This Machine Is Like Having a Professional Knife Sharpener at Home
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Though I’ve been a professional chef for the better part of the last decade, the knives in my home kitchen are not fancy — they include Giada de Laurentiis knives I got from Target while in college — and they are all perpetually dull, getting virtually no attention but for a few occasional swipes along a honing steel. TheJapanese steel knivesI keep in my knife kit for work either get sent off for professional sharpening atKorinor are maintained by my chef husband using a whetstone, as he is better at these things than me. When I heard about the relatively new T-1, Tormek’s home version of its professional electrical knife sharpener, it seemed worth a try for rehabilitating my home knives in spite of its steep price.
I was intimidated by the Tormek T-1 at first. It’s a hefty piece of equipment, taking up about as much space on my countertop as the base of my Vitamix and looking — to me, a person who does not work construction — something like an industrial sander. (It comes assembled and ready to use.) There was a learning curve I had to get over, too, and I was worried about ruining my knives if my hand positions didn’t match the illustrated ones in instruction manual’s diagrams — and I procrastinated until I really could not deal with my dull kitchen knives any longer (I’m currently writing a cookbook and developing recipes almost every day that require lots of chopping and slicing).
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There are two sides or wheels, one for sharpening and one for honing, linked at the top of the sharpener by an oak handle. Like a whetstone, the Tormek T-1 sharpens the entire bevel — the sloped, angled surface of the blade — not just the edge. To sharpen, you set the desired edge angle on the guide with the machine off. Then you plug it in, flip the switch on, slip the knife into the guide, and move the length of your knife against the diamond grinding wheel. Then you do the same with the knife facing the opposite direction. You use the honing side to polish the blade as an essential last step (sharpening a knife creates burrs along the blade that need to be polished off).
Once I got over being intimidated and gained confidence in sharpening one of the cheap knives, I found that the T-1 was incredibly easy to use. Unlike sharpening a knife on a stone, you don’t have to put in any elbow grease. For the Giada knife, I set the guide to 20 degrees (the standard for westernchef’s knives). It took me about five minutes to get it as sharp as it was when I purchased it 20 years ago.
For well-maintained knives, five swipes on either side of a knife’s bevel usually completes the job. For my extremely dull knives, I started off with ten passes on either side, essentially creating a new edge. After sharpening, I moved over to the honing side. It took me a minute, but I eventually figured out that it’s easier to move the machine around on my countertop than move my body around the machine when I was making passes or trying to hold a knife steady.
A tip: Use the marker it comes with (or a Sharpie) to mark the bevel of your knife as recommended, especially when you’re just starting to use the T-1. I traced a line across the whole bevel. You’re trying to remove all the marker line as you sharpen, which means you’ve set it to the correct angle. You should also hear a “sizzle” noise if you’re doing it right.
I found that the T-1 works really well for most kitchen knives. Though they won’t fit inside the guide, you can also use it for cleavers (you have to remove the guide for this). I’ve also used it with great success on my mezzaluna. What made the T-1 an absolute game-changer for me was when I realized I could use it to hone the blades of my ancient food processor (though not the serrated ones — do not try to sharpenserrated knivesor blades ever with this). The speed at which the T-1 works is fine for sturdier and cheaper knives, but I wouldn’t use it on my thinner, much more expensive Japanese knives. I still prefer to leave those to the professionals.
Other tools we like for keeping a sharp edge
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A chef-recommended steel for honing.
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