Alcademics

If you're making slabs of ice in a cooler as I showed folks how to do here on Alcademics and in The Ice Book, you need to cut them up into cubes and other shapes after you pop the slab out of your cooler. 

Most of the time over the last 10+ years, I've used a cheap Ikea bread knife to score a line and cut the ice, as I show in this post. A lot of times I also just use a 3-prong ice pick instead of a knife. 

Years ago, I learned that the prep team at The Slanted Door were using a pumpkin knife to cut up slabs they made in hotel pans. I ordered one from Amazon that was shipped from overseas, and it has been a great knife for this purpose - it has nice big teeth and a flat back, which is ideal for this purpose.

Recently, I went to buy another pumpkin knife but it appears that these are no longer made! Instead, Amazon kept advertising to me a "Kuhn Rikon Melon Knife" by the same brand, but the teeth didn't look to be nearly as big and saw-like, so I hesitated on buying one for a long time. 

Long story short, I caved and bought a melon knife a week ago and it's great for cutting ice slabs! It's actually much longer than the pumpkin knife and cuts a slab nicely. So I just wanted to pop on over here to the blog and recommend it.

I bought a cheaper version that's only $12, the Uniware Watermelon Knife. It doesn't come with a blade sheath and the "seeds" are painted on rather than holes in the metal, but otherwise looks similar to the one linked above. 

Here's a video comparing the pumpkin and melon knives on YouTube.