Doing These Things Will Ruin Your Kitchen Knives

Do you know that your kitchen knife set can serve you for years to come and will still be as good as they were when you first bought them? On the other hand, a knife may not last a few weeks if handled inappropriately. If you want your kitchen knives to last longer, there are certain habits you need to get rid of. They are:

• Washing with metallic sponge: one of the fastest ways to destroy your knife is by washing it with a metallic sponge, especially those made with aluminum oxide. This kind of a sponge will leave behind scratches on the blade of your knife, making it lose its sparkling feature. It will also blunt the cutting edge of the knife.

• Keeping in the dishwasher: the moment you let your knife stay in the dishwasher, you must realize that you’re exposing the knife to an unfavorable environment. Your dishwasher may have different things in it, such as hot water, as well as highly abrasive detergent. This will help to hasten the process of corroding your knife, and before you know it, your knife is not performing at its best again. Aside from the corrosion, keeping your knife inside the dishwasher can reduce the effectiveness of the epoxy that helps in holding the handles. When this happens, you will begin to see the handle of your knife beginning to shake, and it will eventually fall off. The simple explanation behind this is that the epoxy that helps to hold the knife’s handle will get weakened when exposed to a wet environment and high temperature like the one from the hot water in the dish. To make your knife last longer, you should keep it away from the dishwasher.

• You use your knife to open boxes: many people are guilty of this, and they don’t even know it’s bad for their knives. Using your knife to open boxes will render the knife dull which will, therefore, call for “every time sharpening”. If you have to cut a box, get a box cutter and keep them after use so they can be useful again another time. If you stick to the idea of cutting your boxes with knives, you will keep destroying the knives.

• Wrong Storage: by storing your knife in a wrong way or wrong place, you’re destroying the knife. One wrong way of storing your knife is storing it while it’s still wet. This will simply give room for rusting, and when your knife begins to rust, it begins to destroy. Storing your knife in an acidic environment is also unwise. Acids from foods like lemon and lime can react with your knife and eventually destroy it. You really don’t want to store your knife in such an environment.

• Scooping with the sharp edge: if you have an attitude of scooping ingredients with your knife’s sharp edge, you’re destroying your knife. Such an act will dull the cutting edge. If after slicing, you need to scoop, the right thing to do is to flip your knife and then scoop with the unsharpened part of the knife which is the spine. When you do this, you’re doing no harm to your knife.

• Using the wrong cutting board: wood, synthetic rubber, and plastic cutting boards are fine and will not destroy your knife. If you need to slice fruits and vegetables, you should stick to using wooden cutting boards that are made of cherry, walnut, or maple wood. If you want to cut fish and meats, you should go for a plastic cutting board. You can also use the plastic board for fruits and vegetables as well. If your practice is different from these and you use stone, bamboo, or glass cutting board with hard surfaces, you’ll be destroying your knives. These hard surfaces will dull your knife and eventually destroy it.

• Using it for the wrong task: this is another quick way to destroy your knife. There are different knife types specifically designed to serve different tasks. If you pick up a knife that’s designed for cutting soft foods and you use it on hard foods, you should know that you’re destroying the knife—for instance, using a cake knife on meat is a quick way to dull the knife and even damage it.

• You keep it dull: if your knife is dull and you decide to continue using it that way, you are not only destroying the knife, you’re also exposing yourself to unnecessary risk and stress. A dull knife will demand that you apply more effort, and when the knife finally slips, it may result in a deeper cut than you wanted.

Making sure you are not doing any of the points listed above will help to preserve your knife and increase its lifespan. For those wondering if all these factors affect a custom knife, well yes it does. So even if you get him a custom knife, if he doesn't take good care of the knife, the same faith will apply to it.