do you guys know that honing rods don't
actually sharpen your knives let me
explain so I wanted to make a quick
video on what honing rods do and how to
hone your knives correctly because they
don't actually sharpen your knife so
sharpening a knife is the act of
actually removing metal from your knives
edge and this is usually done with
things like a whetstone so when we
sharpen on a whetstone were actually
removing metal from the knife's edge
with the grip of the whetstone but with
a honing rod we're actually realigning
the edge that is set are you guys
starting to see the difference so after
you get a sharpened knife the edge
should start out as a perfect V but then
as we start to use it that edge is
naturally going to roll over on itself
might become indented a little bit and
it will get these microscopic little
jagged edges and it's not gonna be that
perfect V that we started with so when
this happens our edges usually still
sharp and it can cut things fine but
it's not as sharp as it could be and
you're not gonna want to go through a
full sharpening and start removing metal
because you may run out of a knife
pretty soon if you're doing full
sharpening every week and that is where
the honing rod comes in so the holding
rod is gonna take any of those
microscopic little jagged edges and
things and realign that into a v-shape
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so for me I'm using a ceramic honing rod
and these ceramic honing rods are
usually a lot finer than the typical
steel ones that you find in a lot of
kitchens with the steel ones they
actually do at the microscopic level
they can create kind of a jagged edge
that it cuts better but it's not truly
the edge that you want and you're gonna
have to steal more often the good thing
about the ceramic coating rods is do you
remember how I said that we're not
actually removing any metal which is
sharpening it turns out that's not quite
the case with ceramic with ceramic there
will be some weakened metal bits that
are on that edge that will be removed
what that means for you is that your
edge is going to be sharper and it's
going to last longer before you have to
steal again now to actually hone your
rods I'll give you guys a little bit of
a close-up so I'm doing is placing my
honing rod directly at 90 degrees and
then what I'm gonna do is try to match
the angle of my knife so for a lot of
knives they are usually set between 20
to 25 degrees for your typical knives
most Japanese knives will be around 15
degrees but if we're right here if we
come straight across that's 90 then if
we come about half of that we're about
45 then another half of that we're about
22.5 which is probably going to be
pretty close to your angle that was set
by your manufacturer and then what I
like to do is actually pull from my
shoulder so I'm keeping my wrist locked
I'm keeping my elbow locked and then I'm
just pulling with my shoulder so we're
gonna set the knife and then I like to
start and do five strokes on one side
only then I'll do five strokes on the
other side only and then I'll start
doing alternating to even out that edge
and hopefully get everything into
realignment so first I'm just gonna set
my edge about there and then do one
two three four five and very light you
really don't need any pressure just the
pressure of the knife against that is
enough and we'll do it so again let's
switch to the other side and make sure
you're getting the full length of the
knife and go one two three four and then
now is one I like to go back and forth
for usually about a total of 10 to 20
strokes 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14
15 16 17 18 19
so once you go through your first honing
like I said what I normally do is start
five on just one side five on the other
side then I alternate chokes for about
ten to twenty strokes it really depends
on the night but after you go through
your Honi just check the sharpness so
you just take a piece of newspaper or a
magazine or something and you want to
cut from the heel all the way down to
the tip because that's gonna actually
check the sharpness along the complete
edge of the knife versus if you just do
a little bit like this you're really
only testing the top portion of the
night you're not getting the full
sharpness of the night so we just take
our paper and just run from the heel all
the way down to the edge and if it cuts
through like that you're usually in
pretty good shape
now if you want to test another method
what you can do is just roll up your arm
sleeve and just see if it cuts some hair
so if I cut some hair that's usually it
means you're pretty sharp sometimes
it'll be able to go through paper nicely
and you won't be able to do the hair
test and if that is the case just go
through and sharpen it if you want to
get it sharper so now that you know how
to actually hone your knives how often
should you do it well this is really
gonna depend on how often you use your
knives so for me I usually should maybe
hone them about once a week and if I
notice it's just not cutting quite as
well as I want it to
I'll just run it through a couple quick
strokes on the honing rod and it will be
good to go I mean it takes all of about
30 seconds and I did want to point out
that you don't need to have expensive
stuff to have sharp knives in the
kitchen so this Mercer millennion knife
is actually only just 18 dollars and
this ceramic honing rod I think was like
25 or maybe 20 I have to double check on
Amazon but these both work really well
and you actually you will see this guy
in the whetstone video that I'm working
on and I think I'm actually just gonna
give it away so if you guys want to
subscribe and find out how to get this
as part of a giveaway when I do that
video be sure to do so but I'll leave
the links in the description if you guys
do want to check these out oh yeah
that's gonna wrap it up for the video
hopefully you guys learned a little bit
something about knives knives
maintenance what your honing rod
actually does and how
be a little bit careful with those steel
ones that can be coarser than we think
but hopefully you guys enjoyed I'll
catch you in the next one bass
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