Info on butchers axe's

B

bud white

Joined
May 14, 2012
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24
Hello a butcher mate of mine recently saw a video on Instagram of meat being cut with a butchers axe and was trying to find info about them but came up short.

I said I'd ask you guys over here, probably the best bet. Just any general info appreciated like countries they were/are popular in, period of use, what prep they were used for( same purpose as cleavers?) examples of etc. pretty much anything about them

Thanks
Sam
 
Sam,the butcher's axe is still used extensively in Europe,especially in the more backward parts of it,set back by years of soviet dysfunction.
Though not always,in Western Europe it is also still alive and well,maybe to a lesser degree.

Some gourmands believe that meat can only be properly cut with a sharp blade,as it creates a solid surface that than cooks differently from the more frayed saw-cut.Some cultures(mainly in Asia),believe in only using cutting/chopping tools even when making hamburger...(but that's closer to the cleaver action,somewhat a different technique).

Here's a video of one russian axe-smith having a butcher test one of his axes.It's an ok illustration of the way they do stuff there,using a small chopping block to process even beef quarters...
They use only the axe,and a small-ish knife for everything...Eventually using the axe to split the bigger of hollow bones to make it easier to boil them up for soup...

At 9+ pounds that axe is maybe heavier than normal,usually they're a 4-6 lbs tool.

 
I've tried to tack on a photo of a nice old F.Dick,but i think it failed...

https://imgur.com/a/jhymI

In any case,a number of German manufacturers still make a Very decent butcher's axe,often in stainless/plastic/FDA-legit configuration.
Possibly other W.European makers as well.
 
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I have come across pig butchery in France where a different kind of axe gets used but then in combination with a mallet mostly to split the carcass where that's done low down or on the ground. The axes out of Germany resembling this broad blade of the Russian one but then with a bolt on the poll.
 
jake pogg said:
Sam,the butcher's axe is still used extensively in Europe,especially in the more backward parts of it,set back by years of soviet dysfunction.
Though not always,in Western Europe it is also still alive and well,maybe to a lesser degree.

Some gourmands believe that meat can only be properly cut with a sharp blade,as it creates a solid surface that than cooks differently from the more frayed saw-cut.Some cultures(mainly in Asia),believe in only using cutting/chopping tools even when making hamburger...(but that's closer to the cleaver action,somewhat a different technique).

Here's a video of one russian axe-smith having a butcher test one of his axes.It's an ok illustration of the way they do stuff there,using a small chopping block to process even beef quarters...
They use only the axe,and a small-ish knife for everything...Eventually using the axe to split the bigger of hollow bones to make it easier to boil them up for soup...

At 9+ pounds that axe is maybe heavier than normal,usually they're a 4-6 lbs tool.

Click to expand...
showed the video to my father, "looks like a fighting axe" if it aint broke, make it bigger i guess.

here's my contribution, that i'm vaguely sure is upside down.
cOlDVFh.jpg
 
Thank you,A17.
And here's one of these modern ones with a nod towards modern ideas on hygene and food safety,plastic and chrome coating:https://imgur.com/a/XcY8A

This one is by Leonhart Mueller,there's also a practically identical one by Ochsenkopf,and i'm sure many other manufacturers as well.

(That protrusion up from the poll is a mystery to me,it's funny how it's copied in some medieval halberds and such...to put an unsettling thought of butchering into the head of the enemy?:)
 
I don't think the butcher in Germany is allowed to use anymore his wooden cutting board and is forced instead to use a plastic which in fact is far less hygienic. These are the butcher axes with the peen of Sweden. These made at the famous Wira forge but Hults Bruk made one with a similar form.
05_Slaktbilor.jpg
 
Thanks heaps for the info guys, we couldn't find anything . Are the blade thickness usually on par with a meat cleaver or are they thinner. The one in the video J jake pogg postered seem thinner but I'm not sure I'm just getting tricked by the size of the axe.

Thanks again
 
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