Been washing my knives in the dishwasher for years. The knives themselves are even more years old, never been sharpened.
Sure, I bet they’re not the sharpest knives in existence, but we’re talking ridiculous amounts of subjective “sharpness” here. I just used one to cut fruit, veg and chicken (in that order). Nobody would say it didn’t do so like a “sharp” knife.
This is one of those “if you have thousand-dollar knives and think you can tell the difference” things, and for most people it’s just not relevant for a kitchen knife because most of the things you cut with it aren’t even hard.
The only knife I’ve dulled in the last 10 years is the one that I literally use for absolutely everything from boxes to being an impromptu screwdriver to cutting through plasterboard, to cutting up thick plastic. It took years to dull it.
I read some comments, but I think I didnt see this one yet:
For most stainless steel knives the dishwasher is completely safe. But there can be a build up of all kinds of salts or even little “rust spots” (cannot really describe it in English sorry) that sort of clog up your blade. You can remove most of them with a sharpening steel.
Handles can be a bit of a problem but there are dishwasher safe kitchen knives for food industry out there (they are literally indestructable for household application). These also come with the benefit of anti-slippery handles and are also comparatively cheap whole being top quality.
To prevent dulling of the blade get a sharpening steel and use it every time before you use your knive.
If you are a sharp knive fetishist like me you have to thoroughly resharpen your everday knife every 6-12 months anyway, so even if the blade dulls a bit faster in the dishwasher it’s worth the time saved imo.
Rule of thumb: put all varieties of cheap knives in the dishwasher, then sharpen or replace them as needed.
Keep expensive knives out because:
1) The heat and corrosive chemicals in dishwasher detergent are hard on all surfaces, including handles.
2) The inevitable jostling the edge will take against hard surfaces, dulling it.
3) There is no perfect steel. All steel carries with it trade-offs in the form of corrosion resistance, ease of sharpening, edge retention and toughness. The more expensive the kitchen knife, the higher the likelihood that some corrosion resistance was given up in exchange for increases in the other categories. That means chemicals (and sometimes even leaving them to air dry) will impact the performance of a fine edge.
Try crumbling up a ball of aluminum foil and throwing that in your dishwasher with your dinnerware and glasses. Chemical reaction brings the shine back to your dishes. It works by oxidation, and ion exchange…not a scientist, but it’s a process between the detergent and the aluminum. Just crumble a ball of aluminum, and drop it into an empty part of the silverware holder. Look this hack up, it can probably be explained better.
I’m late to the party but here’s my answer. I was told that the high heat of a dishwasher would, over time, ruin the temper of the steel. I haven’t found any evidence that this is true. Tempering steel happens at a much higher temperature than dishwashers could possibly reach, unless the knife fell directly onto the heating element during a dry cycle. Even though I know this is true, I still hand wash all my good knives.
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