On Mon, 19 May 2014 11:54:46 -0500, Janet Wilder >
wrote:
>On 5/19/2014 1:43 AM, Sqwertz wrote:
>> On Sun, 18 May 2014 23:25:25 -0400, Travis McGee wrote:
>>
>>> I barbecued some ribs yesterday. I was using a heavy cleaver to chop
>>> them apart, and ran into the same issue that has been bedeviling me for
>>> years: if I try to just hammer down, I usually don't hit the same place
>>> twice, and I end up with bone splinters and mushed up meat. A better
>>> approach has been to put the cleaver in the right spot, and pound on it
>>> with my hand. The problem with this is that hitting it hard enough with
>>> my hand can be painful. The next step was to use my head, but the SO
>>> suggested that this might hurt too...
>>>
>>> So, I went out tonight and bought a rubber mallet. I'll use it to pound
>>> on the cleaver, and hopefully all of my problems will be solved.
>>
>> Why aren't you just using a regular slicing knife like normal people?
>> I don't know what kind of ribs you're trying to cut, but none of them
>> are tough enough to need a meat cleaver - or tough enough to require
>> using more than one whack of the cleaver. Especially after they're
>> cooked (hopefully you're cooking whole slabs and then cutting them).
>>
>> -sw
>>
>I was wondering as well. I usually cut a whole slab into two halves so
>it fits better in the freezer and on the smoker or grill. I use a
>regular knife.
Btw, using a rubber mallet on a knife/cleaver is very dangerous, the
mallet and the knife can hit you in your face... old time butchers
used a kind of wooden club, has a particular name but I can't recall
now. Or use a dead blow mallet.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_blow_hammer
http://www.amazon.com/s/?ie=UTF8&key...l_9cbxpnqbsb_b