Reddit reviews Chef'sChoice 463 Pronto Diamond Hone Manual Knife 15 Degree Santoku Knives Extremely Fast Sharpening, 2-Stage, Red

So definitely look into sharpening. Do not listen to anyone telling you to get sharpening stones unless you are passionate about learning a new, very difficult skill. If you are, go for it. There are tons of great tutorials on YouTube. Again, it's very difficult to get good at and will feel like a chore unless you really take to it.

There are plenty of good, inexpensive sharpeners out there. I use this one which is for knives with 15 degree edges, but there are others for 10 degree edged knives.

I own a $60 chef's knife and don't really have a problem using this dead simple sharpener. If I ever invest in a much pricier blade I'd think about maybe learning to use sharpening stones better.

I did a ton of research on knife sharpeners a few years ago. People on the internet basically only ever recommend whetstones, and will link you endless videos of people with huge, super-expensive knife collections explaining how you should only use a whetstone and manually sharpen your knives. And sure, whetstones are cheap and you can put a great edge on anything with enough effort.

If you want an actual knife sharpener, that's totally fine. People have been using them with great success for years, and frankly you can ignore most of the stupid anti-sharpener BS floating around the internet. ATK's favorite manual sharpener is this one for $43, but their favorite under $30 is this one.

Don't buy a knife set. You don't need those knives. All you need is the following;

One chef's knife: Victorinox Fibrox 8-Inch Chef's Knife 40520, 47520, 45520, 5.2063.20 https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B000638D32/

One pairing knife: Victorinox Cutlery 3.25-Inch Paring Knife, Small Black Polypropylene Handle https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B0019WXPQY/

The basics of a chefs knife and pairing knife is $50. Those are good knives. I have two of the chef's knives and three of the pairing knives. The chefs knives hold their edge very well and are sharpened to 15 degrees.

These two knives are all a basic home cook needs. The rest of the kit is filler to get the piece count up. You won't use the carving fork. You don't know how to use the carbon steel honing rod. You don't filet your own fish. You are likely eatting wonder bread so you don't need a bread knife. Unless you plan murder a roommate you don't need a clever. You ain't eatting steak so you don't need steak knives. Heck I eat steak quite a bit and I don't think I need steak knives You need a knife for delicate work and work horse. That is your pairing knife and chefs knife respectively.

After that I would add the following (mind you I am not happy with the price on the sharpener, but it's a fairly good one, just make sure you get one to sharpen asian knives or 15 degrees);

One pair of kitchen shears: Messermeister DN-2070 8-Inch Take-Apart Kitchen Scissors https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B000VS6CAS/

One knife sharpener: Chef's Choice 463 Pronto Santoku/Asian Manual Knife Sharpener https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B002JIMVS0/

One bread knife: Mercer Culinary 10-Inch Wide Bread Knife https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B000PS1HS6/

I consider these the next purchases because eventually you need some scissors dedicated to kitchen use, and maybe ones that will cut small bone and are easy to clean after use on raw meat. The shears are amazing. Blew me away.

The sharpener because you need to maintain your knives. Keeping your knives sharp is safer and makes them a joy to work with. The above knives come razor sharp and will last you a while before needing a proper sharpening. I don't own that particular sharpener but it ranks high in reviews. I have a more expensive automatic sharpener from chef's choice which I used to regrind my sister's knives to a 15 degree edge. I can't recommend it to everyone because it's $200. It was a splurge on my part and not needed. A manual sharpener is all the average person needs. It takes the guess work out of getting the angle right. Again if you have the knives on this list make sure you get a sharpener for 15 degrees or it might be labelled as Asian style.

Eventually you will be off the wonder bread and maybe baking your own. You need a bread knife then to slice in nicely. A bread knife is also handy for cutting cake and other delicate things you don't want to smoosh. That bread knife is solid. You want a knife that will glide through bread without crushing it or tearing it. The key to that is tooth spacing. I think this one is just about perfect.

Other knives are useful in the kitchen. I would get your specialized knives next, such as a carving knife or fillet knife. The above five things I consider core before you get other stuff. You can carve and fillet with a chefs knife. I cook way more than the average person and get away with the above five items. In fact before I would buy specialized knives I would get another chefs knife and another pairing knife. The only other type of knife I own is a santoku style chefs knife which I prefer for chopping vegetables because in school I owned a keep shitty one and got used to the style.

As always do your own research, check the prices on Amazon with camelcamelcamel and check the reviews with a tool like review meta.

I've heard a lot about the SpyderCo system. I just want to sharpen kitchen knives, they haven't been sharpened for years. I tried with the steel stick thing, but doesn't really help much.

I've seen [this] (https://www.amazon.com/Choice-463-Pronto-Santoku-Sharpener/dp/B002JIMVS0) recommended a few times as well, and was leaning towards that because it is simpler and not a lot of lose parts. Will the SpyderCo be a huge difference that I'm going to regret it? I don't plan on sharpening constantly, I haven't sharpened these in 4-5 years, but they all suck now and I've been meaning to deal with it.

This is the sharpened recommended by America's Test Kitchen. For serrated knives, just buy a new one, especially if you're using it infrequently anyway.

This is what America's Test kitchen recommends: https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B002JIMVS0

Not sure why you're getting downvoted as that's a good sharpener. If it's the price point relative to the knife in question, the manual version that sharpens to 15 degrees is a good option if you don't want to use sharpening stones (https://www.amazon.com/ChefsChoice-15-degree-Recommended-Illustrated-Sharpening/dp/B002JIMVS0/ref=sr_1_4?crid=30211K0VBNF8D&keywords=chef%27s+choice+asian+knife+sharpener&qid=1555722001&s=home-garden&sprefix=chef%27s+choice+asian%2Cgarden%2C311&sr=1-4)