All sorts of knives can be found in a kitchen, but there’s only one that is particularly satisfying to use after a really bad day. That’s the cleaver. A cleaver, if you’ve never seen one, looks a bit like a hatchet with a bigger head. It’s meant to hack through bones, and can be found in butcher shops and steakhouses across the nation.
One of the things that makes cleavers different from standard knives is that they’re much duller than a normal knife. Cleavers aren’t meant to slice through things. They’re meant to hack through meat and bone through swinging it like a hammer. The angle of the blade of a cleaver is about 25 degrees. A standard kitchen knife is about 20-22 degrees. The flat edge of a cleaver is also useful for crushing garlic and slicing through tough material.
They can’t cut through everything though. Butchers have other tools like bone-saws to cut through big bones. But for fish and chicken, a cleaver is enough to break it down. Cleavers should not be confused with Chinese chef’s knives. They look similar but have very different uses.
We have cleavers from Dexter Russell, Edlund, Town Food Service, Update, and Winco on our website. To see our selection, just search for cleaver on our site.
