water jets cause your knives to bang around and bump into other utensils and into dishwasher racks. And finally, the very hot and moist environment can wear down and warp your handles, cause rust spots on your blades, and prematurely weaken the adhesive holding your knife handles in place.
Buy a ceramic honing rod from me for maintaining your sharpened edge. I have them in stock but not on my website yet. It’s what we use in our home kitchen. Contact me if you’d like to pick one up.
Having said all that, I usually recommend every 3-6 months.
