#Butchers #Knives #SteakKnives #Serrations
Have you ever wondered why butchers use teeth with no knives to cut animals, but steak knives have serrations? 🤔 This question may seem puzzling at first, but there are clear reasons behind this difference in tools used for cutting meat.
## Butchers’ Techniques
Butchers are trained professionals who have mastered the art of cutting meat. They use a technique known as “tooth cutting,” which involves carefully slicing through the meat using a sharp tool that resembles a tooth rather than a conventional knife. This technique allows them to make precise cuts and separate different parts of the animal with ease.
## The Role of Temperature
When butchering a cow, it is essential to consider the temperature of the meat. The fibers in the meat are more stringy and tougher when the meat is cold, making it difficult to cut through with a smooth-edged knife. Using a serrated tooth-like tool helps to grip the meat and slice through it effectively, even when it is cold.
## Why Serrations on Steak Knives?
On the other hand, steak knives are designed with serrated edges to make it easier to cut through cooked meat. The serrations on the blade help to break through the crispy outer layer of the steak without tearing or shredding the meat. This design allows for smooth and effortless cutting, giving you a perfect bite of steak every time.
## Conclusion
In conclusion, butchers use teeth with no knives to cut animals due to the need for precision and the toughness of the meat fibers. Steak knives, on the other hand, have serrations to make cutting through cooked meat more comfortable and smoother. Understanding the differences in tools used for cutting meat can help you appreciate the craft and techniques behind the art of butchery.
Next time you pick up a steak knife, remember the thought and care that goes into creating the perfect cut of meat for your enjoyment! 🥩🔪
Serrated teeth cut efficiently for much longer without needing to be sharpened. They can use them for months without any maintenance other than cleaning. A straight blade would need to be sharpened regularly.
Edit: there’s also the fact that when being served at a restaurant you use the knife on a plate. Ceramic or porcelain. This will dull knives far quicker than a butcher block or proper cutting board.
Edit 2: the butcher is also going to get a nicer finish on his cuts, making it easier to sell a $25 steak. If you’re cutting it yourself to stuff it into your maw you’re not gonna care if the cut isn’t super pretty.
Raw meat is a lot easier to cut especially when a lot of people order their steaks overcooked. It’s takes very little time to keep a knife sharp, they aren’t letting them go dull before they are honed back to a fine edge.
Modern steak knives are designed to be cheap to manufacture. It’s way easier to put serrations on a stainless blade than a decent bevel that has to be sharpened.
Serrated knives grind thru the meat instead of slicing thru cleanly. This generates crumbs of meat that while small, create a measurable loss in the weight of saleable product.
I don’t know what steak knives you have but they DONT have serrations. Also butchers use all kinds of tools to cut up a large piece of animal. They have to get through bone so they use saws which are serrated. So I’m not entirely sure what you’re talking about.
Now if you mean a chef or the butchers final process of cutting up the meat for individual sale, that’s different. The reason is twofold from what I understand. Number one, serrated blades don’t make even cuts. You need a sharp knife with a straight edge. It’s more presentable, you don’t have little pieces of meat falling all over the place and so on. And the other reason is a good, sharp chef’s knife will go through meat in one move of your arm. It’s way more efficient than sawing at it.
EDIT: Fair enough. Looks like there are a fair amount of serrated steak knives out there, but I’ve only ever seen them at steak restaurants. I always assumed it was a safety things since they’re not as dangerous as a sharp straight edge. But I suppose it’s just personal preference.
Even smooth knife edges are serrated, just on a microscopic scale (they’re called burrs though). That said, “smooth” edges slice flesh cleanly and aestheticslly but those knives wear faster. Serrated knives are easier for home use because they rarely need to be sharpened if ever, and cut small portions of meat efficiently.
Straight knives are easier to clean and sharpen and cut more neatly. Serrated knives saw the meat and are much harder to blunt or cut yourself with for the same cutting power. Like a saw versus a knife for wood.
Steak knives can also be straight edge instead of serrated. Restaurants and others usually just go with the other kind because you won’t typically sharpen them and they could last longer.
Proper steak knives – like you might get at a fancy steak house restaurant are often not serrated. As other mentioned, they are much sharped but needs to be sharpened/maintained. Butchers are often looking for clean cuts as in separating the different parts of the animal as close to perfect as they can like *that* particular muscle. And then the “sawing” would destroy a bit of it. So the sharper the better, but again, needs to be maintained. Thats why you see butchers sharpening their knives before cutting, and in between animals as well. It goes “blunt” quite quickly – but also is quite quick to sharpen if you have the right knives/tools
Similar to a doctor cutting in humans, they are looking for clean cuts. So they will “always” use a brand new/sharpened non-serrated knife to make the cleanest possible cuts in the skin/muscles.
tl;dr serrated blades are easier but not as good
You can easily get serrations on a blade with a single pass of a grinder. Even if you don’t have those fancy multi-bevel serrations just putting a bunch of jagged edges on the metal will make it cut decently.
The tiny jagged edges catch on to the meat and rip them out, the same way a saw does. The two big downsides are that it leaves jagged cuts instead of nice smooth ones and, once a serrated knife does get dull, it’s much more annoying to resharpen.
If you want a smooth edge, you need to start with good steel. It doesn’t need to be super fancy but if it’s too soft any edge will just disappear really fast. Then you need to carefully grind that edge down with successively finer grits and maintain a really steady angle while you do it.
That gets you kitchen knives that can cut like razor blades. If you just touch them to meat it cuts right through. It lets you make really smooth cuts and that gives you much more control.
With a sharp knife you can delicately separate connective tissue from muscle. You can take large muscle bundles and easily cut along the fibers to separate them into individual muscles. You can cut paper thin slices of meat. When it gets a little dull you can easily re-hone it or even re-sharpen it.
When you eat a steak, you use the knife to saw back and fourth to cut off a piece. Butchers knives are so sharp they can do it in one swing.
serrated blades leave more jagged and messy cuts than straight blades. if you’re trying to sell the product, you want the cleanest cuts possible to preserve the quality of the product.
additionally, a butcher’s knife is a purpose built commercial grade tool. it’s in continuous use for 8+ hours a day and has to be easy to sharpen, as it’s going to be sharpened daily. a straight blade is much easier to sharpen than a serrated blade.
finally, the method of butchering a cow is done with respect to the physiology of the animal. a skilled butcher cuts along the natural divisions between layers of tissue. the main thing they’re trying to cut through is connective tissue (and some blood vessels, etc.) rather than trying to cut through the bulk of a piece of big piece of muscle tissue. a straight blade cuts through this softer material easily, no sawing motion required.
I bought a set of Wusthof knives, haven’t sharpened or even straightened them in 10 years and they still cut steak cleanly way better than anything else I’ve ever used. Also cleanly cut through tomatos without totally messing them up the way a serrated blade would.
TL;DR good straight steak knife >>> serrated
Steak knives don’t necessarily have serrations. In fact steak knives without serrations cut steak better without tearing the meat. That a non serrated blade is better and faster at cutting meat is why a butcher uses that kind of knife, and why chef’s and home cooks use that kind of knife.
Your stake is mainly cut against the grain of the muscle, an easy direction for the cut. The serrated knife can tear against that without side-effects. Both type of knives will work equally well (at equal sharpness).
The regular knife is more predictable in my experience. If a butcher cuts in the direction of the grain (separating meat from bone or fat) then he doesn’t want to tear out a strip of the good muscle/meat but only wants to cut where he puts the knife.
Butchers sharpen their knives daily. Their knives are razor sharp, and are kept this way to reduce the movements needed to cut (no sawing through the product).
Butchers need to cut cleanly, to reduce amount of broken cell walls in the product, and need to have a razor edge to break sinew, silver skin, and other connective tissues.
Steak knives are meant to stay sharp for a LONG time. Not razor sharp, but tear a steak up by sawing through it sharp. If you used these knives to butcher, you would break a lot of cell walls and end up with “blood” (amino acid filled liquids that are contained within the cells of the flesh) everywhere. This would make the steak you’re about to cook less juicy, and probably prevent good searing. It would also reduce the usable product.
At add onto what has already been mentioned, casual restaurants aren’t going to give guests different kinds of knifes. The serrated, rounded tip knife found in these places are going to double as your bread and butter knifes, served with sandwiches, given to the picky people that have to have a knife with their salad, ect.
Restaurants often use steak knives with serrations because they are easier to maintain. They don’t have to sharpen them for the minimal use they get. They would have to sharpen a plain edge knife sooner or later but the serrated knife will likely stay sharp its entire service life.
Using a knife every day to make your living will cause a lot of wear on it (butcher). They’ll opt for a knife they can easily sharpen, as sharpening a serrated blade is much more difficult. The plain edge knife will also cut much smoother as serrations often tear meat.
I guess a serrated knife “opens” the cut borders of the meat, making it easier to chew it, but at the same time making it easier for it to spoil.
Serrated knives destroy the fibers of the meat causing the meat to lose juices and dry out. A butchers knife makes a cleaner cut, without damaging the fibers of the meat as much.
You can use a serated knife as a butcher its just going to be wasteful and you will have ugly cuts.
Serrated knives have teeth specifically to grab things with loose structure and fibers. In Culinary school we call it a bread knife because thats about the only thing to use it on. These blades are also incredibly annoying to sharpen, as you mist properly negotiate around the teeth
A chef knife/butcher knife is a straight edge knife designed to be kept sharp, daily. Animal meat has a grain much like wood, if you are trained well you could cut down the entire cow with a sharp pocket knife since the muscle fiber will help you, if you know what you are doing.
Professional butchers certainly do use bandsaws and other serrated edges to cut through bone and parts that are not meat. When breaking down primal cuts into the cuts sold in a market, you want to have a sharp knife so the cuts dont look shredded and are more presentable. The serrated edge may also snag on tendons depending on the cut of meat, and rip the grain of the muscle tissue.
Dont use a serrated knife for anything other than bread. Food is made of cells and you dont want to rip any more than you need to, or you will lose product and quality.
Serrated knives don’t need to be sharpened, so they are easier for most people. A professionally sharpened knife is almost always better. There are some circumstances that I prefer a serrated knive, but very few.
Cooked meat vs raw meat?
Because we know how to use a knife. Consumers are very stupid.
We give you dull knives on purpose. We don’t want you to cut yourself.
I cut my steak with a butter knife because you don’t need a sharp knife and I sure as hell do not trust an average person with one. You get serrated knives because you don’t know how to use a knife. They’re cheap, they’re hard to blunt, and the average customer is below average.
Safety. A serrated knife need not be so “sharp” because the multiple “points” of the serration allow it to “rip” through the steak, with application of moderate force. But you aren’t going to accidentally cut yourself with this knife, at least not very badly.
But for a straight edge knife to cut as well, it would have to be sharp enough that a slip-up could do serious damage.
Good knife slices but needs maintained. Steak house needs low maintenance. So you get a knife that you have to saw the meat with. But they can just throw it in the dishwasher and replace after a few years use.