Miyabi Birchwood Bread Knife Full Review

Miyabi Birchwood Bread Knife Features

The bread knife is an indispensable cutting tool in any kitchen. And the Miyabi Birchwood bread knife is a very special one to own. Not only because of its beautiful design but also because of its quality and long lasting blade’s edge. The Miyabi bread knife is produced in Seki, Japan, which is the old capital of sword making. In order to maintain and improve the traditional Japanese knife making techniques, Zwilling J.A. henckels has established the Miyabi brand that combines Japanese tradition with Western styles and german engineering to create some of the best knives on the market today.

Miyabi Birchwood Bread Knife Blade

The Birchwood bread knife is made out of the unique micro carbide MC63 powdered steel. This steel is used to form the core of the blade, giving the knife a unique hardness and long lasting qualities. The core is sandwiched between 101 layers of soft and hard steel, in the laminating process, which gives the blade its unique damascus flower pattern and improve the overall knife. Much like traditional katana smiths used to do with their swords.

But Zwilling has improved this traditional way of blade making by employing modern hardening and tempering techniques. One of these techniques used for creating the SG2 bread knife is known as CRYODUR. Through this process blades are heated up in vacuum ovens before they are rapidly cooled down to room temperature, then frozen at -321 Fahrenheit. This will make your blade’s edge reach a impressive score of 63 HRC (Rockwell scale) while still keeping the flexibility properties of the blade. This means that if you use your bread knife properly you will almost never have to sharpen your blades edge.

Sharpening of the Birchwood SG2 knives is done manually. Thus Miyabi employs the traditional Japanese 3 step Honbazuke hand Sharpening technique. Being traditionally Japanese this process is done manually on whetstones and of leather belts. The knife is ground to the desired blades angle on a whetstone before it is sharpened and honed. Then the blade’s edge is polished to a scalpel like finish on a leather belt to give the knife its uncontested Japanese cutting performance.

Miyabi Birchwood Bread Knife Handle

The handle of the birchwood bread knife by Miyabi is also special. The brand uses one of the most beautiful and rare natural wood handle materials you can find. Namely Miyabi uses the Karelian Masur Birch wood which is mostly found in Russia and Finland. Only parts of the wood that have irregular lines in them are used, and this is the rare part. Only a few logs in hundreds have this pattern. But this makes it special and gives the knife a great design being perfectly paired with the damascus flower pattern on the blade. Also, the D shaped handle is traditionally japanese and helps provide you with a very comfortable grip.

Pros of the Birchwood Bread Knife

• MC63 Micro Carbide Powdered Steel Core
• Hardened at 63 on the Rockwell scale
• 101 Layers of Damascus Pattern Steel
• CRYODUR Hardening
• Karelian Masur Birchwood handle
• 3 step Honbazuke hand Sharpening
• Beautiful Mosaic Pin, Red Separators and Stainless Steel End Cap

Cons of the Birchwood Bread Knife

• It is and expensive knife to own
• There is only one size and type of bread knife in the Birchwood line

If you liked the Miyabi bread knife take a look at the complete Miyabi Birchwood product line to get a complete view of all knives in the collection.