When in terms of steak knives, what comes to your mind? A romantic date diner? or a warm family gather dinner? or a delicious gourmet with steak? All of these are good memories if you are meat lovers or barbecue lovers, I bet you own at least a premium steak knife set.
A delicate steak knife offers perfect cutting performance and can easily cut into all sorts of meat. When you enjoy your meal, don't forget your responsibility to care for your quality steak knives properly.
To avoid your steak knives becoming brittle and losing their luster over time and degrading their capability to cut foods. Here are 3 things you can do to extend the lifetime of your steak sets.
Tip 1. Wash your steak knives in a right way
Why washing is important?
After cutting cooked meat, if you want to keep your non-serrated steak knife in good condition, you have to clean it in the right way.
Though some blade steel is rust-assistant, you put the blade in a moisture environment for a long time, it will react with the oxygen in the air to make your blade rust. You do not want to own a rusty steak knife near the steak meat, right? So what you should do? Let's go on.
1. Avoid dishwasher
Even though some quality steak knives are dishwasher safe, it doesn't mean you should. When you put knives in the dishwasher, it increases the risk of breaking if it touches other hard metals. Thus, hand-wash is highly recommended. Washing knives with your hands are gentle on the metal allows cutting edge retention of your knife and increases its lifespan.
2. Dry the steak knives immediately after wash
Once you’ve gently washed the steak knives with your hands, make sure to dry them immediately with a clean and soft cloth. Don't overexpose steak knife to water. Because it requires more effort to wipe rust stain on your knives than avoiding being rust. At the same time. It is better for health.
Tip 2: Store your knives properly
Store them separately
After you finish a meal and wash your steak knives, you have to find a good place to store your knives safely.
Be aware that don't just place them in a drawer loosely, because doing like this will make your blades dull when your knives are in contact with other knives. So it is better to separate them appropriately when storing.
Find a box that offers a separately individual space to make sure that your steak knives do not have the chance to contact other knives from steel-to-steel.
Of course, you can also find a knife block or magnet holder to store your knives. Thus, you can easily access your knives plus it and save space in the kitchen. At the same time, it's a good display of your great kitchen.
Tip 3: Sharpening your steak knives regularly
Even though for some quality steak knives, if you use them properly, it can last a long time, you don't need to worry about sharpening, know some sharpening skills are necessary. Regularly and correct sharpening can ensure that your knives have a long lifespan. You can use sharpening steel or whetstone for sharpening. But with the whetstone being the preferred option especially for an expensive steak knife set.
Note that the straight-edge steak knives can sharp by yourself, if it is serrated-edge, it's better to sharpen them by an expert. The following sharpening skills are valid for straightedge knives. And we'll tell you how to sharpen with a whetstone:
How to sharpen with whetstone
- Please soak the whetstone in water before grinding until no bubbles come out of the whetstone.
- Grind the knife on the whetstone as shown in the figure below Where reciprocating motion is used for both sides of the blade.
- After grinding several times, please touch the other side of the edge being ground with the finger, if rolled edge is found, stop grinding that edge immediately And then turn the blade over to grind another side, keep grinding when rolled edge appears on the other side till the rolled edge disappears through feeling with the finger.
- Please always keep the knife at an angle of 15° or 20°with the whetstone: for chopping, the angle is 20°, for bone knife, the angle is 20°-25°.
- The fluid generated during sharpening is a kind of necessary grinding fluid, which needs no removal.
- During the sharpening, be careful not to touch the raised part of the whetstone surface. If the whetstone surface is not smooth the knife will not get sharp despite of your effort. When the whetstone surface becomes uneven, please press the surface against a flat rock to grind till it becomes flat and smooth.
In Conclusion
As you can see, it's not complicated to keep your steak knives in good condition. Just remember that: Clean it after each use and store it separately in a box or block and sharpen it regularly, the longevity of your steak knives can last as long as possible.
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