Honing a knife cares for the shape of your knife, while sharpening focuses on refining the dullness of the blade.
You may have seen a long metal or ceramic rod included in a knife block or in the hands of a professional chef as they sharpen their knives. This tool is called a honing steel, honing rod, or sharpening steel, and its used to hone knife blades—not sharpen them. There’s a difference, we promise.
Honing and sharpening are similar in that they’re both techniques used to maintain the edge of your kitchen knives, but their practice and purposes are fairly different. Heres what you need to know to keep your knives in fighting shape.
You may have seen a long metal or ceramic rod included in a knife block or in the hands of a professional chef as they sharpen their knives. This tool is called a honing steel, honing rod, or sharpening steel, and its used to hone knife blades—not sharpen them. There’s a difference, we promise.
Honing and sharpening are similar in that they’re both techniques used to maintain the edge of your kitchen knives, but their practice and purposes are fairly different. Heres what you need to know to keep your knives in fighting shape.
During the course of putting normal wear and tear on a knife, your blade will eventually start to microscopic develop dings and dents—small enough that you can’t see them with the naked eye. While a couple of these dents are indicative that your knife is well-loved and getting used regularly, too many dings or dents these can actually misalign your blade, preventing your knife from cutting properly.
Another way of thinking of this is that knives have microscopic “teeth” that make up the blade, which will naturally get bent out of shape while cutting and slicing. This is a completely normal issue that happens with knives of any caliber, and honing helps to realign those “teeth”.
All that to say, the process of honing a knife on a honing rod realigns the edge of your blade and smooths out any dents or damage to create a newly smooth micro-bevel along the edge. This gives your knife a newly sharp feeling and improves its performance. Unlike sharpening, honing can be done regularly—as often as every time you use your knife or as infrequently as whenever you remember every few months.
Knife sharpening is the process of using a sharpening stone (also called a whetstone) or electric knife sharpener to remove steel from a dull knife blade. This creates a newly revealed, sharp edge to make cutting easier. In other words, you are filing the blade down and removing a layer of dull steel in order to make it sharper.
Sharpening should be done much less frequently than honing—once every 6 months to a year is generally enough for knives in a home kitchen.
Honing does not actually sharpen the knife, but if done properly, the knife will seem sharper because the blade is now realigned.
When to Hone and When to Sharpen Your Knives
“When you think you need to sharpen, you probably just need to hone it on a steel. I would do that first,” says Sergio Menchaca of Texas Sage Forge. “When you sharpen, you’re actually removing some of that steel. Honing just realigns it.”
The old adage rings true: dull knives are dangerous ones. This is because dull knives require more pressure to cut, which can increase the chance that the knife can slip and injure you. Sharper knives are actually safer to use than dull ones, as a sharp knife can pierce the surface with less pressure needed.
A good rule of thumb is properly cared for knives should be regularly honed and less frequently sharpened. Since sharpening removes metal from the edge of your knives, we recommend sharpenings only when honing no longer seems to restore a blades sharp edge.
You can test your blades’ sharpness by slicing through a tomato or a piece of paper while holding it in the air (but be mindful of your fingers!). A sharp knife will cut right through the paper and slice through the tomatos delicate skin with such little pressure that the fruit wont be squashed or damaged.
If your knife is dull and doesn’t pass either of those tests, it’s likely beyond honing and time to sharpen.
Because Cheng cooks a lot, her rule of thumb is simple: She sharpens her knives weekly and then hones them before each use.What kind of honing rod should I buy?
You can think of it like cutting your fingernails versus filing them. “Cutting (sharpening) reestablishes a new edge,” explains Hannah Cheng, one of the sisters behind Mimi Cheng’s in New York. “Whereas filing (honing) smooths out that edge.” In other words, if your knife edge is pretty sharp, honing can help keep it that way.When should I hone my knives?
The wand chooses the wizard, Harry. While you can hone most chef’s knives, “not every rod works with every steel,” Morocco says, adding that your honing rod must be harder than the knife steel to have an effect. For example, German-style knives are softer and can work with any rod, but Japanese blades are super hard and need the big guns: ceramic.
A familiar scenario: You’re about to make an obscenely large amount of Broccoli Cheddar Soup With Cheesy Croutons, because the world is strange and you need a hug on the inside. So you whip out your trusty chef’s knife to make light work of those florets—only your knife is blunter than 2020. What’s a soup-seeker to do?
Your knife needs to be sharpened, and for the sake of convenience—soup waits for no one!—you might want to break out a honing rod. To be clear, honing is not the same thing as sharpening (more on that in a bit), but honing a dull knife is better than nothing and will get you back to the broc faster than you can say whetstone. Don’t let perfectly sharp get in the way of sharp enough! Don’t hack when you can hone!
Knife Honing vs. Sharpening: How Much Difference Does It Make?
FAQ
What is the difference between a knife sharpener and a honer?
What tool is used to sharpen knives?
Does a sharpening steel actually sharpen knives?
What is it called to sharpen a knife?
What is the difference between Honing and sharpening a knife?
That’s the difference between honing and sharpening. A knife has to start with a sharp edge, then to maintain and lengthen the time it stays sharp, the knife has to be honed. Honing is regular maintenance that extends the knife’s sharp edge. Make it sharp and then keep it that way with honing. “No more teeth.”
Should you sharpen a knife after honing?
You should also sharpen your knife if it’s still tough to cut through food, even after honing. Honing is like tuning up your car; it helps the blade cut better and smoother. Sharpening, on the other hand, is like giving your car a brand new engine or battery. Your knife now has a new lease on life.
Does a honing rod sharpen a knife?
You’ve likely seen someone using a honing rod to “sharpen” a knife. But the steel rod doesn’t actually sharpen your knife—it just straightens out the cutting edge on the blade to allow for smoother, safer cuts. Sharpening your knife, on the other hand, actually, well, sharpens it. So yes, you need to do both.
What is honing a sharpening blade?
Honing is the process of realigning and maintaining the edge of a professional sharpening service blade, typically done using honing steel. Over time, the edge of a blade can become misaligned or bent, making it dull and ineffective. Honing straightens the blade’s edge, making it sharper and more efficient. What is Sharpening?