Hey everyone, David C. Andersen here coming
at you from the KnifeCenter and today we're
going to take a look at one of the easiest
ways to sharpen your kitchen knives.
Let's check it out.
There are so many different ways to sharpen
your kitchen knives these days.
But for those of you out there who like the
convenience of an electric sharpener, this
is the device that I like to recommend.
This is the Work Sharp Culinary E5 electric
kitchen knife sharpener, which instead of
diamond plates uses abrasive belts instead.
Not only are these effective and creating
a really good edge, but this device is made
in the USA too by a really upstanding company
which is fantastic.
There's three main elements to this system
and you can buy them separately.
You've got the standard base unit, as well
as a rod system and an upgrade kit and I'm
going to cover the uses for each of those.
Now if you're an old hand at sharpening already,
you'll probably get most of the concepts I'm
about to talk about very easily.
So I want to make sure to explain things in
depth for those of you out there watching
who are really new to the subject.
I'm gonna start with the base unit.
And as you can see, you've got a nice stylish
look here which should fit in pretty well
into most kitchens.
And it even comes with a nice slip cover if
you want to hide things away a little bit
or even protected a bit from kind of the kitchen
debris that could get on it when not in use.
Now workshop designed this to be as easy to
use as they could make things but it still
is going to take just a little bit of getting
used to if you go with one of these units,
I definitely recommend that you practice a
few times with some of your old junk knives
first before you sharpen your nicer or more
expensive knives.
Alright, let's start with the basic parts
of the unit.
You can see here we've got the abrasive belt
and that's what does the actual sharpening
and on each side you've got an angle guide
that's going to keep you at the right angle
as you draw your knife through the device.
Now if you're worried about scratches, I'm
gonna pop the angle guide off here you can
see there's a special All leather pad on the
guides, so it's got a nice soft surface to
rest on.
Just keep in mind it may need a little bit
of cleaning every once in a while in case
any metal or dust gets trapped on it.
I'm going to show you how this works pulled
a knife out of our KnifeCenter kitchen so
you can use a little bit of a tuneup.
Now when you first sharpen your knife, especially
if you've never sharpened your kitchen knife
before, there's three cycles here, and you're
going to want to start with the most aggressive
of the cycles they offer, which is the shape
cycle.
There's just a single power button here, you
want to click it three times and it's going
to go up and activate that cycle.
Then at any point while this is moving in,
click the power button once more to stop.
Now what's nice about this is they actually
run these cycles on timers to help you to
keep from removing too much metal off of your
blade.
But let's actually put the blade in there
now and actually show you how it works.
And before I start the motor, I'll show you
the motions.
What you're going to want to do is you placed
your knife in the slot and you start at the
heel of the blade and make sure to keep it
flat against that angle guide.
As the belts running, you're slowly going
to pull the knife towards you until you reach
the tip.
Then you repeat for the other side and you
keep doing that back and forth until the timer
runs out.
Now it's important, you want to have almost
no downward pressure on the blade at all.
You want to essentially keep the edge just
resting on the belt without actually pushing
down.
I'll run it through the cycle now so you can
see how it works.
You can see there right at the end, that the
light light there started to blink and that's
when it slowed things down and moved it over
to the Refine cycle.
I'm going to switch it off here real quick
before I move on to that just give you a couple
of pointers real quick.
Keep an eye on the actual angle of the belly
of the blade that curvature to the edge itself
and try to keep that at a 90 degree angle
to the direction of the belt as you draw it
out, it doesn't have to be precise.
But that's a little bit better than just holding
it straight the whole way through.
The other word of caution I'll offer is that
when using any of these belt based sharpeners
like this, make sure you never draw the tip
of your knife past the halfway point on the
belt.
Otherwise it can be very easy to round the
tip over and we don't want that.
But this knife here actually comes with a
rounded tip.
So it's there, there's a little bit less danger
that with this particular design, I'm gonna
click the power button wants to turn on the
Refine cycle again, and you're going to run
through the same steps as you did in the first
cycle all the way until the timer runs out
and it stops the motor.
That's all there is to it super easy.
Now what's nice about a belt sharpener like
this is that creates an edge itself which
is convex, kind of think of it like the shape
of an apple seed.
This is regarded as generally a little bit
tougher than a typical flat ground edge, but
it's also got a nicer feel when cutting as
at least on a small level, the food tends
to peel away from the blade a little bit more
easily.
That's not to say This is a dramatic difference.
But if you're really in tune with your knife
and your knife skills, it's definitely something
you can notice.
Now's the point where you can wipe your blade
down and test it out.
And if it's not sharp at this point, it probably
means you need to remove a little bit more
metal.
Now, depending on how close you actually are,
and this is just something, you're going to
have to get a feel for overtime, you can go
all the way back to that shape cycle with
three clicks.
Or you can start at the intermediate sharpen
cycle with two clicks.
And that's going to have a speed in between
the most aggressive and the finishing cycles.
I actually can run this without a timer.
If you hold down that power button for three
seconds, it's going to spin it up to its fastest
speed, and it's going to keep it running there
without turning off.
That's only going to be needed in pre extreme
cases.
And I definitely wouldn't recommend this method
until you're comfortable using the unit.
Now another nice feature that you can't actually
see is there's actually a magnetic system
mounted internally that's designed to catch
a lot of the metal dust and shavings that
are removed from your blade.
A little bit is still going to get out on
your counters though but it's definitely going
to be a lot more more manageable.
Now this could be the end of your sharpening
regimen right here.
I went ahead and tested this edge and it's
cutting paper quite nicely.
So it's going to work pretty well in the kitchen
for a lot of folks excepting maybe the first
time the knives came out of the package is
probably going to be sharper than you've ever
had them before.
But I would definitely recommend moving on
to the next step and using their M3 dual surface
ceramic honing rod.
Now this is available separately if you want
to upgrade later, but you can get it all at
once along with the base unit too.
And using this rod is definitely going to
offer a noticeable improvement over just using
the built-in the base unit you're going to
have a much more refined edge when you're
done.
Now this looks a lot like the chef's honing
steel that you see used quite often, especially
TV and movies, but this differs a little bit
in how you use it.
Most people tend to use a honing steel with
it held in the air with cooks moving at high
speed with the blade edge moving down towards
your hand with each stroke.
This one's actually designed with a hard rubber
tip and that's designed to be planted on your
work surface so that you can work with your
edge moving away from you.
This is definitely a bit of a signal For a
method especially for inexperienced users,
but I would recommend planting this on a cutting
board or even a towel if you don't care if
it maybe gets cut up a little bit so that
your blade edge doesn't hit your countertop
which could be bad for both your countertop
and the blade at the same time.
Now another feature that makes this easy to
use for pretty much anyone are these angle
guides built right into the handle so you
don't have to guess about how you need to
hold the blade.
You simply plant the rod down, line up your
blade with the angle guide and hit each side
of the edge starting with the heel of the
blade at the top of the rod and then draw
down while pulling back ending at the bottom
of the rod and the tip of your knife.
You're going to notice that there are two
different surfaces on the rod.
You've got this groove side here which is
a little more aggressive and the smoother
round side.
You're going to start by using the groove
side and I'd say somewhere between 10 and
20 strokes per side of your blade is a good
place to start.
Then you simply twist the ceramic rod itself
so that now the smooth side lines up with
the angle guides and then do another 10 to
20 strokes.
Perseid, after the ride ever gets super dirty
and you want to clean it, it is just a friction
fit in the handle.
So you can simply pull it out and it's going
to wash up very easily.
And once you're done, your edge should be
in pretty good shape.
And if you do a few strokes on this ride every
few times to use the knife, you won't even
necessarily need to go back to the belt unit
as often, which is going to help your blade
last longer overall, This handle actually
has one more trick up its sleeve though, and
that's what workshop calls their micro forge
technology.
You can see there's a small wheel here at
the back of one of the angle guides.
I'm actually take the rod out before I demonstrate
it's a little bit easier for the height of
this counter and me right here.
Simply take your knife and place the tip in
the slot and push it through ending at the
heel of the blade.
Do it just once in exactly the opposite direction
of most of these other sharpening motions
we've done so far.
Now it's going to be really hard to pick up
on camera.
But what this was actually going to do is
apply micro facets to the cutting edge of
the blade.
Now on that really small level, this is almost
like some very mini serrations and that And
actually help it perform better on things
like fruits and vegetables especially, and
even maybe a loaf of bread without the drawbacks
that come with a normal serrated blade.
Again, that's just one of those minor differences
that you will be able to feel if you're really
in tune with your blade.
Now this manual rod is a great complement
to the E5 sharpener or any other primary sharpening
method really, but you really could use this
as your sole sharpening tool to if you happen
to buy the standalone version.
If you're keen on doing everything manual,
it really is a fine option for your kitchen
as it comes with a tapered diamond rod here.
And actually it has a small plastic cover
which protects that diamond abrasive so I've
still left that on here.
And that can be inserted into that handle
making this your primary sharpening stage
before you hit the ceramic rod.
And as a bonus, because it's tapered, it's
even going to work great with serrated blades
too, which is not something I recommend doing
on these built based systems otherwise.
Alright, now it's time to talk about the upgrade
kit which is available.
If you want to go for simplicity.
You can certainly We stick with just the base
unit and the rod.
But if you really want to get a little obsessive
about your edges and dive a little bit deeper
into the process, this kit does give you two
certain advantages.
One, it comes with a wider variety of belts.
I've left them here as they come out of the
package, and you've got some finer grit options
than the standard belt on the unit.
That standard belt is a coarser grit as I
mentioned, and while the rod does a really
good job of refining the edge that comes off
of that unit, you could actually do everything
using just these belts instead.
In fact, this unit uses the same belt as workshops
popular Ken Onion edition sharpener, which
is really highly regarded in the knife world.
I myself have used that unit with the belts
to get an almost mirror polished edge that
comes scary sharp.
If you want the sharpest edge you can get
out of this unit or if you're a knife nerd
like me who cares a lot about edge refinements.
These extra belts are definitely the way to
go to achieve that edge.
Once you've run through your main cycles using
the standard belt you simply swap out to the
next belt starting with the next coarsest
in line, it's really easy to do.
You simply open the front cover by folding
it down, push down on the top of the unit
and slide that old belt out.
Installing the new belt is the reverse of
that process, push down, slide your belt over
the three rollers, let it back up and close
the cover.
Now he just click once and run the Refine
cycle through on this next belt and then swap
to the next belt rinse and repeat until you
finish on the finest grip belt and you're
good to go.
One of the nice touches once you're done,
simply remove that belt and the top of the
cover actually lifts up revealing a hidden
compartment there and you can actually store
your extra belts when not in use there.
Now the next advantage that comes with the
upgrade kit, are extra angle guides to accommodate
both western style knives like your common
chef knife, which typically feature a 20 degree
sharpened bevel and Japanese style kitchen
knives which are sharpened a little bit thinner
at usually a 15 degree bevel.
The guides that come with the base unit actually
split the difference a little bit With those,
your convex edge is going to terminate in
a roughly 17 degree bevel.
Now, there's nothing wrong with running all
your knives through that it'll essentially
make your western style knives cut a little
bit more efficiently, and then give your Japanese
knives a little bit more durability.
But if you'd rather keep things closer to
original, you can simply pop these guides
out
and install the more specific guide in just
a couple of seconds.
What I like about the way they do this is
that it even comes with a base to store your
extra angle guides when you're not using them.
Now one more thing to note, if you don't really
care about those extra angle guides, if you're
fine with that 17 degree edge on all your
kitchen knives, you can get the belt separately,
which is going to be good especially when
the original start to wear out, you'll be
able to swap out for a fresh one in no time.
One other note because I know we'll probably
have some of you guys asking this in the comments.
If you're worried about these belts actually
ruining your edge, they do run slow enough
that they shouldn't heat up your edge too
much where it's actually going to affect the
performance but if you are worried about it,
it's a real simple procedure if you want to
just wipe it down with a wet rag or even dunk
it in some way.
Water every few strokes, that's going to give
you the peace of mind you need.
Okay, that's about it for this demo today.
Now, I know it might have been a lot to take
in.
But I don't want that to discourage you.
These units really are very quick and simple
to use once you get the concept, and there's
just nothing like using a truly sharp knife
in the kitchen.
It just makes every task so much better.
If you like this video, but you want to learn
some more about some of the basic concepts
involved in sharpening in general, you can
check out our whetstone sharpening video and
we'll make sure to leave a link to that.
Even if you decide to stick with a powered
unit like this E5.
There's definitely some good info in that
video which can deepen your understanding
on the topic.
All right, one last bonus I will mention workshop
actually makes a version of this sharpener
for Wusthof and they call that the Easy Edge
electric knife sharpener.
Now it runs the same belts, but the body itself
is just a little bit different and actually
has a slightly smaller footprint overall.
It also includes some finer grip belts right
in the box so you don't have to buy that upgrade
kit right away.
And it swaps out some of the metal cover bits
for some plastic ones, but still going to
be just as effective.
If you've already got a collection of wuesthoff
kitchen knives, it can really be nice to have
a matching unit for those.
And in the meantime, if you like what you
saw and you want to get your hands on one
of these Work Sharp made sharpeners, we'll
leave links in the description that take you
over to knifecenter.com so you can pick one
up and if you're there and you're going to
buy one of these sharpeners anyway, I definitely
recommend signing up for our knife rewards
program.
Because if you're going to buy one, you might
as well earn some free money to spend on your
next purchase.
I'm David C. Andersen from the KnifeCenter
Make sure to like this video and subscribe
if you're not already.
Happy cooking everyone
