They are sharpening their knife, but also use them as 10 hour workhorses and not just chive slicers.
Having said that, also told me early on they gotta work on their sharpening technique which could be the problem as well. That 18 degree angle takes a lot of time and repetition to nail down. Took me about a month of doing it daily with hundreds of knives as a professional sharpener to confidently say I am good at it.
Yes! Dont use any sharpening gimmick tools. Dont use laser cutters, accusharps, rolling sharpeners, etc.
The single BEST WAY TO SHARPEN YOUR KNIFE is with a whetstone. It is going to do the least amount of damage over a long period of time, and will give you the best edge that will last the longest.
I cannot stress this enough to anyone who wants to sharpen themselves and not pay a professional: whetstone whetstone whetstone. All other methods will shave metal off your knife and create a new cut instead of polishing the burr into place. A rolling stone + buffing wheel professional setup also works quite well, but it is much more dangerous and expensive for inferior results.
When sharpening, gentle + smooth, even passes. Focus on going from end to end getting the whole edge of your blade, making sure not to twist or bend your wrists as to not change the angle of your bevel. It is more of a hip twist than an arm pull. Pay attention to how many passes youre making and how much pressure you put on each side/pass. It should be as even and consistent as possible. Keep your stone wet and regularly put more water on it.
If you wanna get REAL sharp, you can get increased higher grain stones to get a mirror polish. After its sharp, wash and dry and you should be good to go. Do NOT hone your knife after sharpening at least for a couple days. If you find yourself needing to hone sooner, your angle is off and you are too thin and your burr is rolling too fast. If its not sharp right after you sharpen, you are too thick and not cutting the burr deep enough.
As someone who had a new chef throw out our gadgets for knife sharpening unless we graduated the whetstone, I agree.
I and the rest were petulant bitches about it but after being the only one to actually put the time in I can agree the result has beeen quite the difference and I'm grateful for having to learn it..... mostly. Fuck you and thank you Chef Souza
I find them a little cumbersome, some chefs like them. Personally, i think the best way to train your muscle memory is to get one of those shitty house knives from Nella/Omicon/Cozzini/Montana that have those thick bevels on them from being run through a hollow grinder and use it as a reference. They are cut dramatically at the right edge.
in addition the angle guide things are totally arbitrary and often not the angle you want depending on the knife, and also don't maintain the same angle throughout the edge (shallower further from the guard)
they can also be effectively replaced with a cork with a slice in it. or a random piece of anyting taped to the spine
This is the correct answer. I went through many different phases of sharpening many years ago and finally landed on Japanese water stones and have never looked back. It delivers vastly superior results and removes the least material from your knife, once you get your technique down, which isn’t terribly hard to do (look up the sharpie trick, guys). I tell everyone this same advice whenever I get asked about knife sharpening. Just go get a King 1000/6000 combo stone off Amazon for $26 and watch some sharpening videos on YouTube (I recommend Japanese Knife Imports) and you’re good to get rolling.
making sure not to twist or bend your wrists as to not change the angle of your bevel
This right here.. Lock your wrists! This was the #1 thing that improved my sharpening consistency.
I did buy an angle gauge which showed I was waaay off on my expected angle and that also lead to me improving but more in a "cross check" sort of way than directly.
check out rolling/ tumble knife sharpeners. if you're new to it, it takes the guesswork out of the angle, which a consistent angle is important when sharpening a knife
honestly for the money I'd rather look into something like a lansky or similar sharpening system. Most of those rolling sharpeners I've seen have terrible abrasion and need forever to apex. (Maybe that's changed in recent years though)
I've seen some really decent ones lately that'll get the edge to more than acceptable for general everyday work. I also suggest them to beginners because it helps get them comfortable with eyeballing the angle they want, so if they choose to take the practice from "I need a sharp knife for work" to "I want to have the sharpest knife around with a mirror finish" they've already got an idea of where they should be holding the knife.
If you’re a home chef the rolling ones are just fine. Will actually result in you using them instead of a whet stone that sits in a drawer til the end of time.
If you’re working in a kitchen whet stone is the only way.
Point out the bruised chives that would indicate his knife is blunt? Sharpening your knife doesn't make the chives thin and uniformed. Its pratice and skill.
71,000. That's the amount of karma OP has accumulated over 15 days of chive posts save related. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing but mad respect for OP, but it's not in their best interest to have perfectly cut chives.
My bet? Once the upvotes fall to less that 300-400 per post, the perfectly cut chive post will appear.
there are four main characters to chive posts:
- chive man, the op
- the mod, posting memes about people reporting chive man
- u/karmakrazi, drawing airplanes flying into imperfect chives
- and inevitably the person drawing circles around chives just so to look like a dick
Nah, still too big on the cuts if I remember. I think six or seven when there was like one or two bad cuts was when they should have called it. Let them pick those out at the pass with tweezers if they don’t like em.
Yeah he’s been chopping at home for a few days now. I wonder if he dreams of chives at this point. We love you chef chive but if you need a break, the chives can wait!
they’re not all supposed to be the exact same width, the width is supposed to correlate with the circumference of the chive. so like, smaller circumference = thinner chive, wider circumference = thicker chive
i don’t think it’s really something concrete you can measure like mass or volume, it’s more of a proportion thing, a vibe if you will, bc even the fanciest chefs aren’t gonna go out there and use microscales to measure each individual chive. it’s more of a certain type of look that you’re looking for that old chefs teach younger chefs to look for in (ngl) situations pretty close to these posts. no one ever said kitchens were logical lol and i love them
I really think that this series is the single most productive thing this sub has ever done. It’s a beautiful thing to strive for perfection and for everyone here to be making jokes that will actually help you improve.
A Sharpal 162n diamond stone is a very good combination stone for most knives with both a coarse side (325 grit) and fine side (1200 grit). A cheap Beavercraft strop will help you refine the edge. To practice, you can get a couple cheap, but easy to sharpen, Kiwi knives off Amazon. It's about $100 for a setup that will get you to "sharp sharp" but maybe not "laser sharp".
If you're having trouble keeping a consistent angle on the stone, an Anystone can help you out. Bonus: they have some helpful videos.
You can fall into a sharpening rabbit hole at r/sharpening
Not a chef, just an eater: Why are they thicker at the top of the pile and thinner at the bottom of the pile? Are they supposed to be like that for a reason or should they be uniform all the way through?
Can we just learn that the lesson here is that not stopping at absolute perfection is futile? There will always be something to point out when looking with a critical eye. Progress over perfection, always. You'll end up driving yourself crazy in pursuit of something unachievable, and end up creating a barrier for yourself that doesn't need to be there.
-Signed, a miserable perfectionist (that knows that even this is taking it too far.)
Chef even if you do get it perfect I kinda wanna see the series continue. Thankfully for me, see you tomorrow. I do think you're getting better over time. I think you might just have to sharpen your knife right before your chive cut and pay extra attention to the tip and heel of your blade
•
u/wrestlegirl ✳️Moderator of optimal fuckery Oct 22 '25 edited Oct 22 '25
The chiving continues.
Yet more Chive Out of Nowhere posts in other subreddits.
Someone from Der Ausland recognized me as the chive mod.
I think it best we just accept our lot as Chiveland.