WHETSTONES AND WATERSTONES

Today’s post is about whetstones or aka waterstone. What is a whetstone? It is an alternative method to sharpening your knife. If you’re a cook, and you don’t have one of these. GET ONE. Your regular metal knife sharpening utensil cannot reach the level of fine tuning compared to a whetstone. They come in a variety of different grits. A low grit means it takes off more material and a high grit means it takes off less material. So for a very dull knife, start off with a low grit to get it sharper faster and if you want it even sharper then use a higher grit. The more grits the finer the tuning. Make sure you know what you are doing before investing in an expensive whetstone. Above is a great whetstone 1000/6000 grit made by shun. The whetstone has to be wet before use. Best way to use it would be to keep it in a container with the water level above the whetstone. When you need it take it out and place it on a wet towel on a flat surface. Place the sharp blade side on the whetstone and tip the back slightly upward. The lift of your knife should be around a 22 degree angle. There are many ways to sharpen your knife with a whetstone. Some sharpen the whole knife at once. You do this by placing the knife diagonally where the tip of the blade reaches the top corner of the block and the bottom of the blade matches with the opposite bottom corner of the block. Make sure the whole knife is within the margins of the whetstone. Stroke the knife up until the bottom corner reaches the top corner then work in reverse, pulling down until the top of the blade reaches the bottom corner. Do this about 100 times each side. When the whetstone dries up, apply a splash of water onto the whetstone and your knife and then continue. The other way to do it would be to sharpen by sections. 2 to 3 sections would be the best case scenario. I sharpen my knife by 3 sections. First 1/3 part of my knife i would sharpen 100 times. Then the middle of my knife 100 times and finish off with the remaining 1/3 of the knife 100 times. Make sure you use the entire surface of the whetstone. If you only use the middle surface, you will end up with a beveled shaped whetstone, which is a complete waste of a whetstone. Flip the knife over and repeat on the other side. Try not to apply too much pressure on your knife. Too much force on one side will leave the blade slightly tilted to the other side, meaning your blade is not straight. Use your fingers to graze the sharpened blade on both sides. If its smooth then that side is fine. If its rigid then sharpen that side lightly a few more times till its smooth. I use this the whetstone about once a week for fine tuning. The average cook at home would not need to do it as often as I do. I use my knife 9 hours a day 6 days a week. Sometimes I can go 2 weeks without using the whetstone but working with sushi, my knife has to be sharp at all times. Shun is a great brand but it also comes with a steep price. There are other whetstones 1000/6000 grit that cost 1/4 of the price of a shun whetstone. Here’s an example.