Cheese knife in my opinion is pretty much indispensable tool in the kitchen, it you eat cheese that is. The benefit of having the dedicated cheese knife is twofold, at least in my knife enthusiast mind :) The first benefit is the ease of cutting the cheese, specialized tools always work better. Second, and I think equally important, or may be more important is that the dedicated cheese knife saves the edges on your other kitchen knives. So, given all that I've picked up Global GS-10 cheese knife back in 2006. Price was ok, just ~60$. I've picked Global because back then my kitchen cutlery set was comprised of Globals, plus a few customs and tactical/field knives, such as Trace Rinaldi TTKK and Swamp Rat Bog Dog. You can also read other Global knives reviews here.
General
- GS-10 cheese knife from Global is pretty much standard design for an average cheese knife. The handle is at approximately 15°-20° angle from the blade. Obviously, that is done to give the operator extra leverage, as cutting the cheese, especially sticky or hard types is quite difficult work for both, knife operator and the knife edge. For that reason the edge is serrated. Serrated blades are far less delicate, but they do dull. As for the other features, it's a standard knife from Global. Nice packaging, their trademark stainless dimpled handle.
Blade
- 140mm long skeletonized blade is around 2mm thick and ends with an upswept fork tip. Besides transferring cut pieces of the cheese from the cutting board to the plate, that fork tip served me when fishing out small buffalo mozzarella balls from the liquid in the can. Serrations are really narrow, ground on the right side of the blade, left side is flat. Because serration crescents are so narrow it's pretty much impossible to sharpen them. The only option is to sharpen the flat side. Of course you can grind the right side, but that will most likely flatten the pointy tips, hampering the cutting ability. Eventually, I'm gonna try more narrow sharpeners to get between the serration teeth, but not much hope for that.
It's been several years since I've been using this knife and because I like cheese I use it very frequently. Few times a week, at least once a day. I do prefer mozzarella cheese
and that one is pretty hard on the knife edge. Once in a while I am examining the edge under the microscope or some magnifying device. Interestingly enough the edge hasn't really
damaged significantly. So far I haven't sharpened the knife for 3 years(06-09). The only maintenance I do with it is steeling of the flat side. On the photos attached here you can
see the serrations at various magnification. First picture was taken a year earlier compared to the rest. You can see the bent tips of the serrations from the front side on the
second photo. The back side of the same damage is on this photo.
The damage to the serrated edge is much less than that of the straight edges sustained on the same cheese. For now I don't have the micrographs of the straight edges damaged by
cheese cutting, but the rolling is severe.
Handle
- It's a typical Global signature handle. Stainless steel with black dimples. Pretty comfortable and quite secure too. Given that I don't use this knife for anything else I don't really have to worry about slippage and grip security. However, the angle and handle shape are pretty good to exert significant force, which is pretty much given for cheese cutting. I do like it a lot more than the handle on a Gude Cheese Knife.Usage
- Well, I already said I use it exclusively for cheese cutting. Well, plus cutting the cheese packaging plastic, which is hardly anything comparable to cheese I have to cut with it. Overall, I am very positive about this knife. After all, this is one of the very few Global knives that survived my Spring 2008 kitchen knife upgrade program. I gave away most of the Global knives I've owned before and replaced them with better stuff. However, I kept this cheese knife and it still serves me well. I've cut probably a dozen of different types of cheese. While I myself prefer mozzarella and couple other feta type cheese, during the parties at my place I do serve few others sorts of cheese. Works pretty well for whatever I've had to cut, moist, hard, dry, crumbly and whatever else. Depending on the cheese type I might use either push cutting, when I vertically push down on the blade, or saw cutting. Whenever I use push cutting it is as usual with two hands though. I use left hand thumb on the curve formed by the fork tip, holding the handle with the right hand. So far the only other cheese knife I've used, although briefly was the Gude cheese knife. I've conducted minimal Gude vs. Global cheese knife testing and the comparison results are posted in the Gude Cheese Knife Review.Specifications:
- Blade - 140.00mm(5.5")
- Thickness - 3.17mm
- OAL - 266.70mm(10.5")
- Steel - CROMOVA 18 56-58HRC
- Handle - Stainless Steel
- Acquired - 03/2006 Price - 63.00$
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Last updated - 05/19/19