KitcHelper 3761 Ceramic Edge Electric Knife Sharpener Review
Step one: Turn on the instruction guides which are on DVD format. Step two: Turn off its ridiculous knife sharpening animations. These repetitive, crudely animated scenes are more annoying than entertaining. You’ll want to print out the manual, instead – just pop the DVD into your desktop or laptop, since the 3D animated version can make for awkward viewing as well as comprehension. Such gripes aside, the rest of KitcHelper 3761 is a surprisingly simple to use and comprehensive ceramic edge electric knife sharpener.
This is one fairly impressive product package. The extensive and comprehensive tutorials included in the DVD have taught me things I never knew about the art of sharpening knives. The sharpener itself is also pretty damn solid. Initially though, I had trouble sharpening some of the moderately dull knives lying in my kitchen drawer (though I'm no blade sharpening grandmaster by any stretch of the imagination).
I found the 3D animated user instructions painful to watch even though they look kind of snazzy at times. I ended up just referring to the instruction which I printed off my over 6 years old PC. The sharpener works pretty well, despite its rather peculiar shape. Regarding the instructions on DVD, the charm here is in the available options. You get a tutorial that covers everything you’d ever want to know about blade sharpening, including basic instructions and terminology, advanced sharpening methods and classic blunders to avoid.
You can also practice several knife sharpening scenarios or sit back and watch analysis of common sharpening tools including ceramic, diamond and natural sharpening stones, sharpening steels, knife hones and of course, electric knife sharpeners. As for the knife sharpener, well, it is strictly no-frills, with the versatility to sharpen various types of knives including American and European double beveled straight edge knives, in addition to Asian knives.
The Serrated Edge Factor
But hey—what about serrated edge knives? Glad you asked because the KitcHelper 3761 comes with a handy manual slot that enables you to sharpen your serrated blades like a pro.
Still—not being a knife sharpening genius myself—I found the serrated blade manual slot feature pretty tricky to use in the beginning. The slot contains ceramic stones that are triangular in shape, which means that sharpening into the serrations should not be a problem (so far, I’ve sharpened 4 of my serrated edge knives using the manual slot). If you own a bunch of serrated blades, you won’t be disappointed, and newbies should be able to use the slot effectively with some practice.
The KitcHelper 3761 ceramic edge electric knife sharpener kind of reminds me of the 50384 sharpener by KitchenIQ, except the latter isn’t nearly as good. The sound it makes while sharpening both sides of the blade is quite funny. I understand that the 3761 sharpener has an Interlocking ceramic wheels feature, but I wish it would run quietly.
Electric or Manual?
There’s a way to alter the manual slot just a bit in order to sharpen other types of knives, rather than serrated blades only. This means you can just use the manual slot exclusively and make the device into a manual only sharpener. If that’s what you’re looking for, this is good enough to serve those needs, while using the electric slots as a backup.
All in all, I wasn’t expecting anything too flashy from this KitcHelper 3761 sharpener, but if they’re going to have animated instructional guides and tutorials on DVD with a running time close to an hour, they should at least be well made. Other than that, the only problem I had was the slow sharpening. Still, KitcHelper 3761 is easy and straightforward. If you’re looking for a two-in-one sharpener (electric + manual) that’s simple and affordable, try it out. But don’t expect KitcHelper 3761 to spice things up too much in the blade sharpening arena.