Even the most high-quality kitchen knife won’t perform well once an edge becomes dull. We all know the importance of periodically sharpening your knives. As you do this, you may not be able to tell when your knife is sufficiently sharp. Here’s how to test the sharpness of a knife.
Try Cutting a Challenging Ingredient
Cutting a tomato is the ultimate test of a knife’s sharpness. Their thin slick skin, rounded surfaces and delicate insides are hard to slice with finesse using anything but the sharpest of edges. A sharp knife will glide through the skin without crushing bruising or crushing the insides. If you find yourself using too much pressure and doing a sawing motion, this also indicates that your knife is too dull.
Try Slicing a Piece of Paper
An alternative method for how to test the sharpness of a knife is to try slicing a piece of paper. You just need a standard piece of white printer paper, which makes this check a simple one to do. To carry out this test, hold the paper out in one hand and attempt to move your knife through it starting from one of its edges. A sharp knife will glide cleanly through the paper, while a dull one will instead leave a jagged cut or fail to make a slice at all.
Should you want to go further with this paper test, you can use a page from a magazine as well. Magazine paper is smoother than normal paper, making it more slippery. You can choose to follow the same process as you do with printer paper when performing the cut. Alternatively, you can roll the magazine paper into a tube before trying to slice it. Either way, if your knife passes through the paper effectively, you’ll know that you’ve achieved maximum sharpness.
Purchase handmade Japanese kitchen knives and sharpening stones to maintain them by going to Chubo Knives online. We are a Japanese knife store that supplies professional chefs and home chefs with the tools they need to excellently prepare food.