The best knife sharpeners

A knife is arguably the most important tool in the kitchen, but it's essential that the blade is sharp. When blunt, you have less control and are more likely to see the knife slide off the food, thereby making cooking a more hazardous process.

You've acquired a chef's knife, you're using it almost daily to make tasty dinners for the family, and it's stored in a nice knife rack or a magnet for safekeeping. So why stop there? Keeping that knife's edge fine will make cooking not only safer but, let's face it, much more fun. Whether you've spent £150 on a high-end knife or under a tenner on a dinky paring knife, keeping it sharp is crucial.

Why, then, do so many of us shy away from the task? To put it bluntly, it's because it's a rather daunting process for the beginner. Your image of knife sharpening may consist of a hyper-masculine chef slashing away violently at a steel rod (we're looking at you, Gordon). Conversely, you might have seen cooks meticulously and methodically stroking their blade up and down a Japanese waterstone with more intricate attention to detail than a Flemish landscape painting.

Fear not, however, because it's not as complicated as it looks. In this review, we'll break down the most common techniques and advise on the best knife sharpeners to give your blade a shiny edge.

Whichever method you choose, be it a waterstone (also known as a whetstone), or a pull-through (either V-shaped or ceramic wheels) it's important to regularly hone your knife with a honing steel, which we'll also cover below. You'll be pleased to hear that you won't have to reach for the stones too regularly – once every two or three months should suffice.

The basic concept of sharpening is simple – you're using an abrasive edge to remove metal – but the knife you buy may alter the method you should use. A general rule of thumb is that a waterstone can be used for both Japanese- and Western-style blades, but you should avoid pull-through sharpeners for Japanese knives (or any knife with very brittle blades).

Waterstones do require practice – it's a bit of faff, in all honesty, though rather therapeutic once you get the hang of it – but they'll keep your knife in tip-top condition, so it's worth the extra effort. If you're worried you're doing it wrong, look up your local knife manufacturer or kitchen shop, as many will offer sharpening classes.

£46.50, Amazon

A waterstone (or whetstone) is essentially a rectangular block of stone used to sharpen and hone the edge of a knife – or any other sharp steel tool, really. All the experts I spoke to agreed that using a waterstone is the best way to keep your knife in top condition, though it does take a little getting used to.

"Sharpening is like a hangover cure," says Laurie Timpson, founder of Savernake Knives in Wiltshire. "If there was a cure and you knew about it, I'd stay at your house, crash on your sofa and have whatever it was when I woke up. Everyone would have it and there'd be no discussion. Everybody says they've created a perfect sharpening technique, and they haven't."

That said, Timpson believes waterstones are "absolutely" the best method. "They can be quite tricky, but it's not rocket science." They also benefit from the fact that they can be used on just about any knife, which can't be said of pull-through sharpeners.

Waterstones come with different grit counts, indicating the level of coarseness. Around 1,000 grits (measured by number of grits per unit) is ideal for sharpening a knife blade. You can then use a finer stone – 6,000 grit, say – to get a nice polished finished, though this isn't strictly necessary.

Thankfully, you don't have to buy two separate stones. Richard Warner, a knife maker at Blenheim Forge in southeast London, recommended to me the very affordable King Kds 1000/6000 block, a combination waterstone that should sate your knife sharpening needs for under £40. And it'll take years before the block wears out.

You might not need to spend hundreds of pounds to get the best knife sharpener, but you do need to know what you're doing. Warner gave me a crash course in the technique. As a newbie to this method, it took a while to get used to (especially since Warner handed me a knife that had never previously been sharpened) but after half an hour's practice and a little encouragement, I got the hang of it. Here's what I learned...

STEP 1: Preparing your stone

Before you start sharpening, soak the stone in water for around five to 10 minutes, until it absorbs the water and a liquid film appears on the surface. After soaking, splash some water on top, and re-splash during the process if it ever gets too dry. You'll get a dark, splotch of steel and stone building up on the stone while you're sharpening the blade. This is totally normal so just splash the stone with some water to clean it off and allow it to perform more efficiently.

Once sufficiently wet, it's time to position the stone on something solid, so it doesn't move about during sharpening. Many come with holders, but you can just place it on a slightly damp tea towel on the table. The stone should be roughly perpendicular to your body, though Warner told me it is sometimes easier to angle it ever so slightly to the right (if you're right handed).

STEP 2: Sharpening the blade

Now the fun begins. Grip the knife in your dominant hand, holding it at a 45° angle across the stone with the edge facing yourself and the knife's heel pointing towards your belly (as seen in the picture below). "The hardest thing," Warner explains, "is getting your angles right."

The toughest angle to master is the angle at which you'll sharpen the edge of the knife. For a Japanese knife, that should be around 12-15 degrees. Before you reach for the protractor, a good test is to get roughly half an index finger's gap between the spine of the knife and the stone (see above). Remember to remove your finger before you start sharpening. For a Western-style knife, you want an angle of about 20°, so raise it ever-so-slightly higher.

How drastic is getting the angle wrong, I ask Warner. "Not really," is his response. "If you sharpen too fine, you'll sharpen it for ages and polish further up the blade." It will feel unnatural at first, but with time you'll get used to the angle, and it will become second nature.

Now that you're holding the handle and the blade is in position, gently apply some pressure to the belly of the blade with your left hand fingers – "roughly the amount of pressure to semi-depress a sponge," says Warner. Starting at the tip, glide the blade up and down the stone – around five strokes up and down is a good number. Then move to the middle – five more strokes. Finally five strokes up and down on the heel.

I found it tough to maintain the angle throughout the movement, often tilting upwards towards the end. This is a common error, according to Warner, and one that's fixed by just concentrating as hard as you can on maintaining that angle.

Once you've sharpened one side, you need to flip over, but don't swap the hand gripping the blade – think of it a bit like going backhand with a tennis racket (see above). Lead with the heel this time, rather then with the blade, but repeat the process in three parts. After five strokes on each third of the blade, it's time to check your knife. It's not an exact science, and it all depends on how blunt your blade was to start with (mine was very blunt indeed). But if you sharpen fairly regularly, it should just take a few strokes.

The goal when sharpening is to create a burr, which is a tiny whisper of metal left on one side of the blade. You'll know you have a burr when you can feel one smooth and one scratchy side to the edge. Warner's is formed in no time at all; I struggled. Nevertheless, eventually I got there. Once you've got the burr, it's time to move on to step three.

Step 3: Removing the burr

Removing the burr is fairly simple. You'll need a leather strop or block (this sort of thing), which is designed to catch the metal fibres from the knife. You could do it with a fibrous tea towel or some newspaper if you like, but I'd suggest going with leather to begin with. The motion is fairly similar to sharpening. Draw the knife over the leather, going away from the edge at roughly the same angle as when you sharpened.

Once the burr is removed, it's time to test the sharpness with paper. Hold a piece of newspaper at about 45°, with a bit of tension, and slash lightly with each point of the blade. If it cuts through easily, your knife's sharp. Warner speedily lacerated his newspaper, but I of course struggled. There is an element of technique involved, he reassured me.

Step 4: Polishing the blade

Now it's time to polish. This is when you'll swap over from the coarse grit to the finer grit (make sure this side is wet, too). I found the knife still had a bit of grime on it, so I gave it a wipe clean beforehand. The motion is exactly the same as with sharpening, but you can apply slightly less pressure, and limit to roughly 30 strokes on each side.

Give your blade one more swipe on the leather, and you should have a perfectly sharp and polished knife that'll cut onions, tomatoes and all manner of squishy veg with no trouble at all.

Pull-through sharpeners are a lot easier to use, but according to most knife connoisseurs, they're not ideal for every type of knife. On a brittle, thin, Japanese blade, you're liable to chipping. There are specifically designed Japanese wheel sharpeners that are pretty straightforward.

"For more sturdy, German- or French-style knives, you're not going to damage them that much," says Warner.

£30, John Lewis

These knife sharpeners are incredibly easy to use, and having used one on my old-school Sabatier knives for years, I can report that they quickly turn a blunt knife sharp, and as of yet those knives are in perfectly good nick. These are best avoided with Japanese knives or brittle ice-hardened blades, however.

The concept is fairly simple. There are two V-shaped rotating steels, which you pull the knife through towards yourself, from the heel to the tip. I find that maybe 10 swipes is enough to leave my blades as sharp as when they arrived.

But it's a different type of sharp, according to Joe Authbert, product development manager at ProCook. "What it does is add tiny little micro-serrations onto the edge of the blade." But fear not – your smart knife won't end up looking like a bread knife, as you'll be hard-pressed to spot the serrations. "If you looked at it under a microscope, on the cutting edge, there are these little lines that generate the sharpness, rather than a waterstone which is a smooth sharp edge," says Authbert.

There's no denying the pull through isn't as romantic, meditative and precise as a waterstone. But for quickly sharpening (some kinds of) blades, you can't go too far wrong.

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£16.59, Amazon

Functionally, this knife sharpener works pretty similar to the Chantry above. It uses tungsten carbide technology – basically meaning it's super strong and sturdy – with a similar pull-through method, dragging the knife between the grinder towards you.

If this sounds dodgy, it isn't, because this sharpener is about as safe as they come. There's a nifty suction pad underneath which, when you pull down the level, sticks to most flat surfaces – on my wooden kitchen table it was virtually impossible to rip off. You could even store it by gripping it to a fridge, for example. But, most importantly, this makes it extra safe, as the sharpener won't be sliding about, reducing the risk of hurting yourself.

It works swiftly, just three or four pull-throughs I found sufficient to resharpen knifes (it even works with serrated bread knives). However, it does create serrations on the blade, which isn't such a smooth sharpness as provided by a waterstone.

As it's so small, it's easy to store; it's incredibly light; and it comes with a 10-year warranty. Overall, not a bad piece of kit, and at a good price, too.

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£35.49, Amazon

A shinkansen is a Japanese-style pull-through sharpener named after the famous bullet train. It features two sets of ceramic wheels set at the right angle for sharpening a Japanese blade, which takes out the guesswork of the waterstone. Simply hold the handle with your left hand, then saw back and forth gently through the coarser wheel to sharpen, before switching to the finer wheel to polish.

You can get ones with three grades for an even finer finish, but two, like this model by MinoSharp, should suffice. With this Shinskansen, you need to fill a tiny reservoir with water before you start, so there's an element of similarity with the waterstone. The purpose of the water is to help clean the wheel and prevent overheating.

"They're quite easy to use," Authbert explains, "but you don't get quite as good an edge as you would with a whetstone." Additionally, if you buy one that's too cheap, it can be quite rough and damage the blade. This sharpener is best for Japanese knives, as it's designed for narrow blades.

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£19, Amazon

Honing a blade is considerably different from sharpening one, though many of our drawers contain just a honing steel – often unhelpfully called a sharpening steel.

When we cut through produce onto a chopping board, we usually bring the knife back up at a slightly different angle, causing the blade to misalign sightly. "If you look at it under a microscope, you can see it starts to bend over," Authbert explains. "What you're doing with the honing steel is basically straightening the edge back out."

Chefs will do this every day, and there's no reason you shouldn't too. Before cooking, or after you've done the washing up, honing your knife will help keep it in good condition. "When you're using a honing steel, you're not actually removing any metal at all, just re-straightening that edge, to get it back in line," says Authbert. Remember that you'll still need to sharpen it every two or three months.

"How do I use this daunting metal rod?" I hear you ask. Well, it's not too hard, really. The best way for a beginner is to balance the steel on a surface with the tip secured by a damp tea towel. You want to get that angle right, whether it's around 15 degrees for a Japanese knife or 20 degrees on a German or French blade. Then swipe slowly down, away from you, making sure the whole blade is honed – around five swipes on each side should do.

I found this model by ProCook to be sturdy thanks to its considerable weight (but don't worry, once you rest it on the table, it won't feel heavy). It also had a comfortable handle and, most importantly, it's not too expensive.

According to Tim Hayward, author of Knife: The Cult, Craft and Culture of the Cook's Knife, you should steer away from something called a diamond hone, which is the "death of good knives. It chews away the knife. To be avoided at all costs," Hayward warns.

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