[0 - 2] - I'm Frank Proto, I'm a professional chef
[2 - 3] and a culinary instructor.
[3 - 4] And this is everything you need to know
[4 - 7] about taking care of and sharpening your knives.
[8 - 10] I did it. [laughs]
[10 - 13] I am a fruit ninja.
[13 - 14] I'm gonna show you different methods
[14 - 15] on how to sharpen your knives,
[15 - 18] maintain them and how to be safe while you use them.
[18 - 20] This is knife care 101.
[22 - 23] Grandma might have sharpened her knives
[23 - 24] by rubbing two knives together.
[24 - 25] It doesn't work.
[25 - 26] I'm gonna show you the right way.
[26 - 28] Chefs are always focused on having sharp knives
[28 - 31] because dull knives are a danger in the kitchen.
[31 - 33] Dull knives take more pressure to cut with more of a chance
[33 - 35] you're gonna slip and hurt yourself.
[35 - 37] A sharp knife gives you precision cuts
[37 - 38] that lets your food cook evenly.
[38 - 40] Taking about 20 minutes every few months
[40 - 42] to sharpen your knives makes all the difference.
[42 - 44] Let's get into how we maintain them.
[46 - 48] The way that I test the knife to see if it's sharp,
[48 - 49] is I turn it over,
[49 - 52] I take my thumb and I run it over the blade lightly.
[52 - 55] And what you'll feel is it drags on your fingerprint, right?
[55 - 57] You can feel that there's a little bit of a tug
[57 - 58] on your finger.
[58 - 60] If your knife was dull, it would feel like
[60 - 63] you're running over kind of like a nice, smooth bump.
[63 - 64] With things like scallions,
[64 - 66] you can actually hear a sharp knife, right?
[66 - 68] You barely hear a whisper when I cut.
[68 - 73] With a dull knife, though, it makes a much louder noise.
[73 - 75] Cause it's crushing the scallion and then cutting it.
[75 - 77] You can also see that there's a lot more moisture
[77 - 79] on my board when I use the dull knife.
[79 - 81] Whereas the sharp knife, no moisture.
[81 - 82] You can see that I have to put
[82 - 84] a fair amount of pressure on it and you can see
[84 - 86] that I'm getting tearing when I cut.
[86 - 88] So we're crushing our food rather than slicing it.
[88 - 90] And that's not what we want.
[90 - 93] With a sharp knife, you see how thin we can cut.
[93 - 94] If it was a dull knife,
[94 - 98] you would not get that beautiful paper thin slice.
[98 - 100] It's like a whisper.
[104 - 106] My favorite way to sharpen knives is by hand
[106 - 107] with a Water stone.
[107 - 109] There are other types of stones.
[109 - 112] There's an Oil stone and a Water stone.
[112 - 113] With an Oil stone, you need to buy a mineral oil
[113 - 115] that won't go bad or rancid. It's sticky.
[115 - 116] They get gummy.
[116 - 119] I find the Water stone is the easiest to maintain.
[119 - 121] All I need is some cool water.
[121 - 123] First thing I like to do with the Water stone
[123 - 125] is soak it, right?
[125 - 127] Generally, I like to soak my Water stone
[127 - 128] for about 30 minutes.
[128 - 129] Just put it in water.
[129 - 131] You'll see there's lots of bubbles.
[131 - 134] And that basically means that the Water Stone
[134 - 136] is absorbing some water.
[136 - 138] We soak the stone and it keeps our knife cool and lubricated
[138 - 139] when we're sharpening,
[139 - 141] I know my Water Stone is ready to use
[141 - 143] when I stop seeing lots of bubbles.
[143 - 145] And this looks like it's soaked pretty well.
[145 - 147] This stone has two grits on it.
[147 - 150] It has a 6,000 and a 1,000,
[150 - 151] 1,000 being a rougher grit,
[151 - 153] 6,000 being super smooth.
[153 - 155] I always start with the rougher grit
[155 - 158] because that's gonna basically give our blade shape
[158 - 159] and define our blade.
[159 - 160] Whereas the higher grit
[160 - 163] is gonna going to give it that nice sharp edge.
[163 - 167] I like to put my stone in front of me facing away from me.
[167 - 168] A lot of times, this is slippery.
[168 - 171] What you can do is you can use a wet towel underneath
[171 - 172] to keep this from sliding.
[172 - 174] This little piece is a guide.
[174 - 176] This slides onto the back of the knife
[176 - 179] and it gives you a really good angle for your knife
[179 - 181] that's probably more like a 17 or 18 degree angle.
[181 - 184] The problem I have with these guides
[184 - 185] is that I could lose this.
[185 - 187] This can end up in the trash, right?
[187 - 189] This ends up in the trash and then what do I do?
[189 - 190] If you're just beginning,
[190 - 192] by all means, use the guide.
[192 - 194] But as a professional, I like to do it without the guide.
[195 - 198] This is basically a 90 degree angle to the stone.
[198 - 201] We cut that in half, it's a 45 degree angle.
[201 - 203] And then in half again, it's about 22 and a half.
[203 - 205] It's not the angle for every knife.
[205 - 209] This is just how I teach it to get a really good result.
[209 - 210] And I like to just make sure
[210 - 212] that my stone stays a little wet.
[212 - 214] I'm gonna start with that angle.
[214 - 217] And I'm using my right hand to push down.
[217 - 220] I'm using my fingers to push down as well.
[220 - 223] I'm putting about three to four pounds of pressure on this.
[223 - 224] How do I know it's three to four pounds of pressure?
[224 - 226] I know what it feels like.
[226 - 228] I've been doing this for years, but if you don't know,
[228 - 231] you can always get a scale and push down and feel
[231 - 232] what three or four pounds of pressure feels like.
[232 - 236] Start at the tip, push the knife away from me,
[236 - 238] turn it over and pull the knife towards me.
[238 - 240] So there's a little bit of particles on the sharpener
[240 - 243] and that's basically just the knife kind of being worn away.
[243 - 244] Anytime I start to see them,
[244 - 246] I'm gonna add a little more water
[246 - 248] and I'm gonna go back into it.
[248 - 251] And I'm gonna use this side
[251 - 254] until I start to get a nice sharp blade.
[255 - 258] And once I can start to feel that it's getting sharp,
[258 - 259] that's when I'm gonna turn it over
[261 - 262] and go to the finer grit.
[262 - 264] It doesn't have to take a long time, right?
[264 - 266] And now what we're gonna do is we're gonna take this stone
[266 - 268] and we're gonna turn it over.
[268 - 270] And now I'm gonna go on the fine side
[270 - 271] and do the same thing.
[271 - 273] Make sure you make a mess.
[275 - 277] It's starting to feel good.
[277 - 281] I can feel that I'm getting that nice sharp edge.
[283 - 285] Do I look like a maniac when I do this?
[287 - 289] The method that I choose to sharpen my knives.
[289 - 290] I give it a five out of five.
[290 - 292] It definitely takes a little bit of skill and practice,
[292 - 294] but it's well worth it.
[294 - 296] All I'm gonna do now is run it over a steel
[296 - 297] just to hone that edge.
[297 - 298] And I think we're good to go.
[298 - 301] This piece of equipment is not a knife sharpener.
[301 - 303] We call it a honing steel it's for honing.
[303 - 307] Whenever I'm prepping every 10, 15 minutes,
[307 - 309] run my knife over the steel, put it back.
[309 - 311] It's part of my kit.
[311 - 314] Basically what this does is it takes your blade
[314 - 317] and keeps your blade tuned up between sharpenings, right?
[317 - 318] You could take a dull blade
[318 - 321] and run it over this honing steel for a month
[321 - 323] and it's not gonna make it sharper.
[323 - 325] But what it does do is it takes our blade
[325 - 328] that's fairly sharp and it tunes it up.
[328 - 330] Your blade has like micro serrations
[330 - 333] and they kind of get a little twisted occasionally.
[333 - 334] And when you run it over the steel,
[334 - 337] it lines them up again and keeps your blade sharp.
[337 - 338] The way that I use the honing steel
[338 - 340] is I'm basically starting at the same angle
[340 - 341] that I sharpen with.
[341 - 344] And I start at the bottom of the knife with a bolster.
[344 - 348] I'm gonna run it over and down, over and down.
[348 - 349] And basically I'm just gonna run it over
[349 - 352] until I feel that that edge is nice and sharp, right?
[352 - 355] Some people don't want to cut towards themselves
[355 - 356] or hone towards themselves.
[356 - 359] You can go like this away from you.
[359 - 361] Or some people will actually put on the table
[361 - 363] so they can hone straight down.
[365 - 367] I find that serrated knives are really hard to sharpen.
[367 - 369] I'm not sure people even sharpen their serrated knives.
[369 - 372] When I was a cook, I use this knife a lot
[372 - 374] and basically when it got dull,
[374 - 375] I would probably recycle it.
[375 - 377] But what I do when I'm using serrated knives
[377 - 379] is while they're sharp,
[379 - 381] I tend to hone them a little bit more.
[381 - 386] And basically what I do is I get in between the serrations
[386 - 390] and I just kinda run my knife at that angle
[390 - 391] that I sharpen at.
[391 - 392] And then on the flat side,
[392 - 394] I'm just gonna run my flat side over, right?
[394 - 396] This doesn't sharpen the knife,
[396 - 398] but it does keep it in tune.
[398 - 401] On the Franco meter, honing is super important.
[401 - 402] It's a five out of five.
[402 - 405] Let's move on to other methods that I prefer a lot less.
[406 - 408] This is a manual sharpener.
[408 - 411] And basically what this has is two ceramic or metal blades
[411 - 414] in it that you drag your knife through.
[414 - 415] And I tend to use this with knives
[415 - 417] that aren't really expensive
[417 - 418] in order to use the manual sharpener.
[418 - 420] What I'm gonna do is I'm gonna hold it firmly.
[420 - 422] It has kind of sticky things here.
[422 - 423] There's a course and a fine.
[424 - 424] And what I'm gonna do
[424 - 425] is I'm gonna hold it straight up and down
[425 - 428] and drag it across.
[428 - 429] Now, what I find is this,
[429 - 432] if you can see I'm getting metal shavings, right?
[432 - 434] Which I don't really want in my food,
[434 - 436] metal shavings do not equal food.
[436 - 439] And this is why I don't use it with my good knives,
[439 - 440] because basically what this is doing
[440 - 443] is it's shaving the metal down to get it sharp.
[443 - 446] So if you have a knife that's kind of not super expensive,
[446 - 449] drag it straight across a couple of times,
[449 - 452] go from the course to the fine.
[452 - 456] It also is very noisy and kind of like gives you the shivers
[456 - 459] and it gives you an okay sharpness.
[459 - 460] But whenever I use this method,
[460 - 463] I'm constantly going back and resharpening,
[463 - 464] it's not a lasting sharpness.
[464 - 467] So on the Franco meter scale of one to five,
[467 - 470] I kind of give this, I don't know, maybe a two.
[470 - 473] I just don't think that this is the best way
[473 - 475] to maintain your knives properly.
[475 - 478] Another option is one of these do hickies [laughs].
[478 - 479] This is an electric sharpener.
[479 - 481] It has two abrasive wheels in it.
[481 - 484] You know, anytime we get into abrasives
[484 - 485] that are moving really fast,
[485 - 489] I get a little worried that the knife's gonna get heated up
[489 - 490] and lose some of that temper.
[490 - 492] What temper is is they heat treat the knife
[492 - 495] and they're heat treated to keep them not only flexible,
[495 - 498] but also for them to hold their edge really well.
[498 - 500] So this, I feel it might heat it up
[500 - 501] and that's why I kind of stay away from them.
[501 - 504] This little machine, there's two sides.
[504 - 506] There's the left side and the right side, you turn it on.
[506 - 508] And all you do is start at the bottom,
[511 - 512] pull it through.
[515 - 517] And this model will shut off when it's ready it says.
[519 - 520] The sound is horrible.
[520 - 521] It's kind of like, you know,
[521 - 524] giving me a little chills up my spine.
[524 - 527] This is like a Mad Max orchestra right here, right?
[527 - 529] That's what Dubstep sounds like?
[529 - 532] If that's what Dubstep sounds like I don't like it.
[532 - 535] These old ears don't like the Dubstep.
[535 - 536] Once it goes down to low,
[536 - 538] they say to run it through the honer.
[539 - 540] I don't know what that does.
[540 - 542] It sounds to me like it's just dulling the knife,
[542 - 545] not my favorite thing on a Franco meter,
[545 - 547] this is basically a one as far as I'm concerned.
[547 - 548] If I can give it a zero, I'd give it a zero.
[548 - 550] Maybe I'm gonna give it a zero.
[551 - 553] If someone put my good knives through this,
[553 - 554] we might have a problem.
[554 - 555] Don't come to my house and do that,
[555 - 556] I don't want to go to jail.
[556 - 558] Here's a method that I've seen in a lot of restaurants.
[558 - 559] I've seen cooks do this,
[559 - 561] and it's not necessarily sharpening the knife,
[561 - 563] but it's kind of giving it a nice hone.
[563 - 566] So I'm looking to use that unglazed portion of the plate.
[566 - 569] So if the whole thing is glazed, it's not gonna work.
[569 - 571] And that's what you're gonna do.
[571 - 572] It's kind of like one of those methods
[572 - 575] that it might work for you, it might not.
[575 - 576] This knife is pretty sharp.
[576 - 578] I feel like it's honing it pretty good.
[578 - 581] I'd say this is probably a 6,000 grit.
[581 - 582] And I can feel that the knife
[582 - 583] is just getting a little sharper.
[583 - 585] On the Franco meter, I'm gonna give this a three,
[585 - 586] three and a half.
[589 - 590] Now that you know how to sharpen the knives.
[590 - 592] Let's talk about proper use and cleaning.
[592 - 594] Part of taking care of the knives is using the right tool
[594 - 596] for the right job.
[596 - 597] I would never get a chef knife
[597 - 599] and try and peel something with it.
[599 - 601] Not only is it inefficient, it's dangerous.
[601 - 603] You never really wanna take a chef knife like this.
[603 - 606] That's got a nice, fine blade and like open a can with it
[606 - 608] or try and chop bones with it.
[608 - 610] That's why we have cleavers and can openers.
[610 - 613] The other important consideration with knives
[613 - 616] are the type of materials you're cutting on, right?
[616 - 619] I've seen like old grandmothers have glass cutting boards
[619 - 622] and you never want to use a hard surface.
[622 - 625] You always want to use either a plastic, a rubber,
[625 - 628] a bamboo or wooden cutting board
[628 - 630] when you're cutting your food.
[630 - 632] If you use a hard surface like metal or glass,
[632 - 634] it definitely dulls your knife
[634 - 636] and you'll have to sharpen it more often.
[636 - 639] Another quick tip to keep yourself safe is this,
[639 - 641] get yourself a wet paper towel,
[641 - 643] put it onto your cutting board
[643 - 645] and it'll stop your cutting board from sliding.
[645 - 647] So you can see the bottom cutting board
[647 - 650] doesn't have the towel, but the top board
[650 - 652] is really firm 'cause it has the towel under it.
[652 - 654] Another important step in maintaining your knives
[654 - 655] is cleaning them properly.
[655 - 657] A couple of things that are no nos, right?
[657 - 660] I do not put my knives in a dishwasher,
[660 - 662] putting your knives in the dishwasher
[662 - 663] heats them past a critical point.
[663 - 665] It ruins the temper of the knives
[665 - 667] and the knives will not hold an edge.
[668 - 670] The other thing that I do as far as safety is
[670 - 673] I never put a knife into a sudsy sink.
[673 - 677] If I put this in the bottom of this bowl with all the suds,
[677 - 678] I can't see it.
[678 - 680] And if I walk away and someone reaches into that sink,
[680 - 681] they're gonna get cut.
[681 - 684] So knives always get put on the side and are cleaned by hand
[684 - 686] and put away immediately.
[686 - 688] This is how I like to clean my knives.
[688 - 690] I have some warm, soapy water here.
[690 - 691] I get a sponge.
[691 - 692] Sponge goes in the water.
[692 - 693] I get my knife.
[693 - 695] I'm holding it away from me.
[695 - 698] What I like to do is not run along the blade
[698 - 700] 'cause this will cut through a sponge.
[700 - 702] I like to run the top of the blade, right?
[702 - 704] Or I like to go on the sides,
[704 - 708] but I'm always paying attention and being very focused
[708 - 709] when I do this, right?
[709 - 711] I dry my knives as soon as I washed them.
[711 - 714] So they don't get rusted or stained.
[714 - 716] Look at that, it's gorgeous.
[716 - 718] Our knives are clean and dry.
[718 - 721] The last step for maintenance is how we store our knives.
[724 - 726] The way you store your knives is really important
[726 - 727] in the maintenance of them.
[727 - 729] If you store them improperly,
[729 - 731] they'd get dented and dinged
[731 - 734] and they will lose their edge really quickly.
[734 - 735] If you put them in a drawer,
[735 - 737] they're gonna clatter around and beat each other up.
[737 - 741] And you'll end up with chips and dents and dull knives.
[741 - 744] Two of the ways that I like to store knives, the block.
[744 - 746] Generally, I don't have a block in my house
[746 - 749] just for the fact that it takes up a lot of counter space.
[749 - 751] But if you want to store knives efficiently,
[751 - 753] a block works really well.
[753 - 754] They're easy to get to.
[754 - 756] The other way that you can store them
[756 - 757] is on a magnetic strip.
[757 - 761] These hang on the wall, the knives stick to them,
[761 - 764] keeping the blade safe and away,
[764 - 765] they're not banging into each other
[765 - 767] and they stay nice and sharp.
[767 - 769] As a chef, we're always on the go.
[769 - 770] And when we take our knives with us,
[770 - 773] we use a knife roll and this is my knife roll.
[773 - 776] It is heavy duty canvas with kind of a plastic interior.
[776 - 777] And I have all my knives here.
[777 - 780] They're stored in individual pockets.
[780 - 781] So they don't bang against each other.
[781 - 784] It's compact, it's easy.
[784 - 786] It's a quick grab and go when you're on the move.
[786 - 788] I hope you learned how to be safe,
[788 - 789] keep your the knife sharp
[789 - 791] and maintain your fruit ninja status.
[791 - 795] I want you to remember dull knives are dangerous knives,
[795 - 797] dull knives suck.
[797 - 800] Keep your knives sharp or I'm coming to your house
[800 - 801] and I'll sharpen them for you.
[803 - 804] People are gonna call me on that one [laughs].