The Sharpening Stone

Appears in
Professional Cooking
Professional Cooking

By Wayne Gisslen

Published 2014

  • About
A stone is the traditional tool for sharpening a chef’s knife. The best electric sharpeners do an excellent job of sharpening chef’s knives, but many models wear away too much of your expensive knife without making a good edge. Modern professional knives are much harder than the old carbon steel knives, so they are more difficult to sharpen on a stone. Nevertheless, using a stone correctly is a valuable skill.
Follow these guidelines:
  1. Hold the blade at a constant 20-degree angle to the stone, as shown in Figure 7.1.
  2. Make light, even strokes, the same number on each side of the blade.
  3. Sharpen in one direction only to get a regular, uniform edge.
  4. Do not oversharpen.
  5. Finish with a few strokes on the steel (see next page), and then wipe the blade clean.