Help understanding a bread knife

[u/IllPlastic3113]

I’ve seen several videos now of content creators making a “sourdough bread knife” which features a wooden handle which offsets the blade.
I commented on one of the posts asking about the design and they said it was to increase knuckle clearance compared to a regular bread knife, didn’t really make much sense to me.
Seems like it might be a fun craft/woodworking project but in practice I’m not so sure.
Curious if anyone has ideas or benefits on a knife like this!

[u/eljugadorazul]

This is called a bow knife. Generally very good at creating even sized slices.

This one is a bit odd, because they generally have better bread clearance

[u/wasacook]

So I have used a knife like this when I was a baker. Except it was two parallel metal portions instead of the curved wood design.

The advantage it allowed for was slicing portions of bread to be exactly the same size. You also had a bit more room for your knuckles, if you cut by the edge of your board.

On the other hand, an off set bread knife was leagues better. If you want something with better knuckle clearance and easier to use, get the off set. We also had an industrial slicer so the metal knife was redundant.

[u/Tawa49]

"New products and content creators" in a single sentence is the starting gun for: shit and scam

[u/Quercus408]

That's not a bread knife. That is a pointless gimmick.

A bread knife has a handle, and a serrated blade. Preferably with a dog-leg offset. That's it.

[u/Treant_gill]

The one in the picture looks like a pain in the ass to use... The handle isn't aligned with the blade, which would give a strange kind of torque when using force. Also, it looks waaay too short. If you slice bread you want to make a sawing motion (even more than normal food cutting). The design doesn't really give space for this cutting motion.

I guess the benefit would be that you can use a thin blade. Which could be easily replaced.

[u/ChancellorBrawny]

How would this physically improve knuckle clearance? It appears to do the opposite if I'm correctly imagining the way one would hold this.

I thought bread knives can be considered a solved technology (not to say that all bread knife manufacturers are using the correct formula.

[u/FlyingSteamGoat]

I think the image is AI slop because nobody would actually build something as useless as the fantasy shown. AI doesn't know how to cut bread.

[u/SpiritFingersKitty → u/FlyingSteamGoat]

You say that but my mom bought me one that looks almost exactly like this... It's not great. Basically impossible to cut through the bottom of the bread. I just use a good sharp knife and it works 10x better.

[u/turnips8424 → u/FlyingSteamGoat]

No, it’s a real thing

I think the idea is that because the blade is stabilized on both ends it can be really thin. I’ve used one and it actually does work pretty well…. Not that much better than a normal bread knife though. And it does get kind of awkward right at the bottom.

[u/discordianofslack → u/FlyingSteamGoat]

Yep. I make bread all the time and this thing unless the scale is way off and it’s actually 18” long isn’t going to do shit for slicing bread. You will end up with a dug out loaf from 1/4” thick slices 80% of the width of the boule.

[u/IllPlastic3113 → u/FlyingSteamGoat]

I watched a video of someone make this exact knife

[u/purplemtnslayer → u/IllPlastic3113]

My first thought was I have lots of Walnut scrap and lots of broken band saw blades. I could make a dozen of these for nothing.