Choosing a Knife for Sourdough Bread: Full Guide

I never knew that using the right knife was so important until I found an actual bread knife down the back of my kitchen drawer and tried it out. Wow. What a difference!

Why Use a Specific Type of Knife to Slice Sourdough Bread?

Using the wrong type of knife (or a badly designed one), not only makes it difficult to slice your bread, but it also ruins your crumb (the fluffiness on the inside of your bread).

Using a Regular Chef’s Knife for Slicing Sourdough

If you were to use a regular chef’s knife to slice your hard crusted sourdough bread (like I used to!), you’ll find at least some of these issues come up: – The interior crumb would get squashed and compressed, which would ruin the texture of the bread. – Slices would be uneven, or worse, won’t even resemble slices!

The Benefits of Using a Properly Designed Bread Knife

A properly designed bread slicing knife will work far more efficiently, and give you slices that actually look like slices, and the integrity of the bread will stay intact.

What to Look for in a Knife for Sourdough Bread

There are a lot of bread knives out there that don’t slice bread particularly well. Price doesn’t necessarily equal efficiency, so it’s useful to know what to look for before deciding on a purchase.

Best Type of Blade for Slicing Sourdough

Serrated Knife Edge A bread knife always has serrations along the cutting edge. Serrations are needed to be able to ‘saw’ through the hard, crispy crust and soft interior without too much friction (friction causes crumbs, shedding, tearing).

Scalloped serration

 – This type of serrated knife has rounded serrations, without any actual points on the edge. It tends to be more effective for softer breads like challah, and fruits such as kiwis or tomatoes.

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