Our Equipment Review of Meat Cleavers

Byamazingfoodstv


Equipment expert Adam Ried reveals his top pick for meat cleavers.

Buy our winning meat cleaver:

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44 Comments

  1. Shun makes asymmetric handles that are amazingly uncomfortable for lefthanded users. I am disappointed to see that such an important consideration for [approximately] 10% of your readers and viewers was simply ignored.

  5. You should actually do a chinese chef's knife test. These are cleavers not chinese chef's knifes. This is way to thick for anything but cleaving, but to hard (59 hrc) to split bone.
    The test is also designed poorly. There are knifes that are inbetween a vegetable cleaver and a bone cleaver that are design for chicken / duck / lobsters but still function fairly well as normal knifes (20-25° bevel) but you did not test any of those. You tested cleavers that are way to thick which would be good for splitting bigger bones if they did not lack the weight to do so.

    I bet the cheap and easy chan chi kee KF1901 would have wiped the floor with any of these.

  13. All of those cleavers are just good for Cutting vegetables and poultry but there’s no way they’re cutting through pork and beef those cleavers are just way too light. They were just stick in the bone there’s nowhere near enough weight. And if you are going to do home butchery I recommend you use butcher knives and not your typical chef knives it’s a completely different scenario. There is a reason why every butcher on earth doesn’t use chef knives when they are doing the job. I’ve only recently got into butchery and have learned this lesson as a result I went out and got myself some butcher knives and a hired knife. They do make the job a lot easier so far I have done 4 geese ,8 chickens, 1 Turkey, 1 deer, 1 Lamb, 2 pigs, and half a side of beef. Learning absolutely loads and it does make a huge difference to your cooking specially when you know exactly where the gradients are coming from I started to do my own Salt curing and smoking to, loving it.

  15. I got a 17.00 clever and really it's kinda like my bread knife, I use the heck out of it and don't worry about it. Oh, about the bread knife, I use them until I feel they are getting dull, then just give them away to somebody and buy me another ten dollar knife. Yes I resharpin my friendly Clever. Just sayin if you pay a lot for something like this, you might not use it that much.

  17. Very disappointing review. They didn't acknowledge – and apparently didn't realize – that there are two vastly different types of cleavers: Slicers/dicers and bone choppers. The ones they were speaking of as being lighter and with sharper bevels are from the first group and shouldn't be used as choppers. Typically, they have different steel from the choppers, a steel that retains a better edge but is more brittle and chips easily. The failure to do full research makes me wonder about all their reviews. I've learned more about cleavers from YouTube comments on various cleavers than from this review. It's a revelation to see how many people condemn a good product designed for slicing and dicing because it chipped when they tried to chop a beef bone!

  27. A bit disappointed that there aren't many cleavers from Chinese brands such as the ever popular CCK. Many Chinese households and chefs use CCK cleavers as they carry different kinds, sizes, weight…etc Even chefs in Japan look to China and Taiwan for cleavers. The bladesmith for CCK have been making cleavers for decades and are inexpensive. The one made to cut through bone is $20 in China. You can get them in the USA prob around $50-70 after shipping.

  36. Yup, exactly the reason why I have a meat cleaver. Sure a chef's knife can pretty much do all the work that it needs to, but I happen to like my knives. So to prevent the edge worn down quickly from something like breaking apart a whole chicken or something similar…I have a meat cleaver specifically for that task. Let me tell ya, my knives stay sharper for way longer and I've enjoyed my meat cleaver ever since.

  42. modern equipment, modern cooking methods, and people are good at cooking. nice combination. how much money does it take to make kitchens and appliances like that?

    today I'm cooking water spinach, find me in "Kitchen Answer"

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