Professional butcher knives – Find the right knife for your needs

Greg · December 18, 2016 at 8:18 pm

Professional butcher knives – Find the right knife for your needs

By Greg Tips and Articles 24 Comments

Hello Everyone,

Today, I am going to talk about all types of professional butcher knives and how to choose the right knife for your needs.

I will also give you some ideas about, how to care about them and how you can improve your work efficiency if you make the right choice.

In my over 20 years career of being a butcher, I had to deal with hundreds types of knives.

My choices with choosing and handling the right, high quality butcher knives were sometimes wrong and the worse thing was that I wasn’t aware of it.

My hands were sour, the amount of meat I damaged was bigger than before and I wasn’t really enjoying my work.

I’m sure that all of us at least once had a moment in your live that everything was going wrong right? Yes, that’s, how I felt back then.

The harder I tried to bone more elements, the meat was more damaged and my hands were more sour.

How I learned about butcher knives?

One day, I was delegated to different type of work and suddenly everything became much easier. My efficiency increased and I wasn’t getting tired and painful as before. Then, I realized that all my problems came from the wrong choices of the type of knives. Well, nearly all, because my knife sharpening skills were also not the best.

After that, I was very careful with choosing the right tool for the right job and how to carefully handle my butcher accessories.

Because, I experienced all the consequences of my wrong choices, I decided to learn more about professional butchers knives and how to make my life much easier.

Therefore, I’m more than happy to introduce you to the most popular types of best butcher knives which hopefully should give you a good base to improve your work effectiveness. I will also give you some tips, how to choose the right knife for your needs.

If you are a butcher you probably know some of them, but it’s always good to know a little more about the things that you work with nearly every day of your life.

Knife Anatomy

Knives have definitely made our lives and work easier. It’s no wonder we are advised to buy the best cutlery out there.

In order to choose your professional butcher knife, aside from considering the brand and price, it would also be helpful to know the basic anatomy of a knife so you are better informed when determining which cutlery is better.

Handle

Since this is the part of the knife that you hold in your hand in order to cut, you have to make sure it is a comfortable fit. It can’t be slippery or require you to grip too hard. This part can be made from wood, plastic, rubber, or composite material consisting of wood.

Butt

This is the rear part of the knife located on the back end of the handle.

Tang

A knife tends to be stronger if it is made from a single piece of steel so it would be wise to choose cutlery that has steel, which extends all the way to the handle. These types of knives have a tang, which is the part of steel that is found inside the handle.

Blade

Depending on its shape, size and strength, the blade will determine what the purpose of a knife is and how helpful they are to make your cutting tasks even easier. For example, if the blade is more curved at the front, it can be good for chopping up and down in a rocking motion.

Spine

This is also known as the back of the blade and is opposite the cutting edge. It is typically the thickest and heaviest part of the blade and is what gives a piece of cutlery its overall strength. Stronger blades tend to have thicker and wider spines. Since it is unsharpened, you can hold this part of the knife if you need more stability when chopping or slicing.

Point

This is where the spine and the cutting edge meet. It is formed differently depending on the purpose of the knife. There are spear points, trailing points, needle points, drop points, and so on.

Tip

This refers to the first third of the blade and includes the point. It is used for making delicate or finer cuts or slices (like when working with onions and garlic) and serves as an anchor when you are mincing.

Edge

Also known as the belly, this part is subject to the most wear and tear when you are chopping or slicing. Certain techniques are used in creating the desired angle and sharpness of a blade’s edge and you don’t have to really learn them. What is more important is that you know, how to keep your knives sharp and clean.

Heel

This is opposite the tip of the blade, found at the rear end closest to the handle. It is the widest and strongest part of the blade and is either squared or rounded. The heel is usually used for cutting jobs that require more pressure and strength, like chopping nuts and squash.

Types of butcher knives

That’s 7 most popular types of butcher knives. There are many sub-categories and types for each one, but I would like to introduce them a little bit more in general. Just so you know the most important information which will help you to make a choice. I will write about them in more details in my other weekly blog posts.

Boning knife

Boning Knife

This type of knife is used to get smooth cuts (with a quick pass) around a bone. The boning knife may be curved, straight, stiff, or flexible. The semi-flexible boning knife is usually the best as it can bend and curve around bones. Slicing and trimming are very easy when using the curved end. The boning knife can be used for many other secondary functions. It can be used as a skinner on goats and sheep, slicer for loins, breaking knife for leg joint and trim knife to take away hide. Here is more information and reviews on the best boning knives.

Traditional butcher knife

Traditional Butcher Knife

This knife is having a wide blade which is curved at the tip. It is an all round knife which can be used for trimming, slicing, and even skinning of large animals. This type of knife is still very popular even though breaking knives and cimeters are often being used today.
A short (7-8 inches) butcher knife is a very important tool to all home butchers. The traditional butcher knife can be used as a basic utility knife and during fishing or outdoor hunting to camp food preparation.

Skinning knife

Skinning Knife

This knife is designed for skinning basically. Most times, the beef skinning knives come with a curved blade which permits full cut motion. They have blades that are wide and often 6 inches long. They can also be used to remove cheek meat.
For the lamb skinning knives, the blades are not too curved at the tip. These knives are used to skin small animals and for gutting animals because the blunt tip avoid puncture. The slightly curved blade helps to cut the animal (down the mid-section) and release its internal organs. Here is more information and reviews on the best skinning knives.

Cimeter knife

Cimeter Knife

This is another very important type of knife for the butcher and it can be used to trim, slice, or break down cuts. The cimeter knife’s blade is very weighty and wide when compared to the breaking knife.
The wide blade of the cimeter is very important in processing environment because it keeps the cut portions compact during the slicing process. It helps to achieve a uniform slice. This knife is often used to trim fat and cut larger pieces into smaller ones in large beef processing plants.

Breaking knife

Breaking Knife

This knife is used primarily to break down carcasses. It is used when you want a long curved blade to help cut through a carcass. This knife gives a full range cutting motion and makes a clean cut. It is a great item for most of the work you need to do as a butcher.

Cleaver

The cleaver is quite similar to the traditional butcher’s knife except that it is lighter in weight and has thinner blades for precision cutting. It is very large and its shape varies. The cleaver has a tough edge which makes it withstand directly repeated blows into thick meat, dense cartilage and bones.
The edge of this knife does not really need to be sharp because the design depends on sheer momentum to cut efficiently. They are used for cutting through soft or thin sinews and bones.

Steak knife

There are 3 main types of steak knives: serrated, straight, and hollow. They often comes with a very sharp serrated edge and usually with a wooden handle. The knife is used for cutting steaks or other meats. This type of knife can be found in most households and it’s very popular especially in the United States of America. It can cut quite well the meat fibers, but also bones. Here is more information and reviews on the best steak knives.

How to choose a knife?

In order to enjoy your work as a butcher, it is important that you use the right, top rated butcher knives for the right job. Therefore, you have to ask yourself one single question: What is the type of work you need to do?

After that, just get one of the knives for this particular job. In our times it’s so easy to find information and reviews about any product. You can follow my recommendations or simply type it in Google, but one thing is sure. With so little effort you will make your work easy and pleasurable.

If you are professional butcher I would definitely recommend to get your own butcher knife set.

You can buy ready butcher knife sets, which in many cases is a perfect solution, but you can also build your own collection of knives.

I personally have my main set built on my own. During all the years of being a butcher I got my favourite professional butcher knives and some of them are made by a different manufacturers.

For example as my boning knife I love to use the flexible 6 inch Wusthof Classic, but one of my best breaking knife is Victorinox 10-Inch curved with black Fibrox handle.

In my future posts on this site I will make sure that you also get your own perfect set of butcher knives and you become much more professional.

I will post my weekly recommendations on the best butcher knife for different jobs on this site. So, make sure you visit this site continually if you really want to enjoy your work.

If you have any questions, I will be really happy to answer any of them so please leave your question in a comments area or email me and I will come back to you very soon.