Hot take: I was sharpening my boning knives wrong for a decade until a guy in Omaha set me straight.

I always sharpened my boning knives to a 20 degree angle, thinking it gave a good balance of sharpness and edge strength. I was at a regional meat processing seminar in Omaha last fall, and this older cutter watched me work for a minute. He just said, 'You're fighting the meat.' He showed me his blade, which he keeps at a much more acute angle, maybe 15 degrees. He argued that for boning, especially delicate work like silver skin on tenderloins, a finer edge gives cleaner separation with less force, so you have more control. I tried it that week on a case of pork loins, and the difference was night and day. Less sawing, cleaner bones, and my hand didn't cramp up. But I've also heard the counter-argument that a thinner edge rolls or chips faster on heavy cartilage or frozen spots. What's your go-to angle for a general purpose boning knife, and do you think the trade-off for a sharper edge is worth it?

3 comments

3 Comments

blair6302mo ago

Try a 12-degree angle, @charlieo29. Game changer for silverskin.

oliverw462mo ago

Ever try a micro-bevel for a little extra strength?

charlieo292mo ago

Micro-bevels seem like such a tiny thing to worry about, @oliverw46. Does that extra half a degree actually make a real difference in normal use? It feels like one of those details that gets overhyped. My edge works fine without that extra step.