TIL the right way to sharpen a breaking knife

I spent years sharpening my breaking knives wrong. A master butcher in Chicago watched me for about 5 minutes last Tuesday and pointed out I was using too much angle on the edge. He said I was making it thin like a filet knife but a breaking knife needs a steeper angle around 20 degrees to hold up against bone. I tried his method on a pork shoulder and the edge lasted twice as long before I had to touch it up. Has anyone else been shown a basic trick like this after years of doing it the hard way?

3 comments

3 Comments

linda_reed1d ago

Eh, I don't know if it's that serious. A lot of folks get way too caught up in the perfect angle and all that when really, just keeping it sharp at all makes the biggest difference. Plenty of guys in my family have done just fine for decades with a standard 15 degree edge on their boning knives, no problems with bone contact. That said, if you work in a pro kitchen all day, maybe every little bit counts, but for home use (which is most of us) it's probably fine either way. I guess the real lesson is just do what works for you and don't let some "master" make you feel dumb about it.

charles7201d ago

Nah, Linda's right, 15 degrees keeps a better edge for pure meat work and bone contact is overblown anyway.

the_sean1d ago

Huh, interesting. So you don't see any real downside to 15 degrees on a boning knife even when you hit a bone now and then?