I eat lots of cheese. I’ve long used a cheese lyre to cut soft to medium hard cheese:


Its taut wire would cut cheese more cleanly than any knife that I knew of. But it’s a bit fiddly in use. I wondered if I could find a knife that would serve as well, or better.

IMO a cheese knife ought to have two principal characteristics:
* A thin, sharp blade to easily penetrate the cheese.
* A narrow blade for minimal surface drag. Low surface area is why a cheese lyre works so well despite being so dull that you’d have to work to cut yourself.
I couldn’t find any “cheese knives” that looked right to me, so I began looking for narrow-blade knives instead. My amazon-fu was good enough to find this one:

Rapala Superflex fillet knife
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B001..._encoding=UTF8&psc=1

I bought the 4” blade size. Rapala is famous for fishing lures, but they make other fishing-related products too.

You can easily see that its blade is narrow. It’s thin too – very thin – hence the “Superflex” moniker. And for toppers the blade has a non-stick PTFE coating for even easier cutting (and cleaning).

Cool! So this knife has both of my “must have” characteristics, plus the bonus PTFE coating. But is it actually good for cutting cheese? You betcha! See these nice clean slices of Westminster Rustic Red Leicester:


A few observations:
* Has a slip resistant wood haft of decent girth
* Laid on a counter, its blade is cantilevered over it
* Has a useless (for me) scabbard
* Was a struggle to get the knife out of the goddamned shrink wrap package

But yeah, a superb cheese knife for me. I’m going to buy another for a spare while the getting is good. I’ll use tin snips on the shrink wrap package next time.

Thanks for the heads up on this. We have a Gerber Muskie that's seen kitchen duty for years, one of my wife's favorites. Like the Rapala, it's thin and sharp, a little longer. I think I'll get one of the Rapalas to add to the block.

Rapala is a good value. I've used their fillet knives for years and have cleaned hundreds of walleye's and pan fish with them. I lost my favorite Rapala down a ice hole early this year. The place I was staying at only had Markolov fillet knives so I bought one. It performs very well. Eased the pain of losing my long time Rapala friend. I've never used it to slice cheese but my fillet knives always see double duty as brisket, tenderloin or pork butt trimmers. Silver skin doesn't stand a chance against my Markolov.

I purchased my son in law a Cutco Fishermans knife as a gift to see how he would like it before I bought one for myself. He says he loves it. The blade is actually extendable from 6 to 8 inches. But electric fillet knives are all the thing now.

Just asked my wife the other day (while cutting cheese with it ) how many fish I've filleted with my Rapala fillet knife. Gotta be close to a thousand. Very good value for their price. At their minimal price, it's nice to have several length blades handy.

Looks very nice, but some of us cut the cheese without ever having to pick up a knife.

Spyderco Catcherman has served well for similar needs.

I'm seeking cheese scisssors for that long strand that stretches from your crock of French Onion soup to over your head.

The scissors in the Swiss Army knife work in a pinch but would like a dedicated instrument.

"Laura Chenel" was my little sister's best friend.
Her name was Laura Vast. Her family owned a turkey farm south of Sebastopol. She went to France, learned about French goat cheese, came back and made herself famous.

Unfortunately for my sister, they drifted away from their friendship at some point, but sis still has good friends, which is why she still lives in Sebastopol. One of her high school friends lives with a guy who also makes cheese, but from cows. Cheesy place, Sonoma County.

Hi Sis!

^^^^^^^
Very good cheese, but the packaging isn’t. A mess to get the cheese out cleanly.

I use a meat slicer to slice cheese and have for around 30 years.

Works like a charm and is adjustable from very thin to around a half inch of so.

We use a wire type cheese slicer, but it has a roller between the wire an the handle. Consistent thickness slices.

Call me a heathen if you will, but I find a quality paring knife to handle cheese duties quite satisfactorily. Our cheese go to is a 4" damascus paring knife with a VG-10 steel core and convex edge. Slices through all types of cheeses like butter.

quote:

Originally posted by bald1:
Call me a heathen if you will, but I find a quality paring knife to handle cheese duties quite satisfactorily. Our cheese go to is a 4" damascus paring knife with a VG-10 steel core and convex edge. Slices through all types of cheeses like butter.

You sir, are an uncultured heathen!

I keed of course!

JP

I remember when the odd looking but cheap Rapala knife came out, middle 1960s in western Missouri. It's appearance and low price belied it's utility. I quickly learned you can pay more for a fish knife, but you won't get better. Pretty awesome whittling knife at boy scout camp also, much because so easy to get very sharp.

quote:

Originally posted by bald1:
Call me a heathen if you will, but I find a quality paring knife to handle cheese duties quite satisfactorily. Our cheese go to is a 4" damascus paring knife with a VG-10 steel core and convex edge. Slices through all types of cheeses like butter.

It works fine. If it was skeletonized it would be even better because there wouldn’t be so much surface area to “grip” the cheese.

quote:

Originally posted by 1s1k:
If it was skeletonized it would be even better because there wouldn’t be so much surface area to “grip” the cheese.

There's really not much more surface area on this compared to the OP's fillet knife.

FWIW I've never been a fan of skeletonized blades or granton treatments either.

Where is the cable port ?
How do you down load the app. ?
Is it blue tooth ?

Is there a tech support number at least?

I will check on the cheese cutters forum.

Great. Now I have an expensive cheese craving.

As long as we're talking cheese knives, here's my cheese cleaver and small cutting board along side my damascus 4" paring knife. These handle everything but the softest of cheeses where a small butter knife does the trick.

I tested both. For me the skeletonized is far superior. It goes through any cheese very easily since there’s not much surface area and the blade is much stiffer/stronger. The filet knife does fine on small blocks of cheese but the blade is just too flexible to cut consistent sizes of the larger blocks and it always feels like it’s about to get you.

Either will get the job done but it’s pretty obvious which one is designed for the job. I could probably filet a Crappie with the cheese knife as well but the effectiveness would be apparent doing it back to back.


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^^^^^^^^
You’re probably right 1s1k. But with my restricted calorie budget the Westminster cheeses seen in my OP are the largest cheese blocks that I’ve cut recently. The Rapala goes through those easily, so “larger blocks” aren’t a problem for me.

BTW, it appears to me that your Rapala lacks the non-stick PTFE coating that mine has.