Your serrated knife in Australia has an interesting trick up its sleeve. It can go for a lot of years without being sharpened or honed. There is no way a chef knife could ever get away with that. A serrated kitchen knife has a unique design that helps it carry on with the duty of cutting through bread without smashing the soft inside. It is something this knife can do because it is not like any other kitchen knife. Its blade edge functions like a hand saw. The teeth of a serrated kitchen knife catch and rip through hard exteriors to slide smoothly through the softer interior. If you have had a serrated kitchen knife for a couple of years, you may notice that it is not as sharp as it used to be. It has lost some of its efficiency.
Sharp but not too sharp
A serrated kitchen knife is the only piece of cutlery in your kitchen that will work efficiently when the blade is dull. The serrated edges give the knife the ability to cut even when the edge is dull. The serrations have high points that come into contact with what you are cutting first. The points apply higher pressure to the material than a blade that doesn’t have serrations. The high points of the knife can pierce the surface.
It is why a serrated knife grabs and slices through the skin of a tomato yet the skin can resist other sharp non-serrated blades. When properly used, a serrated kitchen knife requires sharpening because of its construction and it does not need regular maintenance that non-serrated blades call for. A serrated kitchen knife will do its job well for years especially if you end up using it as a cake or bread knife.
You still need it sharp
A lot of people are not familiar with how to sharpen a serrated kitchen knife. The best way to keep your serrated kitchen knife sharp is to invest in a carbon steel knife. It will have better edge retention and this means it will need sharpening less often compared to cheap knives.
How do you sharpen a serrated kitchen knife?
It is not easy to sharpen a serrated kitchen knife and that is why a lot of people prefer leaving the job to a professional. If you have an electric knife sharpener then it may have a slot designed for sharpening serrated kitchen knives. However, if you want to sharpen it yourself then you should get a ceramic honing rod.
Start at the back end of the serrated kitchen knife and place the sharpening rod on the knife’s serrated grove. Position the rod in a way that matches the bevelled angle of the cut in the gullet. It is hard to find the angle but if you hold the rod flush with the bevel, you will automatically find the correct angle.
Then you will have to slide the sharpening rod through the gullet toward the cutting edge. Do this for every gullet. It will take a few passes for every gullet. This means you will take some time to sharpen your serrated knife in Australia.
