Windmuehlenmesser Serrated Knife

Pointed serrations slice anything hard outside and soft inside. Drop-forged, hardened stainless steel. Cherry wood handle. Handmade in Solingen, Germany.

Rather than the push-through chop straight edged blades excel at, the notched teeth of a serrated knife allows you to slice with a gentle sawing motion. Serrated blades are best for trickier textures, like anything hard on the outside but soft on the inside — crusty breads, bagels, and tough skinned but juicy tomatoes. A serrated knife works well for delicate cherry pies, the complex layers of a toasted turkey sandwich, or the rigid texture of a cured meat.

Windmuehlenmesser knives are formed by drop-forging, a process in which enormous hammers slam down on very, very hot stainless steel bricks, compressing them into hard, dense knife blanks. It is a forceful and ancient practice — most industrially produced knives are stamped out of sheets of metal like a cookie cutter — but a knife that comes out of these grand, ground-shaking machines is far from flimsy.

Made with a hardened stainless steel alloy, the Windmuehlenmesser knife is rust resistant with good, sharp teeth. At 182 mm (7.16 inches), the relatively short blade sacrifices being able to saw through a watermelon for better maneuverability with more manageably scaled foods.