Kitchen Knife Holders

The importance of properly storing your kitchen knives cannot be stressed enough. It is so easy to simply discard them to your kitchen drawer when finished with them but in short time the blade’s edge will over time become dulled and nicked.

There are simple three methods of protecting kitchen knife blades: keep them in a hard plastic sheath (Most quality kitchen knives come with a plastic sheath.), store them in a wooden slotted knife block or attach them to a wall-mounted wooden magnetic knife holder.

While all three methods are adequate the hard plastic knife sheath is by far the best as it covers the entire blade and requires that you put it on rather gingerly.

While both a wooden slotted block and a magnetic bar do provide adequate protection they can still dull the points of your kitchen knives or nick the edges, when you drop them quickly into their slot or slap them against other hanging knife blades.

The perfect solutions are a couple of variations on the wooden slotted block and the wooden wall-mounted magnetic knife holder and each is guaranteed to keep your blades points sharp and the blades nick free.

One Wooden Box+Bamboo Skewers=the Perfect Kitchen Knife Holder

 The Schaschlik, designed by Martin Robitsch, an Austrian designer, is a kitchen knife holder whose design determines its function, i.e. you don’t have to worry what knife fits into which slot.

The Schaschlik is simple, effective, and attractive and it does exactly what a kitchen knife holder should do – protect the blades.

The Schaschlik consist of a wooden box made of european pine that is filled with thin bamboo skewers (Bamboo won’t harm or dull your knife blades like all wood kitchen knife holders can do especially if like most people you line them up to the slot and let them drop to the bottom which scores the blade on its way down.

The bamboo skewers are so tightly fitted to each other that the knife’s tip will never hit the bottom of the wooden box and even if it did manage to find its way to the bottom the blade it would go ever so slowly still protecting it from dulling.

Unlike traditional wooden knife blocks with slots, you can periodically change out the skewers with new ones to prevent bacteria.

Pros: Over time the skewers’ tips will eventually break off, but when that happens you simply pluck them out and replace with new ones.

Cons: A little pricey at $125.

Mag-Blok

Though not specifically made just for kitchen knives, the Mag-Blok is the perfect solution for ultimate blade protection because it is made of all wood. Unlike typical magnetic holders that rely on steel rails, the Mag-Blok can’t ding or nick your high quality blades.

The Mag-Blok has one long magnetic bar that is covered with a wood veneer so that regardless of where you place your kitchen knife it will stick to the bar unlike the bamboo bar described below.

Bamboo Magnetic Bar

This kitchen knife rack, similar to the Mag-Blok, has a hidden magnet inserted into the strip of bamboo which securely holds your kitchen knives, and you can hang horizontally or vertically.

The strength of the magnet is a good balance between holding the knives without having to pry them off with a crow bar and keeping their edges safe from nicks and dings.

The one caveat is that there are individual magnets spaced apart rather than one long magnetic bar which creates dead spots that suck the knife into a position that may not be optimal.

The Mag-Blok kitchen knife holder sells for a little under $20.