News — knife care
Are plastic chopping boards good for knife edges?
If you want to keep a sharp chef’s knife for 6 to 12 months between professional sharpenings, plastic chopping boards are not the best choice for knife edges. A well made wooden or bamboo cutting board is typically 10 to 20 percent gentler on your blade, while still giving you a safe, stable surface for everyday kitchen prep. Are plastic chopping boards good for knife edges? Plastic chopping boards are convenient, light and easy to put in the dishwasher, but they aren’t especially kind to knife edges. The material is relatively hard and springy, so as the blade hits the...
Why do bamboo cutting boards dull knives?
If you cook most days and use a sharp chef’s knife, a typical bamboo board can shorten the time between sharpenings by around 20 to 30 percent compared with a softer hardwood like acacia. The main reason bamboo cutting boards dull knives is that bamboo is naturally harder and more fibrous than many woods, so the blade meets more resistance with every cut. Why do bamboo cutting boards dull knives faster than some woods? Bamboo is technically a grass, not a tree. It grows quickly and is very eco friendly, but its structure is quite different from oak or acacia....
What chopping boards should I avoid to prevent knife dulling?
If you want to keep a sharp kitchen knife for longer than 3 to 6 months between professional sharpenings, you should avoid very hard, glassy or uneven chopping boards such as glass, marble, granite, ceramic and old scarred plastic. These surfaces blunt an edge in a fraction of the time that a well made wooden or bamboo board does. What chopping boards should I avoid to prevent knife dulling? To protect your knives, avoid any board that is harder than the knife steel or that has deep grooves full of grit. In practice, that means: Glass boards toughened or plain...
wood vs plastic cutting board which is better for knives
If you care about how long your knives stay sharp, wood wins. In controlled kitchen tests and day to day home use, a quality wooden board can keep a chef’s knife sharper for 2 to 3 times longer than a hard plastic board, simply because wood is kinder to the cutting edge. Wood vs plastic: what actually touches your knife? When you chop, the very thin edge of your knife meets the surface of the board thousands of times. Two things decide how quickly that edge blunts: How hard the board is compared with the steel How much the surface...