Handheld Meat Cutter Slicer - Fat Trimmer for Trimming Brisket, Fat Cap Remover for Beef and Pork

Trimming a fat cap with a boning knife is a wrist job. The blade is free in your hand, so how much fat comes off depends on how steady you are held at the same shallow angle for the length of a whole brisket. Cut a little proud and you leave lumps. Cut a little deep and you are throwing away the meat you paid for. This tool takes the angle out of your hands and gives it to a frame.

The frame decides the depth, not your wrist

Look at the head. Two thick curved arms come off the handle in a wide rounded stirrup, and a straight flat stainless blade is fixed across the gap between their two tips. The arms are the point of the whole thing. They sit down on the surface of the meat and ride along it, and because the blade is held a fixed distance behind them, it physically cannot drop below the line those arms are travelling on.

So the tool cuts at one depth. You lean on it, you pull, and it takes a wide even sheet off the top. It does not dive when you push harder — pushing harder just presses the arms into the meat. That is a very different feel from a knife, and it is the reason people who are not confident butchers get a tidy result with it on the first pass.

How you actually use it

• Meat cold, board dry. A fat cap straight out of the fridge is firm and shaves cleanly. Warm fat smears and drags.
• Lay the arms flat on the surface and start at the near edge, not at a corner. Both arms want to be in contact before the blade meets anything.
• Pull in one long stroke with the handle low. The fat lifts away as a broad ribbon ahead of the head. Do not saw it.
• Overlap each pass by about a third of the head width, the way you would mowing a lawn, and take a second pass rather than trying to get it all in one.

What it is good at, and what it is not

It is built for broad flat surfaces: the fat cap on a packer brisket, the back fat on a pork loin or belly, the fat on a large roast, skin and surface fat on bigger cuts before they go on the smoker. Anywhere you want to remove a layer rather than make a cut.

It is not a boning knife and it will not replace one. It cannot work into a pocket, follow a bone, get under silverskin or do anything that needs a point, because it has no point and the arms need somewhere flat to ride. Most people who like this tool use it for the bulk of the fat cap and then pick up a knife for the tidy-up around the edges.

Store it hanging, not loose in a drawer

The edge is exposed and it stays exposed — that is the trade for a head this simple. There is an oval hole through the flat end of the handle for exactly this reason. Put it on a hook on a rail or inside a cupboard door and it is out of the way of hands going into a drawer, and the blade is not knocking against everything else in there and dulling itself.

Wash it by hand and dry it straight away rather than leaving it wet on a rack. Stainless resists rust, it does not ignore it, and the rivets and the seam where the blade meets the plastic are where standing water sits.

Specifications

Overall length

7 in (17.8 cm)

Head width

3 in (7.6 cm) across the stirrup

Blade

Stainless steel, straight edge, riveted at both ends — fixed, not user-replaceable

Head

Molded plastic stirrup, two curved arms acting as the depth guide

Handle

Molded plastic with ribbed grip section and a hanging hole

Color

Black

In the box

One trimmer. No blade cover and no spare blade are included.

Care

Hand wash, dry immediately, store hanging

Dimensions are the supplier's own figures and are taken across the tool as a whole, not across the blade alone. Allow a little variance on a molded part.

Keep the edge away from children

This is a sharp bladed kitchen tool with no guard over the cutting edge. It is for adults. Hang it out of reach, and keep your free hand flat on the meat and well to the side of the line the blade is travelling along — never in front of the head.

Buying more than once from us

If this is not the only thing you will ever order here, it is worth looking at chigous Rewards before you check out. It is our membership program: monthly gifts, member-only products, and savings across everything in the store rolled into one. Most people who join do it on a small order like this one and then use it on the bigger ones.