When you’re sitting on a small boat, a few miles out to sea in the freezing cold, a sharp filleting knife can make life a lot easier when gutting cod. My knife certainly couldn’t be classed as sharp right then and it was my fishing partner for the day who later introduced me to the Samurai Shark Knife Sharpener. Work Sharp Electric Culinary E2 Kitchen Knife Sharpener: This sharpener is easy to use and has an excellent price for an electric model, but you get what you pay for. We found that it did just an OK job at sharpening, while its feet let it slide around on the countertop, which is a definite safety hazard. Design: We highlighted sharpeners that featured multiple stages for maximum efficiency or different slots for different blade sizes. Knife sharpeners can be bulky, so we also focused on compact sizes that you could store easily in your kitchen. It really depends on how much you use them and how much abuse they take, but knives generally need sharpening once or twice a year. If a knife feels dull or has trouble cutting, sharpen it. Just note that every time you sharpen a knife, it removes a little bit of metal. After many repetitions, there won't be enough left to sharpen, and it'll be time to replace your knife.

The Mueller cut through produce easily, for the most part, but its edge wasn't clean enough to finish off carrots without them splitting. We found it did a better job of sharpening the middle of the knives than the tips. It's also not compatible with serrated blades. Pull the knife blade along the sharpening steel towards you, with enough gentle force that you can hear a grinding noise.

We did not expect a knife sharpener at this low of a price to work as well as it does, but the Longzon 4-in-1 really delivers. As the name suggests, the manual sharpener has four slots—three successively finer ones for standard knives and an extra-wide one especially for sharpening scissors and shears. Some manual sharpeners take a little practice to use correctly, but the Longzon's design and included directions make things simple. There's even a QR code link to video instructions if you're more of a visual learner.

Cost: A premium knife sharpener will ideally not cost too much. After all, there's no point in buying something expensive when a less expensive model will do the exact same thing (at a much better price). One common design has multiple slots - these are intended for honing as well as polishing the blade - while another is more like a sharpening steel in nature. The type with multiple slots is effective for frequent use. A good knife sharpener helps keep your favorite chef’s knife performing at its best. Those crisp, clean, precise cuts we all love from a brand-new knife won’t last forever — not unless the blade is properly maintained. Sharp knives are much safer to work with, too. Dull knives require more force to use, which increases the risk of slipping and catching a finger instead of slicing cleanly through that pesky onion. It doesn’t matter which knives you buy—they'll all need to be sharpened periodically. Besides making it easier to cut and chop, keeping knives sharp is also safer for your fingers: Dull knives can drag or skip while cutting, which can increase your chance of injury. How often you need to use a knife sharpener depends on exactly how often you use the knife, what you cut, and what surface you cut on, but professionals typically recommend sharpening once or twice a year.The flexible belt helps accommodate knives of all different sizes, though we found that it also leaves a lot of wiggle room for the blade, making it somewhat difficult to keep knives at the exact correct angle through the entire sharpening process. The Easy Edge theoretically can sharpen a serrated knife, but it only sharpens the flat edge and not the serrations themselves, so we recommend against it. This knife sharpener is simple to use and sharpens very well, but with its high price, it's probably best for someone who spends a lot of time in the kitchen or is a professional chef. We choose the most popular manual and electric knife sharpeners available at UK retailers to test. We buy all the products we test and rate them on the two factors below. Sharpening ability The most versatile sharpeners can accommodate knife blades of different lengths and widths, and generally will offer more than one type of grit to ensure a smooth, even edge. Jason Horn, a commerce writer for The Spruce Eats, updated this roundup to include data from our extensive tests of 22 sharpeners—10 electric and 12 manual—by both freelance testers and in our Lab in Birmingham, Alabama. Sharpening Stones: These are simple stones that you use to sharpen your knives, usually by running the blade down the surface. They are also called whetstones,