Do Bread Knives *Have* to be Serrated?

I typically use my Tajiro ITK 270mm bread knife especially on crusty bread. I learned the hard way where I ended up with chips on my Konosuke HD2 gyuto when I used it to cut up hard sourdough. Took a bit of sharpening work to bring the edge back.
 
GPyro said:
If your only using the knife to cut bread, how dull are those secretions going to get?

I cut the bread, not the cutting board.

....maybe a sawzall would be an option. The blades are replaceable.
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This sounds like a setup but I swear it's true! 😂 Today a woman stopped in my shop and asked if did serrated knives. I said sure we do, she said she'd be right back. So an hour later she returned with a Gerber bread knife. She and her husband got it for a wedding gift thirty-odd years ago. It clearly had been serrated but there was almost no sign of the serrations. I had to look very closely to see which side they'd been cut on! I have diamond wheels so I cut new serrations and deburred them, alternating between a Scotchbrite wheel on the back to flip the burr and a hard felt to hit the serration side. The husband picked it and was really surprised by how sharp it was and that it was the same knife they dropped off. If running water can create the grand canyon I guess 30 years of cutting bread can wear away steel. Hubby said it had never been sharpened since they've owned it.
 
Lol.
It amuses me when you go to these steak houses and they bring you the little loaf of bread on the cutting board. The cutting board often looks as if people were using it with a chop saw with all the deep cuts in it.
 
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Selfe Made Knives said:
How much bread are you lot cutting to need to sharpen the serrations? I've been using the one I made for nearly 2 years now, and never considered having to sharpen it.
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I think it has to do with technique. If you are sawing bread, letting the edge do the work, and easing off as the blade touches the board it should last a long time. Flip side is people who buzz through and drive the blade hard on the cutting board at the finish. Bet their blade edges don't last very long.
 
I have an old just 12 inch narrow serrated knife that belonged to my mother. It has single size large serrations, sharpened it with a wooden dowel wrapped in wet dry sandpaper starting with 600 grit sanding with 2000. I find I need serrations for bread because I refuse to wait until bread has cooled to cut it.
 
Been an executive chef for 30+ years, I’ve cut some bread for sure. It’s as much technique as it is anything else. You can smash bread with a sharp serrated blade, just depends on the bread. Cutting bread straight out of the oven is a mistake unless you plan on pretty much eating the loaf in its entirety first go around. The steam that comes out of it would otherwise be what makes the bread moist. I digress.
 
And for all of you hot bread just out of the oven folk - try chunks of it with black coffee 😋😋😋
 
a very very sharp 300mm gyuto is the best bread knife.

serrated bread knife is just messy and unnecessary
 
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