Four Things Your Bread Knife Needs to Have

A long serrated knife is definitely part of the core set of knives everyone should have in their kitchen. And Adam's here, he's going to show us which one of all of these knives was a cut above the rest. A cut above the rest. Very good, Bridget. You know, you have to have a chef's knife, you have to have a paring knife, and you have to have a serrated knife. A lot of people call these bread knives because that's one of the main tasks that they're used for. Our lineup has 11 knives in it. The blade length was between 9 and 11 inches, and the prices range from $14 to $180 for these guys. Oh, big range. We tested these on the things that they do best, obviously cutting through a crusty sourdough boule. We cut through challah. We also cut through layered sandwiches where we wanted the sandwiches to look neat and tidy at the end rather than sort of messy and askew. We cut millionaire shortbread because that's layered also. It's got the caramel and the chocolate and the shortbread at the bottom. And we cut through chocolate, which they do well. Let's talk about the blades first. Okay. Number one, the type of serrations made a difference to testers. Testers found that when serrations were a little more distinct, a little taller and a little pointier, they got better initial purchase on the food than something like this that was a little more rounded, a little more scalloped. So that was number one about the serrations. Number two about the serrations was a real surprise to us. I want you to try this knife cutting a sandwich and see what you think. Delicious sandwich. I can't wait to eat that. I'm very excited about it. We're done. Okay. Yeah. Well. A little slippery. That didn't work out exactly perfectly. And one of the reasons why is the number of serrations. Testers found that fewer serrations were actually better. Why don't you go ahead and try that knife with the pointy serrations. Okay. Yeah. Cut right through that bottom and I think that's key. Easier, huh? Yeah. A lot easier. So the difference was the number, the second knife that we used had 29 serrations and testers favorite knives had between 29 and 34 serrations. That first one, which was this one, between the micro serrations and the bigger serrations had 96 serrations. Kind of counterintuitive. You'd think more serrations. That's what I thought going into this, but fewer was definitely better in our tests. Let's talk about the dimensions of the blade also. Number one, you want to have as much usable cutting length as you can. Testers wanted at least eight and a half inches. Some of them had as little as seven and a quarter inches like this one. And I want you to try that knife cutting through that sourdough boule right there. All right. Beautiful boule. It's gorgeous. Right through the center. And it's stuck because it's shorter than the bread. Yeah. It's only got seven and a quarter inches. So it didn't have enough serrations. There just wasn't enough length to get through the center of that. I mean. Yeah. So you definitely want a longer blade. Testers also liked when the blades were a little bit taller. They felt it was easier to control the knife through the cut that way. And if you had extra height at the heel, this one is an inch and a half at the heel. That gave you more space for your fingers underneath the handle. And this is our winning serrated knife. This is the Mercer Culinary Millennia 10 inch wide wavy edge bread knife. It's actually one test before, but it's still the serrated knife to beat. The blade is terrific. It's got the right kind of serrations, the right number of them. The handle is comfortable and it's less than 25 bucks. So it's a relative bargain. Well, there you go. The perfect serrated knife for your knife trifecta at home. It's the Mercer Culinary Millennia 10 inch wide wavy edge bread knife and it retails for just under 25 bucks. For full episodes of your favorite cooking shows, head over to ATK's full episodes channel on YouTube. You can stream complete seasons of America's Test Kitchen, Cook's Country, and more. See you there.