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Showerthought: my whole knife sharpening technique was backwards for years
Spent 3 years putting a 20 degree angle on my chef's knife and wondering why it never held an edge until a guy at the Portland farmers market told me Japanese knives need 15 degrees and it clicked.
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jakewhite2mo ago
Old Bob Kramer said once that most home cooks use too steep an angle. I read that in Fine Cooking years ago. He said the edge just folds over if you go too narrow for the steel type. Now I check the hardness before I pick an angle.
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ivan7742mo ago
Do you really check the hardness before each sharpening? That seems like a lot of work for a home cook. Kramer's got a point about thin edges folding, but most folks just need a consistent 15 degrees and call it good.
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the_max2mo ago
That 20 degree mistake sounds painfully familiar. I did the exact same thing with a Wusthof I got for Christmas years ago, spent months grinding away at 20 degrees on both sides before I realized it was way too thick for the blade. It was like a lightbulb moment when I finally matched the angle to the steel.
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