Ever since I moved into my apartment seven years ago and unwrapped a brand-new plastic-handled Microplane, I’ve been chasing the high of pulling the long, rectangular blade across a block of Parmesan for the first time. With frictionless grace, each faint wrist movement yielded a downy pile of microscopic cheese ribbons. All these years later, my zester is still trucking, but the spark is gone. Sometimes I’ll attempt to finish a bowl of pasta or risotto with a flourish of lemon zest, but running the grater vigorously across the surface of the fruit only yields a wet, mushy pulp of skin and pith.
As it turns out, a lot of people in my position would probably have thrown out and replaced their zester many moons ago. Ask Google or Reddit how long one of these kitchen tools last, and you’ll probably be told somewhere between one and five years. In a busy restaurant kitchen, the turnover is even more extreme.
How long do Microplanes last?
“We buy Microplanes in bulk about every three to six months, replacing dull ones as we go along,” says Gillian Graham, a chef-partner at Hart’s and the Fly in Brooklyn. “If we are using fresh horseradish on the menu, it will dull a blade in about a month. Citrus, cheese, bottarga, and garlic are much less hard on Microplanes and you can reliably use a Microplane for these items for about six months before the blades get too dull.”
Microplanes are just one brand of rasp-style etched graters — long, handled graters perforated with a series of straight, sharp slits that produce shockingly thin shavings. Home cooks and professional chefs seek them out for their delicate precision. “At Penny, a lot of our seafood preparations feature citrus for that fresh, acidic pop,” says Joshua Pinsky, a chef-owner of Claud and Penny in New York’s East Village. “Zesters do a great job of pulling off the peel with the natural oils without the bitter pith.”
But the unique blade design of these zesters also makes them susceptible to damage (Pinsky says that he goes through about 10 a year at Claud). To understand why zesters have such a startlingly short lifespan (compared to, say, the rock-solid box grater your parents have had in their kitchen for the last 40 years), I spoke with Mack Mor, the principal engineer at Oxo, which makes its own suite of etched zesters.
How are Microplanes made?
“A traditional stamped grater uses a manufacturing process called blanking to make the holes, which is essentially just like a hole punch,” Mor says. A piece of hardened steel punches holes into a sheet of metal, creating rounded, raised cutting surfaces. If you look at this type of grater under a microscope, you’ll see that the cutting edge is actually pretty blunt. When you run a carrot or a potato across the surface of this style of grater, it’s basically scooping out shreds of the vegetable rather than slicing them.
By contrast, an etched grater (which is what most Microplane-style zesters are), is produced through a process called photochemical machining. An acid-resistant polymer material is applied to a sheet of metal, with precise gaps wherever the grates will be. The entire sheet is then sprayed with acid, which eats away at the exposed metal to create the holes. Because the acid eats away at the top and bottom surfaces of the grater at different rates, the process creates a series of sharp, tapered cutting edges.
“So that is really amazing for grating foods because rather than just kind of scooping, it’s making all these little tiny individual slices,” Mor explains. But those narrow blades can also damage easily, he adds. “We basically made a razor blade out of material that’s not like fully hardened knife steel. So that edge is very thin and very fine and it’s at risk for essentially folding over and bending.”
How do I make my Microplane last longer?
While the average home cook probably won’t blow through multiple zesters in a year, it’s worth replacing these tools when they stop doing their job effectively (ahem, note to self). But there are a few ways to keep that expiration date at bay.
One is to simply avoid tougher or more fibrous ingredients, like nutmeg, ginger, or Graham’s example of fresh horseradish. If you need a large quantity of something grated and have the option, use a blender or food processor, both for your own sanity and for the longevity of your zester.
The way you clean your Microplane also matters. While Mor hasn’t seen any change in Oxo’s zesters’ edge quality after extensive dishwasher testing, and most brands advertise their graters as dishwasher-safe, Microplane recommends handwashing in order to keep the blades sharp for as long as possible. Both Mor and Brandi McGuyer, Microplane’s national sales manager, stress the importance of cleaning the zesters in the same direction of the blades so that your sponge doesn’t snag on the teeth and warp them.
Ron Yan, the chef-owner of Tolo in Chinatown, also recommends storing zesters in the hard plastic sheaths that they sometimes come with. “That’s the best way to protect them and to keep them as sharp as possible,” he tells me. “The blades are so thin that they dent easily by nearby surfaces.”
When the time comes to buy a new zester, consider keeping your old one for softer ingredients (like cheese) or donating it for resale. If you find yourself going through zesters quickly, consider opting for a sleek all-stainless steel option. You might miss the ergonomic plastic handle (although Graham points out that these can get gummy after being washed many times), but the metal-only models open up your options for recycling once the blades are spent. If you live in New York, you can even throw stainless steel utensils like these right in with the rest of your metal recycling, which is exactly what I plan to do in another seven years.
Anna Hezel is a New York-based journalist and the author of Tin to Table and Lasagna.
Nicole Medina is a Philly-based illustrator who loves using bold color and detailed patterns to create eye-catching illustrations. Nicole likes drawing surreal imagery that tells a story and has a sense of adventure.
