While I am rehandling my gyutos and vintage carbon chefs knives ( a slow process for lack of free time), I've been using a $10, no name, carbon steel chinese cleaver just about exclusively for two weeks.
I'd say I can accomplish 99% of kitchen tasks with a cleaver and itinomonn wa butcher. I might even be 20%+ more efficient with the cleaver. So why do I have thousands of dollars in knives...
Anyway I think I'm becoming a cleaver person. I have a CCK 1303 coming tomorrow and a thai brand, Aranyik, also on the way.
So the CCK arrived. It's as thin as they say. Spine and choil are rounded out of the box. Great for veg but unfortunately the lightweight makes it useless for mincing meat with double cleaver technique.
I have used Chinese cleavers for years. Not only do they cut great but hey can be used to make pallards from chicken breast and also used for pounding veal cutlets .It can also be used as a spatula in a pinch. Just make sure you get one of the proper weight
In fact for precision cuts that need to be repeated, it's a lot easier. Try doing this stuff with a chefs knife. It's the same reason that for totally uniform soba noodles, they use a menkiri.
I have done those <1mm horizontal cuts in large onions with a [relatively speaking] dull suji, but not with consistent uniformity of thickness like that. But even speaking apples to apples as far as edge goes, I can see how having a cleaver you can grab mid-spine and push straight through with would be an advantage in some applications requiring finesse. But for fine slicing the like of celery and shallot I prefer a suji over anything taller.
I've been rocking one for a couple weeks now. Great on veggies and pretty much everything I'm required to do at my work. Awesome to see there are people who actually prefer a cleaver
Nor I, always thought Millions was an old white guy like myself after having mentioned a while ago about having to cut back on BBQ per the doctor's orders. Or am I getting you mixed up with someone else? Old white guys do that.
I have that same Thai cleaver I bought back in March off a guy peddling knives out of the back of his pickup bed in a little village south of Chiang Mai, Thailand. It has become my favorite slicer/dicer blade for Thai cooking. I tend to match my cleaver to the country the dish is from so I have several dozen knives I've picked up in China and if I'm doing Sichuan its going to be a different chopper in my hand.
Mine is fairly thin but I know they make that pattern in all sorts of blade thicknesses. I brought back a couple of smaller ones with thick spines I've been using on chicken bones when making broth.
I use a 4 pound hammer in breaking up bones for stock, and it's the only accessible way I have of reducing cow bones.
I used to use a heavy cheap chefs sharpened to 60deg inclusive, but it made a mess of the poly board so I then got the brilliant idea of putting the hammer to use. Added benefit is that the chicken bones don't go flying as much as with the knife. For the cow bones I have a nice piece of granite ledging outside to beat on.
As with the knife I wear goggles, best to be safe when things are flying around.
poly boards and bone chopping certainly don't go well together. I have a 4-inch thick round Boos Asian style chopping block I use when I've have big jobs to do. Cattle bones are little out of my league but I spend most of my time on Thai, Chinese and Viet dishes.
Years ago (I can't remember the forum and username), somebody talked about "the moral superiority" of cleavers. It's a funny saying but there's a hint of truth in it.
I own three Chinese cleavers which I abuse as no one here could even imagine. I mean, I cut branches, small trees and all kind of woods for barbecues, with almost no harm to the edges. Geometry is a no brainer, just a piece of almost rectangular steel that duplicates as a scraper. They are cheap, strong and reliable and one cleaver will last generations in a home cook environment.
I have some respectable Japanese knives, but would never stop using cleavers on a daily basis.
There are bad cheap cleavers too! I think my CCKs are just entry level. What is cheap compared to gyutos, is expensive to someone used to stainless junk from block sets.
$70-100 for a cleaver with this level of performance is a deal to me.
IMO it's cheaper because
1- steel they use is cheap (don't expect white steel, blue steel, etc here. these are just simple carbon steels)
2-fit and finish is just okay
3- handle is cheap but usable
4- I think cleavers are easy to make. I don't think you have to worry so much about fancy convex grinds, the profile, etc. Start with a rectangle, take up the ends a little bit, hammer it as thin as you want, and grind near the edge even thinner. The end!
5- scaling up - Just the pure # of cleavers they are producing is so much higher than any fancy Japanese artisan. Scaling up anything lets you sell it cheaper.
On that note... I got my KF1103 today, I'll post pictures later. Gonna regift the smaller KF1303 and maybe get some more cleaver converts!
Some day I'll get into more expensive ones. A Sugimoto for my birthday would be nice
All of that and maybe more. It also may also have something to do with the customer base - folks who buy Japanese knives are more likely to spend more money on them.
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