Messermeister Journey Chef Knife Overview

Dehydrated camp meals are mild and straightforward energy, however they’re removed from connoisseur. Should you’re a devoted residence prepare dinner with a refined palate, the style of comfort will be onerous to abdomen. 

Fortunately, there are lots of camp kitchen merchandise for backcountry cooks that make important tools lighter and extra compact than their at-home counterparts.

Most individuals concentrate on stoves, cookware, utensils, and tableware when constructing out a dialed camp kitchen, however neglect some of the can’t-cook-without-it objects of all: a chef’s knife. Should you’ve ever struggled by dicing an onion at camp with a uninteresting pocket knife or a small and awkward Swiss Military Knife blade, you recognize why it issues.

The issue is that chef’s knives are large, sharp, and awkward to hold in a pack. You run the danger of reducing into your backpack or your self — neither of which is nice.

The Messermeister Journey Chef Knife ($64) is actually a giant-sized folding pocket knife meant to deal with the issue head-on. The 6-inch German metal knife is sharpened to a extra exact 15-degree edge for thinner slices and finer minces. 

It’s a contact smaller than an ordinary Western chef’s knife, however the broad, rockered blade enables you to mince herbs, slice steak, and chop veggies like a professional, regardless of the place you’re cooking. There’s little bit of metal in-hand, so it’s heavier than a pocket knife, however it’s compact and secure to hold, and the value tag is truthful for a strong chef’s knife designed to be transportable.

In brief: Light-weight, sturdy, and compact, the Messermeister isn’t a high-end kitchen knife, however it’s one which’s constructed to go wherever you carry your camp kitchen and elevate your outside cooking.

Messermeister Journey Chef Knife Overview

Design & Options

Most chef’s knives vary from 5 to 10 inches, so whereas it’s on the shorter finish of the spectrum, the Messermeister doesn’t really feel tiny in your fingers. The construct is pretty true to the basic Western chef’s knife profile with a regularly rockered blade edge that’s broad for straight slicing. 

There’s a little bit of a drop level for some purpose, maybe to permit for a barely smaller deal with for shielding the blade and thus maintaining the load down. Nonetheless, it comes to a degree for piercing, so I didn’t discover this a lot of a downside.

The Wusthof Traditional 6-inch Chef’s Knife is a comparable kitchen blade, and it has a conventional form with a 1.6-inch width. By comparability, the Messermeister Journey Chef Knife is almost the identical at 1.69 inches broad, although the taper is extra abrupt, giving the blade much less of a high-quality level.

Maybe the most important distinction between a basic chef’s knife and the Messermeister is the stability. The deal with is an inch longer than the blade, comprises loads of metal within the liner, and is heaviest on the butt finish, so the stability level of the knife is again within the deal with as a substitute of the place you grip it.

Does this render the knife ineffective? No. Will cooks used to high-end kitchen knives discover? Completely. I’m not a knife designer, however I feel the Journey Chef Knife might’ve shifted a number of the deal with’s weight ahead for a greater, if not excellent, stability level.

The X50 metal is similar as what you’ll discover in a Wusthof Traditional, so it’s a well-recognized blade really feel for many cooks. One draw back is that it’s a softer metal that does finest with frequent honing and sharpening, so when you’re out for a number of days/meals, you may wish to carry a discipline sharpener with a honing floor as nicely.

Messermeister might’ve used a higher-carbon metal right here for extra discipline sturdiness, however that may seemingly push the value nicely over $100, which is quite a bit for a knife you’ll seemingly use a couple of instances a summer time.

Out of the field, I discovered the blade a bit of uninteresting, and it struggled to interrupt tomato pores and skin with out sawing. Messermeister says the knife comes from the manufacturing unit at 15 levels, which is what I’m used to in kitchen knives. I feel it simply wanted a bit of tune-up and honing to be as surgical as I wished. 

Within the Area

I examined the Journey Chef Knife in addition to the whole Journey Chef Summit Set which incorporates the 6-inch Journey Chef Knife plus a 6-inch Folding Fillet Knife, folding plastic reducing board, a combo peeler/paring knife, and a folding fork/spoon/knife combo utensil. All these instruments have their very own slot in a well-made zippered carrying case that’s in regards to the measurement of a modest hardcover e-book.

The scale and weight of the complete package make it overkill for backpacking, however it’s cutlery setup for automobile tenting or particularly boat-based fishing adventures. I introduced the Summit Set alongside on a lake fishing from a ship and was capable of clear and prep a number of fish for a lakeside dinner utilizing simply the instruments within the package.

For backpacking, nonetheless, I solely carried the Journey Chef Knife, although I might see bringing the mixture peeler/parer alongside as nicely if I had been cooking one thing extra elaborate for a gaggle. In backpacking eventualities, I take advantage of a skinny, onerous plastic placemat that I lower down, which weighs subsequent to nothing and sits flat towards your again in any pack. 

Utilizing the Journey Chef Knife automobile tenting or within the wilderness is unquestionably a serious improve from bludgeoning steaks and veggies with a pocket knife. It’s not as well-balanced as my residence kitchen blades, however it’s adequate to earn a everlasting spot in my automobile tenting mess package.

As a result of I’m accustomed to 9-inch chef’s knives, the 6-inch Messermeister feels extra like a utility knife to me than a chef’s knife, and that’s OK. I’m solely prepared to hold one camp kitchen blade backpacking, and in that case, one thing smaller and extra versatile is smart.

The Journey Chef knife did nicely after sharpening, chopping onions and different veggies for a rice pilaf, and I used to be ready to make use of it for trimming a bit of steak in addition to slicing it after cooking.

Who’s It For?

Although it weighs lower than half a pound, you’ll have to be critical about cooking to see the good thing about toting alongside a folding chef’s knife in your pack or automobile tenting mess package. Should you’re bringing the Messermeister Journey Chef Knife, you’ll additionally seemingly carry extra succesful cookware than, say, a Jetboil Flash, a reducing board, tableware, plus the groceries that you just’ll apply the chef’s knife to.

That is greater than your common camper totes to feed themselves and requires a mindset of leisure tenting or backpacking, the place cooking and consuming are a part of the rationale for heading exterior. I like to prepare dinner, however once I spend every week in a tent chasing elk within the backcountry, cooking is just a method of fueling myself. Dehydrated meals are a crucial evil — and kitchen cutlery is normally an pointless weight penalty. 

However for automobile tenting and overlanding, the Journey Chef Knife (and even the Summit Sequence package that features it) is an effective way to up your camp cooking high quality.

The burden is much less of a priority on this state of affairs, however it’s nonetheless good to have a tenting mess package that’s compact, transportable, and contained. 

Conclusion

Wrapping your favourite kitchen knife in a towel is an possibility for getting succesful kitchen cutlery to your campsite, however it received’t journey nicely, and it doesn’t make sense to threat damaging or shedding your own home kitchen knife.

It’s smaller and lighter than most chef’s knives, which is nice for gram-counters and lengthy days mountain climbing. This smaller bundle makes some sacrifices in design and utility, however it’s nonetheless a a lot better all-around prep knife than no matter camp or pocket knife you will have readily available.

Whether or not backpacking or automobile tenting, I’d a lot quite depend on the folding Messermeister Journey Chef Knife. The folding side makes it secure to hold and retains it compact. This implies you’re extra prone to really pack it and use it — and produce these connoisseur backcountry feasts you’ve been fantasizing about.