Winco 8" Blade Chinese Stainless Steel Cleaver

This is best $10 I have ever spent on a knife. (Update, you can do better...) Better bang for the buck than many nice, upmarket knives I have picked up, or any of the many Japanese knives I have bought this year - and I have spent at least $1500 on knives. I am a professional cook, and I have several sets of knives at home and for taking to work. While this is in a completely different league than a Japanese steel knife (or even a fancy German knife), this one is not at all about the steel. I think it's perfect for a line knife. It really is perfect, the profile is great, and it's simple enough to be a good tool. It's so cheap you can really use it. Unlike aogami super, you can leave it out - wet, whatever. Though everyone will think you paid much more. The wooden handle is not ideal for the Sani but I run it. You won't get mad at anyone who picks this up, and it is beautiful enough that they will. At my work we have nakiris from Mercer, Wustof, Miyabi, a bunch of santokus from fancy brands, house knives, and personal knives with nice steel like VG-10, MBS-26 or knives from MAC and other Japanese manufacturers. While the grain of this steel seems nice, it is not hard or wear resistant, it is very tough and German style. It's will take a 1200-2000 grit edge and stay sharp through a prep session. If you are caught up in Shun marketing, or want a Japanese laser, don't buy this. The steel in this knife is Chinese garbage and it definitely won't hold a fine edge even through a bag of Brussels sprouts. That said, its price is less than the labor I would charge someone to sharpen most knives. Especially compared to harder steel this has low edge retention, but it is perfect for anyone who knows how to use a ceramic sharpening rod. This cheap steel will punch way above its weight class if you're willing to hone a knife as part of your mise en place. If you sharpen your knives all the time and are looking for a nakiri, you'll love this. You won't ever worry about chipping, you can re-profile the edge in a few minutes, and it will get razor sharp very quickly. If you don't sharpen don't bother, it will get very dull very quick and you'll have no fun. I would say it's profile is almost identical to the cheap mercer nakiris. Best $10 Nakiri out there. The best knife out there, dollar for dollar, would probably be a Mercer.

I’m the world’s biggest critic of cheap stuff masquerading as quality products. However this knife is the real deal, super nice to handle and it’s sharp. Cheap of course so it dulls easily, but it sharpens up real fast and has been a pleasure to use chopping up veggies and meats for my Wok.

(December 1, 2011: I just recently added a photo to the Amazon description page.) This product -- Heavy Duty Meat Cleaver - 8" Blade -- is labeled as model "KC-301" below the name "Winco." A sticker says it's made in China. There are pluses and minuses to this meat cleaver. On the plus side, when new the blade is deadly sharp. It literally cuts paper in a stroke. It has no trouble slicing into a tomato. That won't last long, of course, after several minutes of whacking into Beaver pelts and June bugs and Wallaby carcasses and then afterWard often whamping into the presumably hard surface beneath. But it is unreasonable to expect any blade to stand up to such a beating and stay sharp enough to slice a tomato. When it gets too dull you can sharpen it, which means regrinding, and until then you can hone it every so often, which means using a butcher's steel to realign the very edge of the edge. Here, in case you believe it, is what the Wikipedia article says: "A knife-sharp edge on a [meat] cleaver is undesirable because it would quickly become more blunt than it if were less sharp but sturdier to begin with. The grind of Eastern Asian kitchen knives is 15-18 degrees, and for most Western kitchen knives it is 20-22°. But for a meat cleaver it is even blunter, more like 25°." Also on the plus side, this meat cleaver weighs 15-7/8 ounces, which I'd pretty much call one pound, which is heavy, which is just what I wanted for hacking through bones. Also also, if you don't own a meat tenderizer you can flip this cleaver over and beat your meat with the totally blunt far upper corner (which you can do with any other cleaver for that matter). That said, this is by no means a high-quality meat cleaver. One defect, at least on my exact one, is that at least two of the three rivets are a bit loose. When you hold it by the handle in the usual way and waggle it, you can feel the tang of the blade swing back and forth a tiny bit inside the two grips. Which leads to my second complaint, which is that there's room between the grips and the tang for food and bacteria and molds and viruses and other ick to slip into and propagate and later end up in your turkey stock or your acorn squash ice cream. (This would be true even if the rivets weren't loose.) Any such crud that gets in there is going to be impossible to scrub away. The only solution (ha) I've thought of is to swoosh the handle around vigorously in a solution of vinegar and water, or maybe even bleach and water, and then pray (ha ha). There's a total of about 22 inches of linear space where such crud can get into (and, more importantly, out of) the grip. This is simply a design defect, unless it's a gross manufacturing defect. Either way, for this I subtract 1 star. My third complaint is about the grind. You would expect the top of the grind line of a high-quality cleaver to exactly parallel the sharp edge, but it doesn't. And in two places you can see where there's a third grind line, which is indisputably a mistake. Either this was sharpened on a machine that was adjusted wrong or, much more likely, it was sharpened by a human that was careless. Because of the cross-contamination problem I rate this product at 4 stars. If it cost $30 or more I'd rate it at 2 stars, but it's only 15 bucks. So you can buy two. P.S. Did anyone get the Beaver, June bug, Wallaby, afterWard joke?

Blade steel takes a good edge and it's a chopping machine. Choppy chop chop. A solid value and works very well. Handle is comfortable and solid.

I was tired of spending so much time cutting whole chickens or foods with bones, but this cleaver made everything so much easier! It’s surprisingly light and very practical — now I even use it for cutting vegetables and meats. I can do everything so much faster now! Definitely a great addition to my kitchen!

This is nice a heavy, you can chop though a chicken or though ribs, no problem, however since I have not had a proper kitchen cleaver in a while, I forgot a few things, which may help you: ... remember a few decades ago when all the cutting boards were made of thick wood.... yeah you need one of those. I broke two of those plastic/PVC cutting boards. You forget that if you really slam the cleaver though the meat, you will hit what ever the meat is on, so if you want to wail on it, get a thick wooden board, or just dial your strength back and take two of three lighter swings at the chicken to make it sumit to your quartering. ... remember what we did before knifes had a "lifetime blade"?... or perhaps you dont notice that most all knifes have a warenty to keep their sharpness for life? well, this does not. The blade may need sharpening, after all the whacking it will go though, and all the cutting boards you will hit, the blade will dull. re-sharpen it, there are sharpeners on the back of some electric can openers (really, you should look at yours) or they are a few bucks to get a manual one at walmart. I do not use this every day, maybe once a month, I have had it for a few months, no rust, no problems (except for the broken cutting boards, which I blame myself), I like it.

Overall, It's a cheap knife. Quality isn't great, but is adequate. I plan to beat it up anyways, using it for tasks that would damage my high end knives. Obviously It's not a high end professional knife, but the weight and shape makes it useful. The blade is not terribly sharp, but it is good enough for simple tasks. Compared to my high end knives (which are very hard and sharpened to a very narrow 12-15 degree right handed angle), this takes about 2-3 times the force to cut vegetables with, but the weight makes up for that when bulk chopping. This knife has its place in any kitchen, as it will work great for cutting hard things (squash, nuts, root vegetables). It will save the edge on your harder knives. I would not use it as a primary vegetable knife, because it just is not sharp enough to make fine cuts. Nor would I use it for joints/bones, as it is not thick or heavy enough for that. If you do not have a high end steel knife, pick up a cheap 15$ ceramic knife bundled with a diamond file to use on soft foods. The overall shape, weight, and size makes this knife feel good in the hand. It's more of a nakiri than a cleaver. The handle is a little small, but it will fit into your palm fine if you are comfortable placing your thumb/index finger on the blade when using it. It's not made of a very hard wood, and there is no end-cap, so if you plan on using the handle to crush things, this isn't your knife. Because the steel isn't very hard, and it is very easy to sharpen up on a steel. Since it's not hard/brittle, it does not chip easily like most high end knives. I found that re-grinding the edge on a whetstone greatly improved its performance, as the factory edge is uneven and poorly formed. The little metal collar on the knife I received was not well finished. It was cut a bit too wide, so there is a small gap on one side of the blade, making it loose. Because of this, it would rattle every time I moved the knife.. quite frustrating. There was also a barb of metal remaining which was very sharp. I was able to fix these issues by cutting off the barb with a razor blade, and shooting some silicone into the metal gap.

very sharp, great for mincing

No sé porqué no identifican a este cuchillo como un Nakiri (quizás porque no es fabricado en Japón), pero para todos fines prácticos, el cuchillo es un Nakiri hecho y derecho. De fábrica posee un filo excelente, y la hoja se adelgaza gradualmente desde el lomo hasta el filo, permitiendo cortes más precisos y suaves. Se recomienda especialmente para cortar frutas y verduras, ya que no parece lo suficientemente firme como para cortar hueso o cartílago; pero para trabajo normal de cocina, resulta muy conveniente. Quizás el único defecto que podría mencionar es que el lomo trae bordes afilados, que pueden lastimar o incluso cortar si se usa sin cuidado y aplicando mucha fuerza, pero simplemente le redondeé los bordes usando una piedra esmeril, y asunto solucionado. Después de eso, se ha convertido en uno de mis cuchillos favoritos.

Entrega rápida y bien empaquetada. El cuchillo tiene un excelente filo y después de una semana de uso lo perdió ligermanente pero nada que no se pueda corregir con una ligera afilada. Los materiales con que está hecho son de muy buena calidad, lo cual me dejó sorprendido debido al bajo precio. Tiene mejor filo que unos similar que tengo por el que pague 1400 pesos. Después de varias semanas de uso sigue siendo una excelente elección sin embargo no se debe usar para cortar hueso pues se rompe, yo lo utilice para cortar un coco y se quebró el filo.

Nice little cleaver. Very sharp and easy to use. Good quality steel.

Seems Very Good quality, Have seen reviews on this cleaver before, it should last years of use, even heavy bone chopping if properly sharpened, and respected, I'm sure this cleaver can even split a carcass, It will just take longer than a giant carcass splitter cleaver, obviously. Lots of people Don't Split carcasses with ridiculous giant Carcass splitter cleavers, there's really no need for one. This cleaver could probably be used as a wood chopper of sorts, I'm not sure how good the edge is. I have seen videos of people cutting small trees down with low price stainless cleavers, The very wide close too 4 inch blade makes for a very durable design in general, much like wide machetes, but this is much thicker than a vegetable cleaver, certainly suited for chopping bone, doesn't have desirable huge weight and size to make heavy bone chopping easier, But I think this Cleaver could do some serious work.

Thought that I would put this cleaver through its paces before writing a review. I use this as my go to knife on most occasions while in the kitchen now. So versatile and well balanced for me. The blade is super sharp, just gets a quick pass with the rod every so often. It has been put through the dish washer as well and still looks brand new!!! I'm impressed with the quality of it, bearing in mind I'm no professional Chef - only a lover of cooking.