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MatchaLatte
12
Dec 4, 2017
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Are the "reliefs" or other pocket like things on the side of knives necessary? It seems like every other "essential chef's knife" has one.
Dec 4, 2017
AngryAccountant
277
Dec 5, 2017
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MatchaLatteOn a Santoku, they might make sense, really depends on what you're cutting. But if you take a look at the high dollar and custom knives, you'll see none of them have them. They're cheap to cut into the blades though, so a lot of the mass manufacturers will put them on, they don't hurt, but I wouldn't call them "Necessary" by a long stretch.
Dec 5, 2017
BirdofPrey
19
Dec 5, 2017
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MatchaLatteThey aren't necessary, but they can be useful. What they do is they create air pockets between the knife and what you are cutting which makes wet ingredients less likely to stick to the blade so they can be helpful to have when cutting stuff like potatoes, tomatoes and cucumbers. You might notice some of the high end knifes have a bunch of divets banged into them, those accomplish the same thing, but are more time consuming. The reliefs on santokus are cheap to make with a machine.
Dec 5, 2017
Concordes
3
Dec 5, 2017
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MatchaLatteThe reliefs (also known as grantons) that you see on some santoku or carving knives, supposedly serve two purposes. as @BirdofPrey said they can make food less likely to stick to the blade, and they can make cutting easier by reducing the friction between the knife and food. Cook's Illustrated tested the effectiveness of grantons and found that for santoku knives there effects were negligible, however for carving knives they found that blades with a granton edge cut meats Slightly better than a traditional edge. With that being said, grantons can shorten a knife's usable lifespan since once the edge reaches the bottoms of the divots you can no longer sharpen the knife effectively.
TL;DR It's probably best to avoid them.
Dec 5, 2017
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