If you value your cutlery as a professional chef, an avid cooker, or even a homemaker that does quite a bit of slicing and dicing, a good investment in a sharpening steel will not only prolong your cutlery sharp edges, but also prolong the lifetime of your cutlery in general.I have various type of knives: From the common western style cutlery (beveled edges to serrated) to Asian style (butcher and specialty for specific cutting). From the cheap toss-away-after-one use brand at Walmart to break-the-bank Global knives. It doesn't matter what type of knife I have, once I've sharpened the knife once, the steel continues to keep it razor sharp. I'm not joking about the razor part either. I recently became my own victim, among other friends and family members, of the "razor" aspect of my knives for being a bit careless in the kitchen. The moral learned is, "Don't have your kids hanging around the kitchen when you're busy cutting foods at a fast pace."
The stainless steel body matches all of my knives in the kitchen, including the Kapoosh stainless steel block for easy knife management. Never buy knives that has plastic handles. The food matters will bind onto the edges around the handle like magnets after a short usage period. The steel's body has no crack or edge opening that allows food/metal shaving pieces to get lodged into after long usages. The length of the sharpening steel is perfectly long enough to sharpen any knife cutting edge up to 8 inches in length with perfect honing. If you're quick and skillful, you can sharpen the knife up to 10 inches with proper wrist action.
If your knives are dull, best to invest in a good sharpener for the type of knives you have. For serrated knives, I use the Samurai Shark (cheap and very effective in sharpening cheap knives, cleavers, and anything that has an edge). For more expensive knives such as Henckles, Wusthof, Global, best to purchase the sharpener designed for those knives. My favorite has always been the Minosharp Plus for the rough and fine sharpening, and then use the steel to increase the sharpness even further and keep it for quite a long time. The sharpening diamond laced body on the steel is 600 grit. Most steels are in the 200 to 400. Quite rough on the fine cutlery. 600 grit is perfect to keep the sharp edges sharper. My Global knives were the last of my collection. I sharpen my knives with the steel after every use, and since my wife don't know how to use the steel well, I sharpen the knives after her every 5 usages. The edges are still razor sharp, just like when we first use the knives for the very first time. If there's a steel that has 800 or 1000 grit, I'll be one of the firsts to get it.
Trust me, it's an excellent investment to purchase a great steel for your fine cutlery. It may be a bit pricey as an initial investment, but saving that you will have using the steel to preserve your cherished cutlery is priceless. Where was this steel 10 years ago?
Just a word of warning. Try to stay away from cheap diamond coated steel, or even ceramic steel. Cheap diamond coated imitation and ceramic will ruin your blades rather than sharpening them since they're quite rough on the fine edges. It's like using sand paper to sharpen your edges versus using a good sharpening stone. This steel should be used as a baseline for all other diamond coated steel. Global's diamond coated steel is the best on the market so far, but way too pricey for an average cook like myself.
Buy The Ultimate Edge Model 10NSS Stainless-Steel Handle Diamond Sharpening Steel Now
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