Cooking For Engineers

[Zoiks]

I am going to be buying a Mac Knife but want to buy a steel or some form of system to keep the knife sharp.

It seems people are against the steels that have anything but a mirror finish but I can only find ones in Australia that have some sort of finish to sharpen the knife.

eg: http://www.everten.com.au/product/wusthof-honing-steel-23cm.html
Thats prob the best I have found thats not going to cost more then the knife.

Does anyone have any suggestions, preferably from australian sites such as

www.everten.com.au
www.petersofkensington.com.au/

[Michael Chu]

I'm guessing if MAC offers them, then they must think they are okay:
http://www.macknife.com/sharpeners.html

[Dilbert]

>>It seems people are against the steels that have anything but a mirror finish

I've seen those opinions - but it has to be kept in context. some fans of Japanese style knives like theirs sharpened and polished to a razor blade edge. a grooved or pebbled steel may well disturb that level of edge.

personally I don't have the time or energy to maintain that level of shaving sharp - I settle for "just dang sharp" -

I finish my Wuesthof on a fine stone and have been using the Wuesthof grooved steel for 25 yrs on my set with no bad effects - my experience does not support the theory that a grooved steel will ruin your knives.

[Michael Chu]

[Dilbert]

>>stop at 1000

indeed. were I a professional sushi chef charged with producing 0.05 mm slices of <stuff> I can appreciate the shaving sharp state is a necessity to the task.

for the average kitchen, it's a way bit over the top imho.

[Zoiks]

I ended up ordering a tojiro DP because I could get one for about 40% less. Never the less I will be looking at macs in the future so its good to know the wustoff honing steel i bought will be suitable for both

thanks