Chicken killer

[Peco]

What knife and which steel would you recommend for chopping thru bones and cartilage on a chicken? I need a real beater that won't chip etc.

 

[Justin0505]

Don't tell the knife police, but I've been using a really thick Misuno deba in blue #2 for destroying birds without any sign of problem at all...no chips or damage and its still 95% sharp.

I also have a ken onion shun cleaver in solid vg10 with a really heavy convex bade. People will point and laugh, but it's a hellofa weapon. Its as indestructible as Ive seen and IMO the only onion shun design that really worked.
They've been discontinued for awhile and you can find em kicking around for pretty cheap.

 

[Eamon Burke]

Honesuki! They are thick and tough, because they are designed for exactly this. Unless you are really chopping and beating through bones(though why would you?), then you might want to get a meat cleaver.

 

[TB_London]

I have a Henckles pro S that's my beater for things like this, or i crack out the vintage cleaver. Or a yo deba:

[video=youtube_share;urIeUid1TMo]http://youtu.be/urIeUid1TMo[/video]

 

[stevenStefano]

In work we have some sort of ancient English carbon cleaver, Gregory Fenton Sheffield make I think it says on it. Saying that I've also been looking for something for chopping bones. I'd rather not just go out and spend a tenner in a cookware shop, I'd rather get something more pro and suited to the job. I think a yo deba would definitely work

 

[Peco]

Looks that way

 

[half_hack]

honesuki for portioning chicken (ie, through cartilege, but between bones), or a cheap yo-deba for going through bones for me.

 

[Benuser]

For these tasks I would use my very soft stainless Sabatier. In most cases there won't be real damage, just some dulling, which is so easily repaired. I really don't understand the idea of having a thick knife made of hard steel.

 

[JBroida]

honesuki for portioning chicken (ie, through cartilege, but between bones), or a cheap yo-deba for going through bones for me.

with good technique, you can cut through chicken bones with a honesuki with very little damage to the edge. Heck... i even did this with a turkey this year. If you look close, you will see some damage, but i literally cut the carcass into pieces (after taking the meat off), and it was a large bird.

 

[Citizen Snips]

[video=youtube;BVPvqb-f12Y]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVPvqb-f12Y[/video]
i use a konosuke 210mm blue 2 mioroshi

i would use my suisin 210mm petty if the konosuke was not available. going through the bones is not desirable with this though it can go through joints, no problem.

 

[schanop]

This one should hold up well. I've got a carbon steel version of it, and it is quite tough.

 

[SpikeC]

I've found that blades made of O1 do a nice job of hacking through poultry carcasses.

 

[Dubsy]

i got a Global flexible boner and a g-21 for meatwork, but i havent ever needed anything more than my boner for chickens. it cuts through cartilidge easily, and cuts through the ribs fine too. for anything heavier, i got the G-21 and a Joyce Chin Cleaver

 

[memorael]

I would go for a garasuki, I used to own the Glestain and that thing I am certain would go through anything.

 

[Justin0505]

I break down at least 1 chicken per week. I feed my dog a partial raw diet, so we split the chickens. I filet off and reserve the breasts for myself and then I break the rest down to smaller chunks and put them in plastic bags. She's certainly capable of breaking the bones much better than any knife, but for ease of storage and portioning / feeding I break everything down into 2" chunks or smaller. Plus, it's much easier to clean a knife and cutting board once or twice a week than to clean a dog and the floor after every meal (if I let her break it all down herself).

Now that Turkey is super cheap, I'll be doing more of those. I just broke down a 16lb bird yesterday. I removed the breast while still on the bone and roasted those. Then I broke the rest down to small chunks (this included going though the very tough back bones): in total it was about 3qts of bone skin, fat, tendon. I used the 180mm Mizuno akitada hontanren deba in Blue#2 that I got from Bishamon (LINK). After all the hard work on a polly board, I couldn't see any damage with the naked eye, but I could feel that I wasn't perfectly aligned when I ran it over my glass rod. -A few passes and it was back to push-cutting thin magazine paper.

For a small, free range, chicken the 180mm deba feels a bit big, but for a turkey it feels just right.