I have a few guesses here, the first being is that you’re moving the knife weirdly. Maybe it’s a Dull knife and the extra force required is making things go whonky.
Maybe you just have a small cutting board. And would benefit from a large one that just lives on the counter. (Small boards are for presentation, imo.)
Edit:
As a side note, if you do find your knife isn’t sharp… you don’t need to spend a whole lot on water stones. They’re “the best” because of tradition. the aluminum oxide stones he mentioned sucked. Arkansas stones are good, but you were never going to get a razors edge on one. But the modern standard is the diamond stone.
If you don’t want to use Amazon (please consider not,) you can get them from any woodworking supply store like rockler or woodcraft or whatever you have where you are.
From personal experience I can tell that once I went for the basic knive sharpener, the mean sharpness of my knives increased significantly.
Yes, the whetstone makes them sharper, but it takes so much tile that I usually used my knives far too long before I sharpened them again.
Once I got some basic knives sharpener (thebthings you pull your knive through), I suddenly started to sharpen the knives the moment I noticed they became a little dull.
Water stones are designed to abraid off. Their reason they were the gold standard is that the slurry it formed from that abrasion is what removed material (and it did so quickly.). But it abraided only where you used it so it would eventually need to be lapped back into flat.
Diamond stones are diamonds that are sintered or otherwise imbedded into steel plate. Once they’re worn in (basically weakly bound diamonds rubbing off,) they’re generally going to last.
Sometimes there’s issues with them, and the thin ones (like what I linked,) sometimes get bent or whatever (which is why it’s common for woodworkers to glue them to a board,) but with a modicum of care, they’ll last a long time.
(keep some water on the stone, wash it off and dry it, don’t store it someplace it’ll get rusty,)
For the record, diamond stones are now the lapping plate for most people who still fork over for the water stones. Another option that was good enough was to go outside and find some concrete that looked flat.
So, I would recommend starting with Basic knife skills.
I have a few guesses here, the first being is that you’re moving the knife weirdly. Maybe it’s a Dull knife and the extra force required is making things go whonky.
Maybe you just have a small cutting board. And would benefit from a large one that just lives on the counter. (Small boards are for presentation, imo.)
Edit: As a side note, if you do find your knife isn’t sharp… you don’t need to spend a whole lot on water stones. They’re “the best” because of tradition. the aluminum oxide stones he mentioned sucked. Arkansas stones are good, but you were never going to get a razors edge on one. But the modern standard is the diamond stone.
And diamond stones turned out to be pretty inexpensive lately. You can get a lasts-a-lifetime stone for 15-20 bucks
If you don’t want to use Amazon (please consider not,) you can get them from any woodworking supply store like rockler or woodcraft or whatever you have where you are.
Do the diamond stones need any kind of maintenance? I’ve read that you need to regularly flatten the surface of your typical whetstone.
From personal experience I can tell that once I went for the basic knive sharpener, the mean sharpness of my knives increased significantly. Yes, the whetstone makes them sharper, but it takes so much tile that I usually used my knives far too long before I sharpened them again. Once I got some basic knives sharpener (thebthings you pull your knive through), I suddenly started to sharpen the knives the moment I noticed they became a little dull.
Definitely. For the average home cook, that convenience is much more valuable than making your knives extra sharp.
Not really, no.
Water stones are designed to abraid off. Their reason they were the gold standard is that the slurry it formed from that abrasion is what removed material (and it did so quickly.). But it abraided only where you used it so it would eventually need to be lapped back into flat.
Diamond stones are diamonds that are sintered or otherwise imbedded into steel plate. Once they’re worn in (basically weakly bound diamonds rubbing off,) they’re generally going to last.
Sometimes there’s issues with them, and the thin ones (like what I linked,) sometimes get bent or whatever (which is why it’s common for woodworkers to glue them to a board,) but with a modicum of care, they’ll last a long time.
(keep some water on the stone, wash it off and dry it, don’t store it someplace it’ll get rusty,)
For the record, diamond stones are now the lapping plate for most people who still fork over for the water stones. Another option that was good enough was to go outside and find some concrete that looked flat.