Meat cleavers in the home kitchen

[childermass]

Got one, never used it so far. But it was basically free, and I dig that it’s some vintage German steel.

the idea was to break down more chicken as I really don’t have any soft steel knives that I could use to abuse.
But we moved since and whole chicken is sooooo much more expensive here, I kind of never went for it so far.

Wow, what a beautiful beast. If you feel bad for it just gathering dust I would happily adopt it and abuse it the way it deserves .

 

[Ruso]

Here's a reverse choil shot of a Russell Int'l cleaver, 6" blade. 12" overall length. This shows the typical thick 'V' grind on these western cleavers. It'd be really hard to mess up this edge.View attachment 105324

How many trees did you fall with this axe?

 

[DrEriksson]

I got a Satake Kuro chopper in a trade. It’s only used for frozen stuff, and those times there’s no chop but some sort of push cut. I do like to have it around for this purpose. For ribs and stuff I have a nice hankotsu and for chicken I tend to use my Global GS-11. But, TBH, I‘m not a break-down-and-stock type of person. (But I’d like to be.)

 

[mise_en_place]

I think they're mostly useless. How often do you cut through bone?

And not to hijack the thread, but I'd be interested in hearing if heavy cleavers have much of a place professional kitchens and butchery operations. Cutting through bone is a job for saws, not a knife. I have a couple books on butchery, and have watched countless tutorials, and I've never seen a cleaver used.

Cleavers are more of a traditional butchery tool than a modern one. In my opinion it is bandsaws and not handsaws that have essentially turned cleavers obsolete in professional meat fabrication.

I can think of a dozen tasks as a whole animal butcher that a cleaver is still useful for. About 8-9 of those tasks can be done way more easily and quickly, on a bandsaw. Some people are very skillful with cleavers because they practice a lot. There are definitely some videos of that online if you look.

As for oxtails-- cut through the joints. Each individual piece is very close in length, so you can use them as a guide to segment the tail efficiently. If you need a cleaver, you're doing it wrong.

 

[mise_en_place]

I wanted to add we shouldn't confound Western bone cleavers with Chinese/Asian heavy cleavers used to segment bone-in meat. As someone above me said, the "vegetable" cleaver does 90% of tasks in the Asian kitchen, while the heavy cleaver is used for the remaining 10%.

 

[Honerabi]

Haven't used my cleavers much. Have the large Dexter, which I use for peeling garlic. Have several of the Chinese-made cleavers. However, I don't like to splinter bones, so the bone saw gets more use. The shears get used a lot.

I recently picked up a Takeda 9 1/4" Aogami Blue cleaver. I'm trying to use it for slicing, and transferring food off of the block and into the pot. It's thinner than my other cleavers. A nakiri probably would have been enough, but I wanted the cleaver. Can't decide whether go for a saya or not. Need a third knife block.

 

[fimbulvetr]

I think they're mostly useless. How often do you cut through bone? Even on chickens, whose bones can be cut with a softer steeled western chef's knife, it's not something that happens often in my kitchen. Maybe your needs are different. I also generally prefer to use a western deba to a heavy cleaver.

And not to hijack the thread, but I'd be interested in hearing if heavy cleavers have much of a place professional kitchens and butchery operations. Cutting through bone is a job for saws, not a knife. I have a couple books on butchery, and have watched countless tutorials, and I've never seen a cleaver used. Maybe to hack up chicken backs for stock or to portion out bone-in roast duck like a Chinese street food vendor (though that's obviously a somewhat niche task). Maybe breaking down oxtail?

I use a cleaver in a butcher shop an awful lot, mostly paired with a mallet. They come in handy for cutting lamb and pork rib chops, because you can both use a whole lotta force and be fairly precise.

They are also good at Thanksgiving, not because they are essential for turkeys, but because, if you work in a butcher shop in the US in November, you’ve likely developed an intense, personal hatred for the stupid birds, so taking a cleaver to their spine “for stock” feels great. (I am joking. Kind of. 60%.)

 

[Noodle Soup]

Cleavers are more of a traditional butchery tool than a modern one. In my opinion it is bandsaws and not handsaws that have essentially turned cleavers obsolete in professional meat fabrication.

I can think of a dozen tasks as a whole animal butcher that a cleaver is still useful for. About 8-9 of those tasks can be done way more easily and quickly, on a bandsaw. Some people are very skillful with cleavers because they practice a lot. There are definitely some videos of that online if you look.

As for oxtails-- cut through the joints. Each individual piece is very close in length, so you can use them as a guide to segment the tail efficiently. If you need a cleaver, you're doing it wrong.

A few years ago i was in a wet market in Chengdu. A young very middle class looking Chinese couple were buying an ox tail from an elderly lady running a meat stall. She had basically a big tree stump for a cutting board and she was chopping the ox tail up with a heavy cleaver. Blood and gore was flying every where, I got showered with pieces 10 feet away. But she got the job done for sure.

 

[mise_en_place]

They are also good at Thanksgiving, not because they are essential for turkeys, but because, if you work in a butcher shop in the US in November, you’ve likely developed an intense, personal hatred for the stupid birds, so taking a cleaver to their spine “for stock” feels great. (I am joking. Kind of. 60%.)

Can confirm it is awful fun to use a cleaver and mallet to split turkeys in half.

 

[coxhaus]

I played with a small cleaver a little bit. It was hard on my cutting boards. I had to switch to my largest cutting board to keep it from moving. I decided what I did, a large chef knife would do. I have a 290mm Henckels chef knife. I am just a home cook.

 

[tchan001]

I use a bamboo board when I use my Tesshu (Munetoshi) meat cleaver. I don't want to hurt my regular cutting boards for the heavy duty tasks.

 

[Honerabi]

Need the cut from a tree stump to use the larger cleavers. The wood is softer than the maple and other hardwoods, so it just slowly wears away. They are inexpensive, but do take up room.
IMHO chinese food is some of the best in the world. Most of the dishes are chopping intensive, thus the use of the lighter cleavers. Depends upon your tastes.

 

[Noodle Soup]

Need the cut from a tree stump to use the larger cleavers. The wood is softer than the maple and other hardwoods, so it just slowly wears away. They are inexpensive, but do take up room.
IMHO chinese food is some of the best in the world. Most of the dishes are chopping intensive, thus the use of the lighter cleavers. Depends upon your tastes.

And when i say "tree stump" I mean tree stump. It wasn't just a extra thick cutting block. Probably a meter high with the root swell at the base still there. Her cleaver was one of those really thick (maybe 1/2") bone choppers you only see in the meat stalls over there. For the most part they don't use saws for any of their butchering.

 

[coxhaus]

The nice thing about a tree stump is it is end grain easy on the blade. Plus, it is heavy to where it will not move. That gives ideas. Maybe I will cut a 4-inch stump. Strip it down and grind the top stump down to where it is smooth. I usually don't cut that big of stumps for my smoker as I have to split them but next time, I cut firewood I will look for a good stump to make into a chopping block to put on the counter.

 

[onooooooooo]

I have this bad boy on the list of projects. It’s at least 2kgs heavy and very thick. Planning to thin it out a bit and use it by the grill for ribs and other bony meat.

 

[Honerabi]

I have this bad boy on the list of projects. It’s at least 2kgs heavy and very thick. Planning to thin it out a bit and use it by the grill for ribs and other bony meat.

View attachment 105498

Wow! That is some cleaver! Looks like it's been beaten on with a hammer.

 

[onooooooooo]

Wow! That is some cleaver! Looks like it's been beaten on with a hammer.

Another Tripas, nicely spotted. I think the guy in the video is Swedish and I have seen meat saws and a few large cleavers branded Tripas over here. Mine looks quite old judging by the logo.

 

[Bodine]

I have a Chicago cutlery heavy cleaver I bought 40 years ago. I used it for busting the heads and wings off of ducks I was hunting in those days. Ever have to clean 50 ducks, heavy cleaver is your friend.
Now it is rarely used, mainly to smash garlic.

 

[Honerabi]

Saw a huge one in a ginseng shop here. It was on a stand and hinged at the forend. It was used to slice very thin pieces of the root. Reminded me of the beheaders' axes in London.

 

[stringer]

I like to restore meat cleavers. And by that I mean that the only thing I use them for is dishing whetstones and giving myself a sore shoulder.

 

[The Edge]

I have my grandfather's old cleaver. He was a butcher in Virginia City long ago. I use it to cut the spines out of chickens and cut ribs. When I'm breaking down chickens, I tend to use a petty or paring knife. I tend to break down a lot of meat, as it's just cheaper. Not to mention homemade stock is better than anything available. Whole chickens here are between 0.79 and 0.97 cents a pound on sale, and we pretty much only buy meat on sale. At some point I'll start buying whole or half animals when I've made it, but for now, we're budget . Here's a pic, it's an old Samuel Lee.

 

[mmiinngg]

I have this cck bad boy at home. I use it almost exclusively for making "jus de viande" . But I mainly took it for my activity in restaurants, and I am not sure that the only use at home justifies a meat cleaver ... But as I read on the topic, when it is is about cutting bones, people have either a beater knife or a saw. I have this one, it's my beater knife. I can't feel the chicken bones, the weight does everything. I do everything with it, veal, lamb ... And also coconut

 

[dan]

It sounds like most people who have cleavers use them for frozen foods, chicken bones, other carcasses/bones, and melons/coconuts/other very large items. I currently use a Shibazi chinese cleaver as my beater knife for some frozen things (boneless/not very hard). I haven't cut any chicken bones recently, either. I usually use a whole carcass or just parts of the chicken.

This discussion has confirmed to me that I should probably get rid of the very large meat cleaver I currently have. I'm not sure if I should get a different beater knife for harder frozen items or bones (chicken mostly) but I don't have an urgent need so maybe best to wait...

I was pretty pumped about the knife when I had bought it though... it's one of those old Foster Bros cleavers!

 

[Fillage]

I hardly differentiate them much thicker or not. But I have one meat cleaver. I mostly use it for cutting vegetables and fruits. My kids adore butternuts and squash, and sometimes I can buy coconut. So, this meat cleaver is doing a great job. But, be just attentive to cut the meat or vegetables on a wood cutting board, and a big one. I cut once a big squash on a small cutting board, and I touched with the edge of the knife, by mistake, the kitchen's worktop. Thank God that it was a kitchen Quartz Worktops Leeds. Now, I understand why my hubby chose quartz instead of marble.

 

[WiriWiri]

I use it every now and then actually. I come from a Chinese family in Singapore,and many of our dishes call for bone in cuts of chicken thigh,like sesame oil chicken or chopped pork ribs like in steamed dimsum pork ribs.

My cleaver isn't that much bigger than a usual Chinese cleaver,just thicker and much heavier. The Chinese typically have 2 kinds of cleavers,the slicing one for 90% of the tasks and a thicker one for going through bones.

Similar to this really, albeit my family have been in the Caribbean for a good few generations now. Similar demands for bone-in cuts, plus a fair few traditional caribbean style recipes have a fairly rudimentary/brutal approach to meat prep and portioning. Flavour and sucking every precious remnant of marrow/meat off the bone is prized above politeness, and there’s a much higher tolerance to bone fragments and splinters than a soft Londoner like me is comfortable with tbh. Cleavers and machetes are probably the most common ‘kitchen’ knives on use in much of Guyana

I’ve moved away from much of that style of cooking - best not to pretend I’m a rainforest hunter or going to wet markets to select fresh bird when most of my food currently comes from online grocery deliveries - but it’s good to remind yourself of the old traditions once in a while. A big chunk of jerk pork at the family cook up deserves a big ceremonial cleave for example

Perhaps because of that heritage appeal, I was inexplicably drawn to this big boy project buy a couple of weeks ago. I’ve been coping just fine with a cheapo stainless bone cleaver from the Chinese supermarket until now, but for some reason I thought a 1940s military cleaver might be a worthwhile project. FFS