I have 6 steak knives and I used some for milchig, some for fleishig. They got mixed up and I was wondering if I could kasher them all and use them again. The knives have wooden handles and metal cutting surfaces.
Answer:
The solution here is to kasher the knives. Assuming that the main use of the knives was to cut food (and not as part of the roasting process, for use on the fire), you can kasher them all by means of hag’alah, meaning immersion in boiling water. The water must be actually boiling (bubbling), and you should preferably add some detergent or other substance to the water, so that the taste of the water will be pagum (bad).
When knives come in 2 pieces like when they have a wooden handle, food can get stuck in the small space between the handle and the blade. Doesn’t this make hagala alone on the knife not enough? Shouldn’t libun kal(direct flame) be done in the cracks to make sure no food is stuck there? On plastic knives with plastic handles, what should one do if libun kal will melt the handle?
After cleaning thoroughly, in general hag’alah will be sufficient for knives, because their general use is not on a fire, but in cutting food etc. Although the food is dry, we do not consider this as use with a flame, and hag’alah is sufficient.
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