My tools serve me, not the other way around. It’s not worth the time and effort to wash by hand or sharpen on a whetstone. I don’t need an expensive knife to cook at home. A pull through sharpener and honing steel are adequate. Get the right material and you don’t have to worry about the metal in the dishwasher.
I initially assumed this was unpopular because “just wipe the knives off…” and “why sharpen them at all?”. Boy am I surprised.
This is the second thread I’ve seen today with contentious talk about sharpening knives, and I have to ask both sides: do none of you live near a knife sharpening place? I pay EUR 5 per knife two to three times a year, and my knives are always sharp.
Dull knives are dangerous and make prep real chore.
That’s a possibility. I’ve seen mobile sharpeners that have a trailer with their equipment in it and they also frequent farmers markets. There’s also places where you can just mail your knives to and they’ll send them back like they’ve just had some milk plus.
You’re a monster.
Thank you 😊
I can’t say whether this is unpopular broadly, but it sure is unpopular with me.
Grind up a whetstone and put the powder in the dishwasher
Lol, you’re a twisted one. Have my upvote.
This method also yields plates that you can use to play Decapitation Frisbee ™.
The real ultimate frisbee.
New Olympic Sport Unlocked
Pvp Olympics
That implies PvE Olympics
Oddly enough, there is a disc sport where the entire point is to just chuck the thing at your opponent so hard that they can’t catch it.
Idk man there is a limited ammount of times you can sharpen them. For cheap-o knives: sure, go for it. But I am not putting my VG-10 knives in there.
That’s fine. They’re your knives and it’s your kitchen.
If you handwash them, you won’t need to sharpen them as often. And if you get used to having sharp knives, you’ll stop using that sharpener pretty quickly.
It’s like you’re saying “I don’t need to change the oil in my car. I just spray some WD40 in there every few days until it stops making noise. My car serves me, not the other way around.”
That’s how you sound. That’s why so mamy people are giving you grief.
Not seeing how a dishwasher dulls knives, unless you’re banging them around.
I’ve heard this for decades, I wash my steak knives all the time, the dishwasher doesn’t affect their sharpness at all (and they’re proper sharp knives, not those bullshit serrated things).
Water corrodes the edge. Razors stay sharp for much longer as well if you store them in mineral oil after use rather than just put it onto the shelve while still wet.
When all the utensils are in the rack, and you shove a knife in, it scratches against the other utensils, or even the plastic, and moves around depending on pressure during wash. That’s why it “can” dull your knives.
It won’t be as much of an issue with a serrated knife
Also depends on the metal alloy. Some that make great knives do not have very high corrosion resistance, and a dishwasher isn’t a nice place chemically for a reason.
Even some expensive knives can come out spotted and not great after one trip through.
Nah, it’s more like saying I take it to a shop to get the oil changed or fill it up with the cheap gasoline because the point is to get me from point a to point b and I deal with its upkeep. It’s not a hobby, it’s a tool. But people hear that and want to seem superior, is how I see it, so they tell me the Right way as if I don’t know. I just don’t agree.
Except you didn’t mention getting your knives professionally sharpened, you just said you put them in the dishwasher and then pull them through a sharpener yourself. If you have them sharpened by a pro, then there’s nothing at all wrong with that. Nobody says you have to sharpen knives yourself.
I guess I’m as bad at comparison as I am at caring for knives.
Then the correct comparison would be to say you take your knives to get professionally sharpened instead of doing it yourself.
The way a pull thru sharpener works is completely different from a diamond / whetstone. It’s a scraper, not grinder. It’s like the mechanic doing an oil change with rapeseed oil.
Hey, this post is for being pedantic about knives, not metaphors.
Dude his post is perfect for this sub.
Mine don’t go through the dishwasher only because the plastic in the handles would get fucked up. Otherwise they’re stainless, how does a dishwasher harm the stainless in my knives but not my stainless silverware, stainless bowls, stainless utensils, stainless dishwasher?
And I use an electric sharpener. I ain’t wasting time with a stone - I did plenty of that 45 years ago. Tech has moved along. Does anyone think Wustoff sharpens their knives by hand?
You know there’s a million different alloys that are all “stainless steel” right?
As far as some more specifics, nothing else you made is meant to hold a sharp edge, so they aren’t made of heat treated tool steel. Making a knife is a balance between having softer metal that dulls more quickly, vs harder metal that chips or cracks more easily.
Another feature you’ll notice on your stainless steel knives is a sharp edge, which is much more delicate than the blunt edges on everything else you listed. The thinness of the edge, combined with the metal being hardened so it can retain an edge, make it so you’re reasonably likely to chip the edges of many nicer (better heat treated) knives due to stuff knocking around in the dishwasher. Also you’re somewhat likely to damage the coating of the dishwasher racks with the sharp edges.
Also, probably not Wusthof, but some high end knives are, in fact, hand sharpened even in factory settings still. It doesn’t take very long on a wheel or belt really, though if you don’t count that as hand sharpening then yeah that’s a definitions disagreement.
No shit, again, tell me how the dishwasher harms my stainless knives? And I could tell you the exact stainless my knives are, as well as my cookware, and my bowls. I’ve done TONS of research on my kitchen gear. It’s also supposedly bad to wash my stainless cookware too, hasn’t hurt it yet - the dishwasher runs between 1 and 3 times a day, we cook so much.
I’ve tested multiple brands (with different stainless, the big difference is the nickel percentage) and none have been affected - they don’t even stain.
I’ve washed my steak knives from the same set that I’ve had for 10 years now - you can’t tell the difference, they get sharpened about 1/4 as often as my chef’s knife, because I use it all the time.
Seriously, it’s stainless fucking steel, that was forged and tempered at temperatures far beyond the 200 degrees of a dishwasher. What is it exactly about the dishwasher that supposedly fucks up my knives that aren’t fucked up from the dishwasher? (And I use cheap-as powder detergent, the cheapest I can find, and my shit comes out clean).
Now I wouldn’t run a carbon steel knife through the dishwasher, because it would have a bad reaction with the detergent, and it would rust which I’d then have to cleanup.
Watch ProjectFarm’s latest video on the best kitchen knives sets.
Some of them rust in the dish washer, and some not cheap ones.
It’s fine to doubt. It’s NOT fine to be confidantly wrong. Fucking LISTEN when someone fucking tells you the correct answers.
I didn’t say anything about the heat treat or anything, specifically because, like you said, the dishwasher isn’t reaching temperatures where that matters.
I also didn’t try to claim that your detergent would rust your knives. This is literally all just you.
All I said at the end of the day, is that your knife edge is more delicate that everything else you’re comparing it to, and your dishwasher can bang it against things which may chip it somewhat, unlike everything else you’re comparing the knives to.
Translation: I’m wasteful
Not with my time.
I generally touch up my knives every few weeks. It takes me about 45 seconds per knife on a whetstone and a strop. Add another 30 seconds if you want for grabbing the whetstone and splashing it with water first if you want.
Oh look honey the Neanderthals are on the internet now
You’re just jealous of our prominent brows.
Lmao
Hahahahah… Well at least we’re not “monsters”!
Our household has amazing sets of Henckels knives that are in perfect condition from careful handwashing, professional sharpening…and because they almost never get used. We also have a few relatively inexpensive knives that get use all the time because they go in the dishwasher after use.
As long as you’re not one of those weirdos that insist pull through sharpeners are just as good as properly sharpening it.
Most people don’t need a perfectly sharp knife. Are they nice to have? Absolutely. But as long as you don’t let them get dangerously dull, who cares.
I like your take.
I agree they aren’t needed. But oh man. Once you buy a really nice (often expensive) set of culinary knives, you realize what the hubub is about. They’re wonderful.
I had a girlfriend that filleted the tip of her finger off using one of my knives. As I drove her to the hospital, she tried to say my knives were way too sharp. I told her that was on her.
My girlfriend did the exact same thing. That knife had literally just came off the stone. Sliced right thru the tip of her finger including the nail.
When it comes to the quality of the knife itself I think you’ll see diminishing returns after you pay more than 70 euros for one. The jump from a dollar store knife to a Victorinox is huge but from Victorinox to a japanese hand made one is much less different.
As I drove her to the hospital… I told her that was on her.
had a girlfriend
She bled out while trying to argue with me about whose fault it was. RIP Jessica. It wasn’t the knife, it was your lack of respect for the knife.
The human race requires judgment. You were simply separating that chaff from the wheat.
The detergent in the dishwasher is extremely corrosive. Most kinds of metal can’t stand it, and you see the general result (rust) after just one try. So, if your knives are OK with it once, they are OK with it all times.
But: they are going to loose sharpness much quicker. You will have to sharpen them more often. I guess you are OK with that, too.
Nonsense. I’ve put all my various knives in the dishwasher for years and there is zero visible rust on them. Every few months i use a sharpener on them and they’re super sharp again.
How does a dishwasher dull a knife?
I run my steak knives through it all the time, they get sharpened 1/4 as often (or less, like 2x a year) as my hand washed chef’s knife, which could be sharpened every week (it’s a very good Henckels set).
Placebo problems created by hyperfocusing on one thing (knife sharpness) leading to bullshit flying around
It bounces it around from the jets of water.
There’s also abrasive in the detergent IIRC, but idk if that would make any appreciable difference.
I can buy a set of cheap knives every 5-10 years. It will cost the same as buying an expensive knife set.
Just st make sure they aren’t those serrated 400in1 knife blocks. Those never cut, they saw and tear your food.
