Use Kitchen Knives With Non-Frozen Foods Only
Plus Some Bonus Items To Avoid
3 MINUTE READ
BY: DAVID OLKOVETSKY
Ensuring that your knives last forever is all about building good habits. There’s nothing complicated or fancy about it, just some basic principles that will keep your blades in superb working condition. Our first two tips are designed to help you keep your knives looking great.
As a refresher, keep your knives looking their best, by washing and drying immediately after cooking, and applying a bit of food grade mineral oil on occasion.
In this edition, we’re going over a few of the top methods for keeping your knives sharper, for longer.
Use Your Kitchen Knives On Non-frozen Foods Only.
Here's the simplest way to think about knife usage: your kitchen knives should be used only for the task they were designed—preparing food. Artisan Revere knives are tools made specifically for precision cooking, so they should be used for it.
That means you shouldn’t: 1. break down large animals with dense bones, 2. pry open cans, 3. open and break down boxes, and you 100%, definitely should not use them to 4. cut or split apart frozen foods.
And remember, never ever place a quality knife in the dishwasher, unless you're actively trying to ruin it. Any of these can dull, bend, twist, or chip your blade.
In other words, using your quality kitchen tools for any other purpose, can seriously damage your cutting edge.
When Shouldn't You Use Your Kitchen Knife?
Breaking down bone-in animals: Use a boning knife or cleaver—they’re designed for that task with a wider edge angle, much lower Rockwell hardness steel and thicker behind-the-edge geometry. In other words, specialty knives like the boning knife and cleaver are designed with toughness in mind.
Splitting apart or cutting frozen foods: This is one of the worst offenders. Everyone has seen their cousin or parents take a blade and jam it between two burger patties. Every time, they wind up ruining the burgers, the knife, and often, they'll cut themselves. This type of cut in particular, is extremely dangerous because you are likely to be using far more force than normal to pry apart the frozen item. So, if the food is frozen, please defrost it. Don’t risk it.
Breaking down packages: Use a box cutter or a good pocket knife. Corrugated boxes tend to have a variety of high silica materials in them that rapidly dull knife edges.
Prying open cans: Use a can opener. Using the tip of a knife will inevitably bend or break off the tip.
Opening a bottle of champagne: Sabering can be exciting, but, if you don’t know what you’re doing, and if you aren’t working at an ostentatious nightclub, well, you’re very likely to both break the bottle and chip your knife on the glass. Why? Glass is one of those very high Rockwell materials that destroys knives. Just open the bottle like everyone else, and enjoy the bubbly without endangering anyone.
That’s it for this installment. If you’re ready for an upgrade, join us, as we improve the quality of knives across America.
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Customer Reviews
We bought 2 chef's knives for a couple of our customers as an end of project gift. It was awesome to find such high quality knives, they look and feel amazing. David the owner of Artisan Revere was very helpful and even helped us get the customers names engraved on the leather sheath and knife.
The Artisan Revere chefs knife cuts with ease, is super well balanced, and keeps a sharp edge for longer than any of my Wustofs or other European knives. The edge is perfect and the knife is dulled in the exact areas where your fingers might be exposed. The leather sheath is a more plus for protecting the knife. The materials are top notch and are lightweight allowing for fast and easy cutting. You simply are less tired after using this knife compared with others.
Being somewhat of a knife geek, I have a multitude of knives, including ten chef's knives and Santukos of German, Japanese, and American steels in both German and Japanese knives. I researched this and other premium American made blades before purchasing this knife, mainly based on steel technology, but also its light weight. I also appreciated a 1:1 conversation with David to discuss the technology and craftsmanship before I ordered. After using this knife for six months, it is now my favorite knife for most all tasks that don't involve cutting foods that are prone to sticking to the blade, e.g., potatoes, (Glestain specialty Santuko for that unique task), or butternut squash, bones, etc. (Henckles and a rubber mallet for that).
It excels at precision cuts, like brunoise cut veggies, and prepping meat and fish. It is as light as the best custom Japanese knives I have, but sharper and better balanced. It is very well made. It maintains an edge significantly better than any other knife I own. In fact, I haven't sharpened it once in six months and it's still a razor. Its blade and handle geometry is superb. It fits my hand perfectly.
My guests may be impressed by some of the beautiful Japanese knives I have displayed in the block, but this is the one I use all the time and appreciate the most. I keep it in its handsome sheath in my drawer away from curious guests who might otherwise cut themselves, or god forbid, drop it. Well worth the money!
This is the ultimate knife. You will never need to buy another knife in your lifetime. A one-time forever purchase. Nothing even remotely comparable out there.
I'm having so much fun getting acclimated to my new knife. Immediately noticeable was how light it was in comparison to my current daily driver. This translates into a wonderful nimble-ness when in use, feeling very much like a natural extension of my intent as I cut rather than a tool for which I need to plan each movement. The details are beautifully considered, and I was pleasantly surprised by both the rounded spine and the very useful point at the heel. I'm so glad I finally treated myself to this knife!!
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