Care & Maintenance
With proper care, your KESSAKU Professional Knives and Utensils can be your culinary companions for life. So, follow this guide to ensure continual optimal performance from all your knives and cooking instruments.
(These general rules should pretty much apply to all professional knives and cooking utensils by all manufacturers).
a. Treat your professional knives and cooking instruments with respect and care. Our blades are extremely sharp (up to 2x sharper than competing brands!) so, exercise general caution, and of course, keep them out of the reach of small children. We include custom blade sheaths with all our knives for added safety as well as beautiful magnetic gift boxes which can be used for their storage.
b. The highly recommended method of cleaning professional knives is – just quickly washing them by hand with a little detergent, followed by drying them with an absorbent towel. (*This is the standard operating procedure used by almost all professional chefs to keep their knives in optimal condition). Also of note, although dishwasher safe, the heavy jet-streams of water used in dishwashers can propel a large knife’s sharp blade against other objects inside. Keep this in mind to avoid potential damage. Dishwashers can also leave behind moisture and tiny particles of food on a knife’s blade which can cause corrosion to occur, especially if left overnight. This is why ALL manufacturers of professional knives suggest hand-washing (and immediate, thorough, drying) despite being technically “dishwasher safe”.
c. Our knives use the highest-grade specially formulated steel for greatly enhanced corrosion and rust resistance. However, as with all professional knives, you never want to leave your knife soaking in soapy water. Over time, moisture and water will cause micro-corrosion in minute levels, which weakens steel. So, after use, clean your blades, dry your blades, and always keep your blades dry and stored properly.
d. In general, when washing cutlery, try to avoid soaps with bleach or heavy citrus extracts as they naturally promote corrosion.
e. Use proper and sane cutting surfaces. Wood, plastic, bamboo, and similar cutting boards are great! Glass, marble, ceramic, and granite surfaces can be damaged by knives (and cause the release of small particles of glass/ceramic/marble which is not really great to get in your food…), and these hard, counter-top type surfaces will also dull your knives.
Other IMPORTANT & HELPFUL TIPS!
- As a practice, it’s always best to periodically hone and sharpen your knives while they’re still relatively sharp. Waiting for your knives to dull will make them take significantly longer to sharpen and hone.
- Quickly honing your blades after use retains a blade’s sharpness significantly longer, which means you’ll need to sharpen less often.
- Use the correct tool for the correct job. Our blades are astonishingly durable. However, for your own safety, the rule for using any knife from any brand is that you never want to force a cut by twisting the blade or prying. For example, you wouldn’t want to use a small paring knife to hack away at something extremely hard like a coconut or something deeply frozen. Instead, you should use a blade-type that’s suitable for such tasks, like a nice, heavy, cleaver.