How to Sharpen a Knife

Featured Pro: Curtis Stone
Category: Cooking
Time: 2:35


CURTIS STONE: Impressive handling lets you take the wheel with precision and confidence. Let me show you how to perform the same way in the kitchen. I’m Curtis Stone, and this is your GMC Trade Secret.

Life’s made so much easier in the kitchen when you’ve got a nice, sharp knife to use. So I’m going to show you how to sharpen your knives from home, and then it’s really, really simple. You’ll always have a sharp knife.

Look, what I’ve done is I’ve got myself a stone. And it’s the first thing you have to do. Now, when you get the stone, you’ll see it’s got two sides. One’s course and the other side’s fine. What I’ve done is just soaked it in a little bit of water, which is going to mean that the stone stays nice and damp while you’re working with it.

So put it just on a cloth like that on your board at that angle, okay, so just straight up and down. Grab yourself your knife and put your finger on one side and your thumb on the other, and you’re literally just going to keep it at a 20-degree angle and just push the knife all the way through. And then you do the other side as well.

Okay, now, once you get into a bit of a rhythm, you might do two or three strokes on either side, like that; just do a few. And then turn it over and a few in the other direction, just keeping it the whole time at that 20-degree angle.

All right, now, once you’ve done seven or eight strokes on either side, what we’re going to do then is turn the stone over and really hone it down and make it really nice and fine. Now, you’ll see this gray stuff that’s coming onto your knife. What that is is the stone and the metal of the knife wearing away at each other. So what you’re trying to do is get this sharper by making it thinner, okay. So you’re actually wearing away some of that steel. If your knife gets a little bit dry, you just pick up a touch of water and just drizzle it back on.

What happens next is you pick up your stone. I’m just going to dip it back in the water, and you’ll see a lot of that gray stuff will wash away. And that’s, like I said, the steel off your knife and also the stone. And then we’re going to start on the fine side. See, that’s a much lighter sound. So once you’ve got 10 or so strokes on either side of the knife, it’s ready to go – almost. There’s one more process, and it’s called honing. So for that you need your steel. And I’m going to show you that in a separate GMC Trade Secret. This process happens after the sharpening.

But the very first, important stage is to get yourself a good, sharp knife. And don’t be scared to try it at home. Get yourself one of these stones. It’s really, really simple.

I’m Curtis Stone, and that’s your GMC Trade Secret.