Wüsthof knives are some of the best kitchen knives money can buy, regardless of whether or not you’re a home cook or a commercial chef.
Well-made, durable, and razor-sharp, these knives hold an edge for what feels like forever.
Wüsthof knives will need to be honed and sharpened on a regular basis. This means honing your blade every time you use it and sharpening your Wüsthof knives every 6 to 12 months.
Looking for a Wüsthof knife?
My recommendation would be the Wüsthof 8 Inch Gourmet Chef’s Knife on Amazon here.
Do Wüsthof knives stay sharp?
Wüsthof knives have a near legendary reputation for coming razor-sharp right out-of-the-box and then maintaining those razor-sharp capabilities throughout.
It isn’t at all unusual for a Wüsthof knife with gentle use lasting for at least a couple of months before it needs to be sharpened – especially if you are honing the blade every couple of times you use it.
Obviously, how long your Wüsthof knife stays sharp will have a huge impact on how you are using it.
If you are using your knife to cut soft fruit and boneless meat, using a high quality cutting board, and cleaning your knife every time you use it – with a couple of runs along honing steel as well – you’re probably not going to have to sharpen your Wüsthof collection any more often than every 3 to 6 months.
If, on the other hand, you’re using your Wüsthof knife to cut through bony chicken, to chop through hard vegetables, to slice and dice on top of a cutting board that isn’t ideal – or generally just putting your Wüsthof through some “heavy duty” you’ll likely need to sharpen more frequently.
How often should I sharpen my Wüsthof knife?
As a general rule of thumb, the folks at Wüsthof (and experts in the culinary world) recommend you seriously consider sharpening your knife blades every 6 to 12 months.
Obviously, if your knives are getting more frequent use (multiple meals and prepared every day) you might have to bump that schedule up. You might be sharpening your new Wüsthof every other month.
If, on the other hand, your Wüsthof isn’t getting all that much use at all – or it’s really only being used to dice up some potatoes, slice up some onions, or chop through a couple of tomatoes – then you can probably stick to the six month schedule without any ill effects.
How do you sharpen a Wüsthof knife?
Sharpening a Wüsthof knife is not something you should “wing” or approach with a cavalier attitude.
These knives come straight from the factory with a beautiful edge on them.
You really want to do your level best to rebuild that edge as much as possible, honing and sharpening your knives to get that factory finish back in place.
Sharpening a Wüsthof always starts with cleaning the blade completely.
You want to be sure that you are gently scrubbing your Wüsthof knife every time you use it, especially if you are cutting up acidic ingredients. You don’t want to leave any tomato or citrus juice on your knife blade longer than absolutely necessary.
Secondly, you want to make sure that you aren’t soaking your knives or running them through the dishwasher.
Instead, you want to hand wash your cutlery from Wüsthof ASAP, dry it on a soft towel, and then put the blade protector back on before you store your knife again.
After being cleaned, it’s time to hone your knife.
You’ll use a honing steel for this approach, straightening the edge on your knife and rebuilding all of the tiny little serrations that are inevitably created along that edge profile.
It isn’t going to take very long but you have to make sure you get the angle right. Wüsthof knives typically have a 14° blade angle that you’ll want to match very carefully.
After the holding has been completed it’s time to go through the actual sharpening process.
You can knock this out with a sharpening steel (diamond or ceramic impregnated works best), a whetstone and a little bit of elbow grease, or you can even send your Wüsthof knives out to have them sharpened by professionals – including the folks at Wüsthof themselves!
What angle are Wüsthof knives sharpened at?
Most high-quality German blades are going to come straight from the factory with a generally pretty shallow angle of about 20° (or so).
Wüsthof knives, though, feature in even shallower angle than that to produce the true razor edge that they have been known for.
The Wüsthof knives are going to come straight from the factory with as close to a 14° edge as possible. Like everything else manufactured there are going to be some minor variations, but Wüsthof as a great quality control department and the blade angle will be as close to 14° as can be.
That’s what you want to shoot for when you his sharpen, too!
Are Wüsthof knives single or double bevel?
One thing that can sometimes make sharpening Wüsthof knives a bit of a challenge is the fact that these knives are double beveled.
The double bevel plays into the shallow 14° angle, but really once you get a feel for sharpening these knives (after the three or four times) you won’t have any trouble getting back into the rhythm and knocking this project out consistently.
It’s not a bad idea to try and build more muscle memory into maintaining this double bevel 14° angle with the honing steel you’re using every couple of times you bust your knives out.
That’ll only improve your muscle memory and speed things up!
Will Wüsthof knives last forever?
With proper care, regular honing and re-sharpening, and the right cleaning and storage you should expect your Wüsthof knives to last a lifetime and then some.
The warranty direct from the manufacturer is a full lifetime warranty. It goes to show you just how seriously the people at Wüsthof take their blades and how seriously they take their craft as well.
Most well cared for Wüsthof knives are going to last forever!
My Wüsthof Recommendation
View the 8-Inch Classic Wüsthof on Amazon (opens new tab)
The Wüsthof Classic Chef’s knife is my recommendation if you’re looking for a Wüsthof knife.
I recommend it a lot on this site as it’s the ultimate western chef’s knife. It’s super durable, comfortable to hold and use and as we’ve seen in the article above it uses top quality materials and is manufactured right in the German ‘City of Blades’, as it has been for over 200 years.
There are less expensive and more expensive Wüsthof knives, but for the money, I think this is the best.
