I’ve come across a few wine chilling products that might be useful as summer approaches. Maybe you have forgotten to chill a bottle and want a quick cold glass of vino or you just need to keep your drink cool. Regardless, there are plenty of products out there, but these struck me as stylish and innovative.

The first is the Vacu Vin Cooling Carafe to the right. This product uses non-ice cold packs that are inserted into a chilling base. You just put the beverage of choice into the carafe and let the cooling packs do their work. The cost is around $33 and it comes in black and white versions.

Unfortunately, the chilling base does not accommodate wine bottles, and the beverages must be used with the carafe provided. That is a bit annoying, but on the other hand it is more flexible for other drinks. If you want one for just wine, there is the elegant Vacu Vin Prestige Stainless-Steel Wine Cooler for just over $25.

Vacu Vin also has a Rapid Ice Wine Cooler, which is a good option if you want something portable and only want to keep your wine at a nice chilled temperature. The wine coolers are basically chilled sleeves that fit over your bottle and come in many colors and patterns. They sell for $12 on Amazon, and I personally like the black and silver varieties.

As for chilling from room temperature, I don’t know if the claim that these wine sleeves can chill bottles in five minutes is accurate. After reading Amazon reviews, it looks as if it takes closer to 10 minutes and even then it doesn’t really get the bottle that cold. These packs are probably better for keeping pre-chilled bottles cold or to just slightly chill a red wine. Yes, red wines should also be served slightly chilled (55 to 65 degrees) depending upon the wine.

The next wine chilling product is the Wine Sceptre out of Germany. This device keeps a pre-chilled wine at the perfect temperature for drinking, but like other products also does not chill from room temperature. To use, you simply insert the chilled stainless steel rod into your wine bottle and it provides a cool core of metal to maintain the wine’s temperature. The product also has a flip-off top so you can pour the wine through the metal tube. It would be rather annoying if you had to take the rod out each time you wanted to pour a glass.

I like the idea of this a lot, as the rod is actually in the wine and doesn’t rely upon chilling from the outside, which means you are chilling the bottle too. Both the Vacu Vin chiller packs and the Wine Sceptre are also nice in that they eliminate the wet bottle. You’ll no longer have to use up your ice before a party for chilling wine, have soggy labels, or have to deal with a dripping bottle while pouring.

With that said, the price is really steep at $135, and a six-pack will run you $600. Ouch. At that price, maybe it is best just to finish the bottle before it gets warm. You can buy the wine sceptres through Mistral Imports.

If you want a cheaper option than the Wine Sceptre, Skybar has a Wine Cool Cover for $40 that will also maintain the temperature of your wine with a hip looking aluminum-finished cover that slips over your bottle. I would probably try this before the sceptre.

And the last product is also from Skybar. The Skybar Wine Chill Drops cost $50 and are made to chill individual glasses of room-temperature wine. They are very stylish and come in a set of two, so while you wait for the rest of your bottle to chill, you and another person can enjoy some cold wine using these individual chillers. You simply put the stainless steel bulbs in your glass, pour the wine, and let the cold metal chill your drink. The Skybar site claims that these chill drops cool a glass in as little as 90 seconds. Once the wine is to the desired temperature, you place the used chiller drops in the convenient stands. It’s a nice set-up if you ask me, and out of all the products, I think this one appeals to me the most.

If you want to chill wine the low-budget way, you can still use ice buckets or the freezer. When using an ice bucket, make sure to use water and ice and also add salt. This will cool the bottle in about 15 minutes.

If you just want to keep a glass of wine cool on a hot day, don’t use ice cubes, but instead freeze grapes and drop a few in your glass. This method won’t dilute the wine, but yet it will give some added cooling.

As for the desired temperature of different wines, Food & Wine has a nice cheat sheet on how long to refrigerate, freeze, or use and ice bucket for different wines. Just keep in mind that it takes over 2 hours in the refrigerator and at least 25 minutes in the freezer to achieve the desired temperature for whites — and sparkling wines will take even longer.

A couple of weekends ago I was at the International Housewares Association show in Chicago and got a chance to check out the SousVide Supreme. Richard Blais from the 2008 season of Top Chef was giving demonstrations and plugging the product. If you remember that season, Blais was big into molecular gastronomy and sous-vide cooking so it is no surprise to see him associated with this device.

Essentially, this appliance is a home version of the expensive immersion circulators used at some restaurants, whereby food is cooked in a controlled-temperature water bath. Before this, enthusiasts wanting to experiment with sous-vide cooking (which means ‘under vacuum’ in French) had to search eBay for used laboratory equipment or purchase the SousVideMagic which is a temperature control mechanism that you can use along with a rice cooker, crock pot or other water-worthy vessel to create your own water oven set-up.

Sous-vide cooking is all the rage these days, but it is still a rather costly endeavor. The SousVide Supreme will run you $450 and then you will also have to pay extra for food-grade cooking bags and a vacuum sealer to remove the air. Beware that the SousVide Supreme vacuum sealer retails for $129. The SousVideMagic is cheaper at $160, but then you also need (or have to buy) a rice cooker or crock pot of some sort. And once again you will need bags and a way to vacuum seal them. Though I must admit that some people just use zip-lock bags, press the air out by hand as much as possible, and use a straw to remove the last little bit.

With that said, resources on the web are plentiful if you want to learn how to cook sous vide. The eGullet society has a thread called Sous Vide: Recipes, Techniques, and Equipment that has a staggering 115 pages with 3,400+ replies dating back to 2004. Good luck reading that. They should give you a diploma in sous-vide cooking if you read through the entire posting. For a more manageable post, eGullet has a thread on just the SousVide Supreme that has around 100 replies. A lot of that discussion revolves around how well the temperature is maintained, water circulation issues, and a comparison to the SousVideMagic set-up.

When cooking sous vide, food safety is also an issue. This type of food preparation uses lower temperatures to cook food (often meat) for a longer period of time. When meat is cooked at a higher temperature it kills all the bad stuff very quickly, but the proteins also shrink and expel moisture. That is why overcooked meat is so dry and tough. By cooking at lower temperatures, however, the meat retains its moisture and stays soft and moist. But there is a fine line between creating a heat that cooks the meat and kills the bacteria and also creating a warm, moist environment where bacterial growth is actually promoted. Remember, bacteria also like dark, warm, moist places. In fact, botulism is still a concern with sous-vide cooking and anyone attempting it should take care to learn proper, safe techniques. Douglas Baldwin’s A Practical Guide to Sous Vide Cooking is a good place to start when learning how to safely cook using this method, but the document can get a bit technical. Just make sure to look up preparation times and temperatures or follow instruction manuals with your device of choice.

Serious Eats also has a good post on cooking steak sous vide, and they provide nice visuals for a range of cooking temperatures so you can see how much moisture is being lost at which temp. Just reading that article alone will give you a fair understanding of what is at play with sous-vide cooking and if it is the right method for you. Just keep in mind that sous vide is a great way to prepare short ribs, so if you are fan of that cut of meat, you might want to consider it.

The Steamy Kitchen blog is also a good resource if you are thinking about buying the SousVide Supreme. The author tested the machine out on meat and eggs and has a lot of photos of the device in action. By the way, Richard Blais said the SousVide Supreme cooks onions perfectly. It isn’t just about meat, you can also use it for eggs, vegetables, and even some sauces.

I don’t have this machine yet, but I will probably consider it after grilling season is done. Even then I need to evaluate whether I would use it enough to justify the price or if I want a big appliance taking up room in my kitchen.

If you are interested, you can buy the SousVide Supreme 10-L. SousVide Supreme Water Oven at cooking.com and the SousVideMagic is sold at Fresh Meals Solutions.

Thomas Keller also has a book out called Under Pressure: Cooking Sous Vide but is more for a professional or very serious cook.

Good luck cooking at low temperatures.

For years I have used regular wooden spoons while cooking and never though much about them. I usually purchased them at Target or some similar store, but I also didn’t feel they were great quality. Six months ago, however, my cooking spoons improved greatly when I purchased a Berard olivewood spoon from Sur La Table.

I never thought there could be such a difference with wooden cooking utensils, but there is. Berard is a French company that has been making quality wooden cooking utensils since 1892. Their spoon is crafted from a single piece of olivewood and is oil varnished to make it durable and heat resistant.

Not only does this spoon feel good in the hand, but it actually does resist heat a lot better than other wooden spoons I’ve used. Now when I cook, I usually search specifically for my Berard spoon and it gets used much more than other stirring utensils.

You can purchase Barard spoons at Sur La Table or at Amazon.com. They come in 10-inch, 12-inch, and 14-inch sizes and cost between $13-17.

Every now and then I try gadgets even though I pretty much know that I will not like the product or use it. Usually, I have heard good reports on it, the Amazon ratings are high, and the product is relatively cheap. Essentially, I get to satisfy my curiosity and there is no regret if it turns out to be useless.

So I finally gave in and bought one of those cannelloni-shaped garlic peelers by Zak for around $9. I must admit that I didn’t have high hopes for this gadget. Once you know that you can just tap the flat side of a chef’s knife on a garlic clove and the skin will easily come off, a garlic peeler seems redundant. Just search YouTube and you will find many videos showing how to remove garlic skin with a knife or other flat object.

But maybe I am too quick to judge. The Amazon ratings are really high for this simple and cheap gadget, and there are some logical reasons someone would use it. The main arguments for it include:

* It is quick and easy.

* You touch the garlic less, so you hands don’t smell as much.

* It preserves the shape of the clove as it doesn’t crush the clove as the knife method does.

So how did it perform?

Well, first of all it does work. It quickly took away the skin and left a clean clove of garlic on my counter. I must say I was quite impressed. Though that is basically what a gadget does: it wows you with its magic and then you actually start cooking with it and begin to see the real benefits and drawbacks.

Was it faster than doing the knife trick?

That is tough to say.

If you are just skinning one or two cloves and have a chef’s knife handy, then you would likely be done removing the skin with a knife before you could retrieve the garlic peeler from your gadget drawer. So for a small number of cloves, it is probably still best to use a knife if you have one handy. If you don’t, go for the peeler gadget. You’ll just have to wash another kitchen item later on.

For larger amounts of garlic, the peeler makes more sense as it may save you time overall. But that isn’t always true. I tried out 20 cloves and after about 8 of them, garlic skins were stuck to the inside of the cylinder and it took longer to peel each clove. Productivity declines with use. You could wash out the cylinder, but that also takes time and when it becomes wet it also works less effectively, so you need to dry the inside thoroughly.

Essentially, in terms of speed, if you know how to remove garlic skin with a knife, the peeler won’t really save that much time — if any. If you aren’t comfortable with knives and are only doing a moderate amount of cloves, then the peeler could marginally save time.

Other Considerations

The most compelling reason to use the peeler is when you want to retain the garlic clove shape without smashing it. The knife or other flat surface, depending upon how much pressure you use, will crush the garlic to some extent. So if you are using whole cloves for pickling or want neatly sliced garlic to put into the slits of a tenderloin, then the peeler will do a good for such purposes.

Another reason for using the peeler would be to reduce the smell that handling garlic imparts to your hands. When you crush garlic, you start to release its oil and that is what makes your hands smell. But I do find this argument less than persuasive. If you neatly peel the garlic with the gadget and then use your hands to chop or slice the garlic, you still end up handling it — albeit less. Even if you use a garlic press, you still often end up employing your fingers to dig out the pulp remains. Basically, unless you are using only full cloves, you will still end up handling the garlic and have some garlic smell on your hands.

Lastly, I think the peeler is also good if you have children or less-than-foodie relatives or friends helping in the kitchen. It is easy to use, can be fun for children, and the helpers don’t have to worry about hands smelling like garlic. You will be the one chopping and preparing the food.

Overall Evaluation

If you are comfortable with a knife and are already using one to remove garlic skins, this peeler gadget will probably not get used that much. I wouldn’t buy it.

In terms of speed, the peeler can be superior but it depends upon how much garlic you are peeling. If you are doing 4-6 cloves, the peeler may be quicker but after that, the peeler can lose efficiency and become slower. I wouldn’t buy this gadget for the speed.

If you want to reduce garlic contact with your hands; you like to cook a lot with whole cloves; or you want to involve kids in cooking, then this gadget is a small price to pay for those advantages. It does work well; it just depends upon how you cook.

For a few years I used the Unicorn Magnum Plus Pepper Mill (left), but about five months ago I started using the Oliver Hemming Spice Mill (right). Now that I own both of these grinders, I thought I would have a pepper grinding duel to compare the two products.

I have previously written about the Oliver Hemming and the Unicorn, and both are very good pepper grinders, but there are some differences that set them apart. So after a lot of pepper grinding, here are how the two grinders compare.

Styling

The Oliver Hemming has better styling in my opinion and comes in a range of colors. The body of the Hemming is also made out of acrylic and has a smooth, solid feel to it. But what sets it apart is the unique use of a traditional mortar perched on top of the grinder. There is a reason why the Oliver Hemming spice mill won a Red Dot Design Award.

The Unicorn is less stylish and more utilitarian, and one of the most common points raised about the Unicorn is that it doesn’t look that great. I do agree that it is nothing special, but I also don’t think it is that bad. I just wish they would start making the Unicorn in different colors. I think that would greatly reduce the ‘ugly’ stigma associated with it. Also, the ABS plastic feels a lot cheaper than the Hemming material.

Loading and Storage Capacity

The Hemming’s storage capacity is good compared to other grinders and holds about 3/8 cup but nothing like the Unicorn. The best part of the Hemming, though, is how easy it is to load. The mortar on top acts like a funnel, so loading is extremely easy.

The Unicorn holds almost one cup of peppercorns when filled up to the loading hole, which is an amazing amount. The hole is also large for easy filling, but I must admit that I find the loading of peppercorns awkward on the side of the grinder.

Storage, in my opinion, is a wash between these two products. The ease of loading with the Hemming adequately compensates for its smaller storage, but the Unicorn definitely will need less filling.

Grinding

The Hemming’s grind is very good and the turning is smooth. A nice shower of pepper comes out, and there is also an adjustment knob on the bottom to regulate the grind from fine to coarse. A nice feature of the Hemming is that the grinding mechanism is made out of ceramic and not steel, so you can use it for grinding salt as well as other dry spices that are under the size of a coffee bean.

The Unicorn is a pepper-grinding monster, and it has a very satisfying grind-and-crunch feel. It grinds fast and the shower of corns is fast and plentiful. The grinding mechanism is steel, so though it can be used for pepper, salt will corrode the metal. Unicorn has different products for grinding salt if you are looking for that option. There is also a knob at the bottom for adjusting the grind just as the Hemming has.

For comparison, at a medium-coarse grind the Unicorn produced about 1 3/8 tsp of pepper after 20 turns versus just under 1 1/8 tsp with the Hemming. At finer grinds, the Hemming performed almost as well as the Unicorn, and the Hemming actually allowed for a finer grind at the most extreme setting than the Unicorn. There is no question though that at medium to coarse grinds, the Unicorn is much faster.

Other Considerations

The Unicorn was messier than the Hemming and a fair amount of pepper would leak out of the Unicorn while resting on the counter, especially at coarser grind settings. You will probably notice a lot of peppercorn droppings where you store the Unicorn if you purchase this grinder.

Also of note, the loading hole on the Unicorn can come open accidentally because it is located just under the turning mechanism and regular grinding sometimes opens it. If this happens and the grinder tips over, you may spill peppercorns. This only happened a couple of times to me, but it did happen. The new Unicorn, however, has a tighter fitting ring over the loading hole, so hopefully it will stay closed and be less of a problem. This problem was also noted in Amazon reviews.

Conclusion

All in all they are both very good pepper grinders. If you are looking for grinding speed during hectic cooking sessions, then the Unicorn is probably the best choice. If you can sacrifice a bit of speed and want something that looks better, the Oliver Hemming is an excellent choice.

If you want to purchase the Oliver Hemming Spice Mill, Dream Icons has it for sale for $45, but shipping is $20 from the UK. The Unicorn Magnum Plus Pepper Mill is available from Cooking.com for $45 with $10 shipping. I purchased my Oliver Hemming off of eBay for around $20.

Recently a question was posed to me about which bread making machine was best, and frankly I didn’t know. While living abroad I learned how to make a simple bread dough from a Jamie Oliver recipe and have used that recipe ever since. I have never used a KitchenAid mixer or any other machine for bread; I make it completely by hand and I love the results. But frequent bread making from scratch is rarely an option for most people, and now that I have an artisanal bakery nearby, I have only made bread once in the last six months.

Essentially, bread making depends upon a person’s situation. Food needs, busy schedule, size of family, and existence of bakeries can all affect how and if we bake a loaf of bread. So here are a few questions you might ask yourself when thinking about buying some new bread making equipment.

• Do you have a good bakery nearby? You will likely bake less bread if that is the case.
• What type of bread do you like? Do you want artisanal bread or just better sandwich bread for you kids’ lunch box?
• Do you have dietary restrictions? If you can’t eat gluten, then making your own bread is a good option.
• Cost? If you can’t afford a bread machine or mixer, you may need to make bread the old fashioned way.
• How much bread do you eat and how often? These are simple questions but important.

Too many people buy bread machines and kitchen mixers and never use them. They just have different bread needs, and that’s perfectly fine, but if you are looking to invest in kitchen tools or to start making bread, examining your habits, needs, and expectations will help make it so you actually use the equipment you buy.

So with that said, I like to group home bread making into four categories.

• Handmade bread from scratch with no tools;
• Handmade bread with use of kitchen tools such as mixers;
• Semi-handmade bread with use of a bread machine; and
• Completely automated bread with full use of a bread machine.

The first method of completely making bread by hand is probably the most messy and time consuming and takes some dedication. This is what I do as I don’t own a food processor, KitchenAid mixer, or bread machine. However, I don’t feel that most people unless they are serious bakers or bread lovers would choose this method nowadays, especially with so many kitchen tools to make the job easier.

I initially chose making bread this way because I had no appliances and no good bakeries. If you are a serious bread purist, concerned about cost, or a foodie that just wants to learn baking and make a handful of loaves per year, this style of bread making will probably be fine. It works, isn’t as hard as it seems, and tastes great. I just started out with a simple recipe and moved on to more elaborate breads. Here is the Jamie Oliver recipe I use.

The second method of using kitchen appliances to help out is probably the most common. Either a mixer or food processor assists in mixing and kneading the bread dough, and you are left to proof and bake the bread on your own. The advantage of this method is that it cuts down on some of the work and clean-up and also gives you a lot of flexibility with making different types of bread. You control the bread product. And for most cooks, you will already have a mixer or food processor that can handle bread dough. This is the way I would do it if I had the tools.

If you cook bread in this manner, I would also recommend two books that will help cut down on the time without sacrificing bread making results. Both Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day and Bread In Half The Time will give tips and techniques to make fresh bread quicker by proofing dough in the microwave or using a different type of dough that can be refrigerated.

The third method of using a bread machine to do everything except baking the bread is a hybrid approach and is also popular. You still have some control over the bread but the bread machine eliminates the mixing, kneading, and proofing steps. You simply take the unbaked, proofed bread from the machine, form it how you want, and bake it in the oven. This is a great compromise approach if that suits your needs.

With proper measuring of ingredients and a book or two, this method will also yield very good baked bread. A useful tool for this method is a digital scale to get the ingredients properly measured as that is one of the main causes of unsatisfactory bread machine results. Go by weight and not volume if you use a bread machine.

As for bread machines, a highly recommended model is the Zojirushi BBCCX20 Supreme Bread Machine. I have also seen the Panasonic SD-YD250 Automatic Bread Maker mentioned as a good choice, and it has excellent reviews on Amazon. The Zojirushi will allow you to control the bread making process a bit more than the Panasonic, and it has a horizontal loaf, which usually means better crust. The Panasonic is more of a start-to-finish machine, puts the yeast in on its own, and has a vertical loaf. With both of these machines, you can take the dough out and cook it in your own oven.

And if you end up going the total bread machine route, a highly recommended book is The Bread Lover’s Bread Machine Cookbook, and if you want to create more artisanal-tasting breads Rustic European Breads from Your Bread Machine is useful.

Finally, the last method of complete automation with a bread machine is obviously the easiest, but you lose a lot of control over your bread result. This doesn’t mean it is bad bread, but you will have less control over shape, rising, and crust and you may need to experiment to get your results to come out properly. Again, the books listed above will help  produce better results, and they will also give numerous recipes. The main benefit of this all-in-one method is less work, but if you are willing to forgo true artisanal bread, a bread machine will allow you to have fresh bread awaiting you in the morning along with that great aromal. Also, for larger families that eat a lot of bread, taking this route may be the easiest and best option to ensure a great supply of fresh bread.

And last of all, if you want a good site for a lot of useful bread-making resources, I would recommend checking out King Arthur Flour. Serious bakers use this site, and it is well organized and has a lot of good equipment. Happy baking.

A couple of weeks ago I was at Kitchen Window in Minneapolis and saw for the first time that Epicurean, which is normally associated with cutting boards, is now producing kitchen utensils. They have a series of spoons, ladles, turner spatulas, pasta servers, and saute tools that come in two lines and colors. The Kitchen Series is completely made out of their trademark composite wood and comes in natural and slate, just like their cutting boards. The Gourmet Series also comes in natural and slate but incorporates a high-temperature nylon head.

I ended up purchasing the Gourmet Series slate-colored spoon and large spatula to try them out (shown above), and though I haven’t used them that much, so far I like them a lot. The handles are very comfortable, the construction is stiff and sturdy, and the nylon heads seem to be firmly attached. The utensils do feel as if they will be durable – though it is hard to tell at this point. As for heat resistance, the wood handle can manage up to 350 degrees and the nylon head up to 400 degrees, and they are also dishwasher safe.

Additionally, I think they look better than other plastic utensils, and the spoon has measuring ridges on the interior for 1 tbs, 1/8 cup, and 1/4 cup. It isn’t something that you would use for precise measuring as you need to have the spoon very steady and level to get exact amounts, but this feature may come in handy for a quick-and-dirty measure if you need it. I could see myself using this feature when adding olive oil to a dish, broth to some risotto, or if you need to add some pasta water back into a dish.

The price is also reasonable at about $9.50 per utensil from the Epicurean website, or you can buy selected items at Amazon for $7.95, but at time of writing there was only one vendor selling through Amazon and the shipping cost was really high. I am sure that will change in the coming months, but for now if you purchase directly through Epicurean, you can get free shipping on orders over $75 through December 15th.

Most times I am for good design, but if design starts to trump function too much, I have to give a product a thumbs down. In my opinion, this dish rack is one of those items. Though I can appreciate the sleek space-saving design, I can’t imagine it would be useful to most people, and even for those who might find it handy, I highly doubt they would pay $110 for it.

I wash all my dishes by hand, so I love it when new products come out that assist in that process, but here are just a few of my concerns with this product.

• It doesn’t hold many dishes. Even a two-person family would push this to the limit.
• Odd-sized dishes that aren’t cups or plates won’t fit well. Even utensils don’t have much of a place.
• Eventually someone will tip it over and break a whole rack of dishes.
• There is no draining mat or drip tray to go underneath. At that price I think one should be supplied.
• Again, the price at $110 is pretty ridiculous.

Now with that said, the designer is Spanish, and I could see this being used in small European kitchens or an efficiency apartment in New York City, especially if there is limited counter space and no dishwasher. The rack also saves space by folding up and will have a smaller ‘footprint’ on your counter when in use, but I would also be concerned that it might not fit under cabinets well. Lastly, I will admit that European sinks often have a built in metal draining rack, so the draining pad/tray may not be an issue if you have a European-style sink.

Despite these redeeming traits and scenarios, I still think this product is not very functional, especially if you have a family of more than one person. If you live in an average-sized home, you will have enough space for a dish rack that is much more useful, yet costs a lot less. Yes, the product does look great, and it is clever how it folds up, but no matter how useful it might be for tight spaces, there is still the $110 price tag to consider too.

Despite my humble opinion, many design blogs and several magazines (including Dwell) have featured this product, so there are people who like the concept. If you are one of those people, you can find the Aurea dish rack designed by Ernest Perera at the Conran Shop. Other shops will also sell it online, but it is usually more expensive.

This unique pepper grinder designed by Norway Says for Muuto will add some color to your table. I can’t vouch for how it grinds, but it is unique if you are looking for something different. You can also get it in plain white and plain black if the primary colors aren’t to your liking. The grinder is on the expensive side at $86, so it will probably appeal more to the design conscious foodies and toddlers who will find it a really frustrating set of blocks.

You can buy the grinder at A+R and at Unica Home.

A lot of knife sets come with honing rods included which can also be called ’steels’ or ‘hones’. But is that steel a good one for your knives and how should it be used?

First of all, honing a knife is not the same as sharpening one. It is simply a way to realign the edge of your knife blade so it can once again cut with a straight edge. As you use your cutlery, the sharp end will ever so slightly start to roll over to one side, and honing a knife straightens it out again. It will seem sharper and cut better, but this is caused by taking that slight curve out of the end of the blade and restoring the edge.

The next question one might ask is: Do I need to use a specific brand or the steel that came with my set? The answer is ‘no’; brand doesn’t matter, and the steel that came with your set may not be a good one to use. If you do use it, however, you should proceed cautiously. Learn how to hone by watching some videos on the internet or reading up on it because the angle and pressure applied are very important. If you have a grooved metal steel, use it LIGHTLY. These devices are very aggressive with knife blades and if not used correctly will dramatically shorten the life of your knife.

The next question is: Which steel should I purchase if I need one? There are so many products on the market today (ceramic, oval, diamond, smooth, grooved and glass), but which one is best? Well it depends upon what kind of knives you have and what shape they are in. If you have fine Japanese versus European cutlery, then you should get different honing rods. And if your knives are older and duller, then you may also need to use different materials.

One way of thinking about it is by how aggressive a rod is. Without out getting into grit (coarseness) too much, here is a general progression of how aggressive each steel will be with your knife blade from hardest to the gentlest.

(1) Grooved steel hones. Very aggressive and most common in sets.

(2) Diamond hones. These can be coarse and fine, but they are still fairly aggressive.

(3) Ceramic hones. The fine ones are less aggressive and a good choice for European knives.

(4) Grooved glass hones. These are even more gentle than ceramic hones and can be used with Japanese knives.

(5) Smooth hones. These can be glass or metal and are not aggressive.

(6) Soft material hones. These really aren’t hones, but include leather strops and are good for Japanese knives.

When a knife is sharp, a smooth hone is best to use as all you really want to do is gently push the rolled over metal back into place. Do this right before using your knife to ensure your cutlery is ready for work.

Eventually, though, that weaker part of the blade tip will return to its rolled-over shape and become ‘flimsy’ over time. This is especially true of European-style knives such as Henckels and Wusthof. The steel that goes into making these knives is softer than Japanese ones and will lose its edge quicker. That means that eventually you will need to use something more aggressive such as a ceramic hone to recondition your blade a bit. Fine ceramic rods will push the blade back into shape, but also remove a tiny bit of the weakened part of the blade to help it maintain its edge longer. Yes, it is still removing some of your blade, but it is taking a very minimal part off. After doing this repeatedly though, you will need to get your knife re-sharpened.

If you use fine Japanese cutlery, it is best to step back even further from the ceramic and go with a completely smooth rod or a glass honing rod. Japanese knives keep their edge longer, so often they just need to be realigned with a non-aggressive honing process. Also, because of the hardness of Japanese knives, they chip easier so a gentle honing is necessary to prevent damage to your knife. Leather strops, smooth hones, and micro-grooved glass rods are good options for Japanese cutlery.

So if you are looking to be nice and gentle to your knives, it is best to go with a combination of rods such as a smooth polished one and then have a ceramic one for European knives and a glass one for Japanese knives when needed.

After browsing the eGullet and Knife Forum discussions, here are some recommendations for honing rods.

The Idahone fine ceramic hone is a good option. It is sold from EdgePro and Japanese Knife Sharpening.

For smooth hones you can shop several stores. Restaurant Source and Chefs Knives to Go have good selections of hones, and F. Dich has their Dickoron polished steel which is a good option.

To buy a glass honing rod as well as other sharpening tools, Hand American is a good resource, but the site seems to be under some maintenance right now. Here is their glass honing rod which is also pictured above. It sort of looks like a light saber.