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Electric Knife Sharpeners - REVIEW

One of the quickest and easiest ways to keep your kitchen cutlery sharp is by using an electric sharpener. Powered and thereby taking you off the hook from hand sharpening and honing, electric knife sharpeners do it all in a matter of minutes or seconds. But, which brands are the best for your money?

These Electric Sharpeners get the Best Reviews from Cook's Illustrated:

FOR FLAT EDGED BLADES ONLY:

Chef's Choice Professional 110

FOR SERRATED KNIVES:

Chef's Choice 120

Chef's Choice 320

FOR ASIAN KNIVES:

Chef's Choice Electric Sharpener for Asian Knives

Other quality choices include: Presto Eversharp, Sabatier Cuisine France, and Oster Cutting Edge.

Electric Sharpening VS. Hand Sharpening:

One of the most challenging aspects to hand sharpening with a steel or wet stone is maintaining a constant angle from the blade's bolster to tip.

Benefit to using an electric knife sharpener is that it doesn't require you to have sharpening skills as is the case with manual sharpeners. A good quality electric system will have a built in angle guide ensuring a constant angle and sharp edge.

Also, with 2 or 3 stage electric knife sharpening systems you do not have to use a steel and then use an abrasive stone to sharpen. You've got essentially both components housed into one sharpener.

How Do They Work?

Stage 1: grinding or pre-sharpening - removes the dull edge and creates the first bevel, or angle

Stage 2: sharpen/honing stage -a slightly more steeply sloped bevel (the sharpening angle) that comes to the point of the edge

Stage 3: stropping stage -produces a third bevel for an even stronger edge

Also see; knife sharpeners