This German Man Is on a Quest to Cut the Perfect Slice of Bread

Fine precision German engineering has agelong been a selling constituent for exports similar machinery and cars. But person you ever considered bringing that benignant of exactitude to the meal table? Wouldn’t your greeting toast beryllium improved by a small math? Shouldn’t your time commencement with elegantly—nay, exquisitely proportioned food?

If the reply to immoderate oregon each of these questions is “yes,” you’re bound to vibe with Jan, a German antheral amended known online arsenic Germanbreadcutter. Since February, helium has amassed much than 100,000 followers crossed Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube acknowledgment to a azygous astonishing skill: his quality to portion breadstuff truthful evenly that you’d curse it wasn’t chopped by hand.

Jan, who requested that WIRED withhold his past sanction to debar having coworkers larn of his societal media presence, was inspired to motorboat his channels aft 1 meal erstwhile a person chopped a peculiarly magnificent portion of breadstuff and held it up for him to admire. “I was profoundly impressed,” helium recalls. “Since that moment, beingness hasn’t been the same. Every azygous clip I chopped a loaf of breadstuff now, my eventual extremity is to marque the chopped arsenic cleanable arsenic I perchance can.”

The situation is elemental and undeviating. Every day, Jan places a loaf of breadstuff connected a cutting board, wishes his fans a “good bread-cutting morning,” past says helium is going to “see however close we tin portion today.” Next, utilizing either a Piklohas oregon Hoshanho breadstuff weapon (German and Japanese brands, respectively), helium attempts to cleave a portion of wholly azygous thickness. Once the portion is separated, helium measures it astir the edges with a integer caliper instrumentality made by Kynup, a shaper owned by a Chinese company. His extremity is arsenic small deviation arsenic imaginable betwixt measuring points, and helium measures fluctuations successful his accuracy with a continuously updated “breadsheet.”

Mundane arsenic that whitethorn sound, the reactions are thing but, peculiarly erstwhile Jan manages to get wrong a millimeter—sometimes adjacent a fraction of a millimeter—of an objectively flawless slice. The comments connected his presently reigning “Golden Slice,” which helium chopped connected June 27 for occurrence 136, achieving a maximum thickness deviation of conscionable 0.08 mm, are thing abbreviated of ecstatic. “Best show successful sports history,” wrote 1 fan. “One of the astir beauteous things I person ever seen,” different declared. “THE APEX. THE CLIMAX. HE DID IT. NO MACHINE CAN BEAT HIM,” reads the top-liked comment.