How to choose a hatchet knife?

Carving meat is not always limited to the use of ordinary kitchen or hunting knives. If we are talking about large pieces of beef, pork, lamb carcasses weighing ten or more kilograms, or you need to cut a chicken or large fish like catfish or carp, a chopping knife is an ideal choice.

An ax knife is the younger brother of an ordinary ax. Its structure is such that the blade has a shape that is vaguely similar to a real ax. It protrudes forward in the form of a square rounded at the edges, which allows you to wield such a product without intensive chopping movements with your hand. Unlike a conventional ax, the butt is thickened, but does not copy the clumsy one in shape. It is an indispensable tool for cutting both layers of meat, in which there are small and medium-sized bones, and chopping frozen fillets.

The hatchet knife is suitable for chopping meat and bones, butchering meat exactly "by the joints". It has a wide and heavy blade, which makes it possible not to shred meat, like a sausage, but to cut it in a structured and precise manner, preserving the fibers that retain their juices and liquids.

If you used an ordinary blade, which does not work like this, the cut meat would resemble a squeezed lemon in consistency. Chopping bones with a hatchet knife does not imply the formation of a bone crumb during cutting movements, which discourages people from eating a dish made from meat, in which such fragments are often found.

A hatchet knife facilitates the work of a chopper or a cook when cutting a large number of carcasses of livestock or poultry. This makes it possible to increase the labor productivity of people for whom meat cutting is the main responsibility at enterprises that manufacture finished meat or fish products.

The center of mass of the hatchet knife is located between the blade and the handle, and not somewhere inside it, or in the middle of the blade. This allows you to achieve the maximum cutting (chopping) effect.

A hoe knife is often a U-shaped point, but with "square" turning edges on one side, or a heavy and short blade, the length of which approaches its width. It can be strictly square or in the form of a short rectangle, the front and lower cutting sides are located side by side, and the pointed angle allows you to pierce hard-to-cut ligaments, bones and cartilage.

It is important to buy a high-quality ax knife - experienced cutters and cooks advise, for example, the following products.

• Japanese Samura Golf Nakiri with a blade length of 167 mm. The total length of the knife is 305 mm. Product weight - 103 g. It is made of AUS-8 steel with a hardness index of 58 units on the Roxwell scale.
• Swiss Victorinox 5.4063.18 - made of rolled molybdenum-vanadium steel with a hardness of 56 units, blade length - 216 mm, knife weight - 310 g.
• Chinese Mr. Blade Camp - AUS-8 steel with a hardness of 58 units, the length of the working part - 184 mm. Thanks to the powerful handle, this knife weighs 663 g.

The correct choice of hatchet knives is based on several important parameters.

• The blade should be wide and thick... The optimal balance between weight and force applied to cutting is the main criterion when choosing a knife with the most efficient and convenient blade to work with. The length of the blade is most often 15-25 cm, but the width should be at least 8 cm, otherwise it is no longer a chopper, but an ordinary kitchen knife.
• Shortened handle with a transversely rounded shape, with hollows for holding the fingers of the entire structure. This allows you to achieve the most reliable coverage, significantly reducing hand fatigue while working.
• Double-sided sharpening. One-sided will lead the tip to the side, which makes cutting the product require noticeably more effort. Sharpening a blunted blade on both sides is easier - you will still sharpen the knife not one-sided, but in two ways. The sharpening angle must not go beyond 15-45 degrees: the larger one interferes with cutting the meat, the smaller one makes the knife unusually thin, like a razor blade.
• Steel quality - must be stainless, not carbon. The latter becomes covered with a brown coating, when the knife is not immediately washed, it quickly becomes thinner, it is more and more difficult to make it sharp again when dull from common bones, and food tastes like iron. Rusting products are cheap, but don't skimp on the price. Damascus steel or titanium is strong enough, the former requires special care, the latter, on the contrary, is unpretentious in use and is noticeably lighter.
• The best choice is a metal handle, not a wooden or plastic one. Metal will not burn or melt from high temperatures, such as when a knife is accidentally thrown dangerously close to a fire. A completely steel product is easy to wash, it does not retain foreign odors. A solid knife does not need rivets or bolts. Disadvantages - decent weight (over a kilogram) and high price.
• Finally, before buying a hatchet knife, check it for workmanship: no wear (numerous abrasions and scratches, indicating that the tool has been used somewhere for a very long time and has been sharpened repeatedly), chips, gouges and notches.The latter report that the knife was generally not used for its intended purpose, for example, with hammer blows on its butt, pieces of wood were pricked into chips.

Review of Mr. Blade Camp awaits you further.