Tojiro Pro Cleaver

Tojiro Pro Cleaver

Price: $350
Length: 230mm
Height @ spine: 104mm (108mm center)
Width @ spine: 1.5mm

Weight: 550g
Blade material: stainless
Blade finish: matte
Balance: 3" above handle
Hardness: HRC 60
Handle type: Western
Handle material: steel

Scores:

Performance: 9
Usability: 7
Ergonomics: 4
OOTB Sharpness: 9
Edge profile: 7
Blade fit & finish: 9
Handle fit & finish: 9
Quality Control: 10
"Wow" Factor: 10
Value: 7

Overall: 81

Ah, the cleaver. This is probably the least used and least understood knife in the arsenal. Vanishingly few folks use it, and those that do, misuse it. A Chinese cleaver is not a meat knife and is not meant to chop bones or hack and whack food into submission. How do I know? Well, I used to own a Shun Cleaver. It was cool. It was sexy. And more importantly, none of my foodie friends used one, so I thought it made me cooler than them to use it. So I did. A lot! I used it whenever I could, right up to the time I used it to try to chop chicken bones up for a stock. The chunk of steel I took out of the blade was 2" long and 1" wide. Oops. End of knife. Must have been a lemon.

Yeah.

Four years later, I found out that the knife was fine, and I was the lemon. Chinese cleavers are vegetable knives. Sure, you can prep meat with them — I do — but I think it's instructive to think of them as overgrown nakiris. The best Chinese cleavers are tall, with a thin keen edge and a sharp square-tip that can do all the fine work that a chef's knife can. They're light. They're fast. And yes, they're pretty cool to use, and no, none of your friends are using them. Oh, and they'll scare the crap out anyone watching you take it out of the block. Can't beat that with a stick.

So, about the Tojiro Pro Chinese cleaver. First thing you're going to notice is that this is a big knife. Second, that it's a pretty knife. No, not sexy Damascus steel with a fancy-rare wood handle — this thing is all one hunk of steel. It's intimidating. It's impressive. And, yes, it's a great knife to boot!

Now, I'm not one to really go in for industrial designs and I am not a fan of modern minimalism — I like my leather plentiful, dark, soft and overstuffed. And this knife is not that. It's all metal — from tip to butt, including the handle. In fact, it looks as if the entirety was extruded all at once as there are no visible joins or seams, the whole of it just flows from one element to the next. Pictures of this knife will lose this sense of flow, which is a shame, but all the more reason to head over to your local shop and try it out. Like I said, it's impressive, and even though it uses none of the exotics that typically make my heart race (and give out big scores), I can't help but be taken in.

Some details:

The knife comes very sharp OOTB (Out Of The Box), with a 1mm cutting bevel cut into the steel. If you're reading this, it should be taken as obvious that OOTB sharpness isn't important, since this is entirely up to you, the one doing the maintenance. You want sharp? Sharpen it (or have someone do it for you)! That said, I do want to take a second to talk about cleaver maintenance.

Aside: most knives are shipped with a "good enough" edge. On a scale of 1-10, I put most knives right in the center of the bell curve, with traditional Japanese sushi knives on the low end (they're shipped a bit on the dull side, and meant to be given a "final edge" only by the chef that's to use them) and Western-style Japanese cutlery on the high end (they're usually meant to be good-to-go OOTB). So, when someone tells you that a knife is sharp OOTB, your first response should be "so what?", because whatever that edge is, you can do better, and most cases, very much better, with some good whetstones. End of aside.

Sharpening a cleaver is not easy. To get your crazy-acute cutting bevel, you have to hold your spine over the stone at a consistent angle off of your stone. This isn't easy with a 2" tall chef knife, but your cleaver is at least twice that tall. This is a lot of steel to hold steady! Without the use of an jig or sharpening system, you're very likely to scratch all hell out of the knife and have rather piss-poor bevels cut. One thought: lock the blade in place, in vise perhaps, and run the stone over the blade instead of vice-versa. Unorthodox, yes, but might save you some time and tears. About jigs and guides — these little doojabbers clamp to the spine and set a pretty consistent angle on your blade. They're very hard to use on knives with a lot of sweep to the edge (aka, a "big belly"), but since cleaver edges are much gentler in their sweep (and in many cases, dead flat), a jig or guide might be just the ticket. The trick will be to find one that will let you get enough height off the stone, and at that height blade, you're going to want to get the spine somewhere about 20mm off the stone to get a cutting bevel (the "included angle", that is, both sides of the bevel, added together) of around 20 degrees ... which rules out every jig I've ever seen, but hey, you never know. Like I said, it's not easy.

Back to the knife in question:

It is really well put together. The edge has a little curve to it, with about a 4mm variation in height from tip and heel to center of the belly. The blade tapers very slightly from the bolster to the tip, losing about a half millimeter along the way. The blade thickness mirrors the taper, maintaining a consistent, gradual narrowing all along the length. At about half the (blade) height, the blade begins to taper toward the edge. The beginning of this is marked by a change in the blade finish, with a sharp transition from bright steel to a misty finish which eventual gives way to a mirror finish as the cutting steel is exposed. The finish (in all three finishes) is even and regular, with no blemishes of any kind. The bolster is integrated. Handle is large and fits snugly into my palm. Spine and choil are very slightly rounded, making it very comfortable in a pinch grip, even though the balance of the knife is far forward of the grip. Which brings me to my problem with this knife.

It's just too heavy. Looking to pull together a pile of mirepoix for a stock, I found my wrist tiring halfway in, and with some regret, I put the cleaver down and ended up reaching for my chef knife. Not good. Fine, it's true, I have little girly wrists and I guess I'm something of a terrific wuss. That said, I have three Chinese cleavers in my kitchen at the moment, the big stainless Tojiro Pro, a carbon-steel Suien VC, and a beat up CCK 1103. All three are more or less the same size, but the CCK is just under 400 grams and the Suien is just over. Both the Suien and the CCK have more gradual tapers toward the tip (from the bolster) and toward the edge (from the spine), so there's obviously less metal on either blade, which may go a long way to explain why this Tojiro Pro is nearly 150 grams heavier than either of these (interestingly, my sample is a good 30g heavier than the stated weight for this, the middle-sized of the three Tojiro Pro cleaver offerings). That's a lot. And it will be a problem for those long, tedious tasks. I mean, if I was going to only use it for 18 seconds to debone a whole chicken like Martin Yan does (Google that — it's on YouTube, and it's an amazing thing to see), then, hey, no problems. But if I have an hour's worth of chopping and dicing, I'm going to hesitate.

That said, if I don't have that problem often. And the weight has some benefits. Cutting is effortless. While the edge profile is a little thicker at the edge than I'd prefer, it will part carrots (or anything else) effortlessly. Julienne? No problem. Fine dice? Easy as pie. No pushing of the knife, just a gentle forward nudge and the weight of the blade carries it right through to the board. I'm thinking that with some practice, I can probably adjust to the difference in weight and spend my efforts on simply holding the blade in the correct position because there's simply no need to muscle it through anything at all.

Anyway, I think what this means is that this is not a knife for the faint of heart (or arm). It is the nicest cleaver I've ever used (and no, I don't have a Moritaka, a Hattori or a Takeda), but it's not perfect. I want it lighter! But that's it. Everything else is spot on. If you're in the market for a big cleaver — or a nakiri or santoku — consider this one. Just be ready to re-adjust your technique and start working on those girly wrists. You know who you are.

Tojiro Pro Cleaver

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