1. Put steel vertically on a counter top or non slip surface, gripping firmly. To sharpen any sized knife, put bottom, ‘heel’, of knife against one edge of steel. Position knife at an acute angle, roughly between 20-30°.
2. Glide knife down steel in one smooth stroke, pulling knife gradually towards body, ending with tip of knife at bottom of steel. Pull knife smoothly away from steel.
3. Repeat process on other side of blade, using opposite edge of steel. Repeat on alternate sides, a few times per side. Check sharpness and continue if necessary.
4. The condition of blade, quality of knife and hardness of metal will affect how long it takes to sharpen.
5. Sharpening steels only hone edge of knife. If knife is completely blunt, it will require professional sharpening to restore edge.6 After sharpening, wipe all knives with a paper towel, to remove any metal filings that might be on blade.
Use your skills to make these triple-tested recipes:
Sunday gammon with parsley sauce recipe
Sushi recipe
Sunday lunch recipes
Pro bread knife, Pro chef’s knife, Pro paring knife, Zwilling J.A. Henckels. Oak chopping board, Lakeland. Knife sharperning sword, chef's own.
An experienced and highly skilled team of food writers, stylists and digital content producers, the Good Housekeeping Cookery Team is a close-knit squad of food obsessives. Cookery Editor Emma Franklin is our resident chilli obsessive and barbecue expert, who spends an inordinate amount of time on holidays poking round the local supermarkets seeking out new and exciting foods. Senior Cookery Writer Alice Shields is a former pastry chef and baking fanatic who loves making bread and would have peanut butter with everything if she could. Her favourite carb is pasta, and our vibrant green spaghetti is her weeknight go-to. Lover of all things savoury, Senior Cookery Writer Grace Evans can be found eating crispy corn and nocellara olives at every opportunity, and will take the cheeseboard over dessert any time (though she cannot resist a slice of tres leches cake). With a wealth of professional kitchen know-how, culinary training and years of experience between them, they are all dedicated to ensuring every Good Housekeeping recipe is the best it can be, so you can trust they’ll work (and if they don’t – we’ll have the answer for why*) every time (*90% of the time the answer is: “buy an separate oven thermometer”!).
