There are two main sharpening angles. 20 degrees is typical american knife. Some overseas chef knived get into 15 degree edges. Lower the degree, the sharper the edge, but the quicker itll dull against bone or stone or use overall. Pay attention to the angle when you buy a sharpener. You can get basic pull through sharpener for cheap, good for starter as the sharpener is set at the angle, just make sure the sharpener angle matches the knife angle, and if it comes with course/fine or whatever, only ever use the fine. The course sharpeners are for when you ding or dent the blade edge and they remove a lot of metal.
If you get into knives and want more, then i would move to a proper sharpening stone with a wedge or jig to hold the angle for you. Thisll let you get a feel for what angle to hold the knife at. After a while you can freehand without the wedge or jig.
Dont go too high dollar on your first knife, an 800$ japanese knife is incredible but the difference is not all that apparent to you from a 40$ knife and its better to fuck up a cheaper one learning to use and sharpen it, hence i recommend victorinox as the starter knife (15 degree on most of those). Everyones hands are different so what works for one person doesn’t fit everyone. Typically a chefs knife will do what most people want, 8" to 10" to start out, pick your favorite knife out of your cheapo kohls knife block and note its shape and length and go from there, get a single decent knife dont get a high dollar block of them as you wont use most of those. Dont overthink it or worry about it
Thanks. I don’t know how to sharpen my knives, and I’ll likely go for something under $20 or so. I’ll have to see what I can do to sharpen them
There are two main sharpening angles. 20 degrees is typical american knife. Some overseas chef knived get into 15 degree edges. Lower the degree, the sharper the edge, but the quicker itll dull against bone or stone or use overall. Pay attention to the angle when you buy a sharpener. You can get basic pull through sharpener for cheap, good for starter as the sharpener is set at the angle, just make sure the sharpener angle matches the knife angle, and if it comes with course/fine or whatever, only ever use the fine. The course sharpeners are for when you ding or dent the blade edge and they remove a lot of metal.
If you get into knives and want more, then i would move to a proper sharpening stone with a wedge or jig to hold the angle for you. Thisll let you get a feel for what angle to hold the knife at. After a while you can freehand without the wedge or jig.
Dont go too high dollar on your first knife, an 800$ japanese knife is incredible but the difference is not all that apparent to you from a 40$ knife and its better to fuck up a cheaper one learning to use and sharpen it, hence i recommend victorinox as the starter knife (15 degree on most of those). Everyones hands are different so what works for one person doesn’t fit everyone. Typically a chefs knife will do what most people want, 8" to 10" to start out, pick your favorite knife out of your cheapo kohls knife block and note its shape and length and go from there, get a single decent knife dont get a high dollar block of them as you wont use most of those. Dont overthink it or worry about it
Thanks, I’d like a 20cm long (8 inches) chef’s knife. I’ll have a look at Victorinox.
Thanks for the advice around sharpening, I assumed everyone used sharpening blocks but apparently not. I’ll keep the degrees in mind.