JOYCE CHEN Professional Series 14-Inch Carbon Steel Wok with Phenolic Handles

OK so I want to start this review off by saying this is my first wok. I'm fairly confident in the kitchen and I've seasoned cast iron for years, so I wasn't afraid of the seasoning process for a wok. It took me 3 days to do my first seasoning. Some of this was definitely mistakes on my part and the wok maintenance learning curve, but I'll walk through my process so hopefully someone else can learn from my mistakes.Day 1: I heated the wok on my gas burner. I wrapped the handles in tin foil to protect the plastic. I started with wok flat and then occasionally picked it up and tilted it over the burner for a minute on each spot. I spent like 3 hours doing this and here is my first mistake. I didn't realize how much coating was actually on this thing. I thought I had gotten it all off, so I started using vegetable oil to season. I did 3 rounds of vegetable oil coating when I went to google because it just didn't "feel" right to me. This is when I realized that I hadn't removed all of the initial anti-rust coating, because I started applying vegetable oil when the pan hadn't even gotten to the completely silver/gray, let alone to the dark bluish gray that was needed. Well shit, /sigh. This site had some good images of what the wok should look like at each stage. I cobbled together seasoning tips from a few sites as well as the instructions that came with the wok, so I didn’t follow their steps exactly, but the pictures helped a lot. https://thewoksoflife.com/how-to-season-a-wok/Day 1-part 2: This time I set up a heavy pot behind my wok and laid each side spot over the gas burner for at least 15mins, and the coating really started coming off this way. It will smoke and have a slight chemical burn smell, use your fan. I slowly turned it until I got a nice silver/gray sheen coming through. Then moved on to the next spot. This is the better way, it stops the wasting of heat, each spot gets cooked long enough to heat up and burn off all of the nasty stuff. Slowly turning it for like a minute on each spot like I did initially was stupid and a huge waste of time. I got the vast majority of the vegetable oil and coating off this way. But there were still a number of stubborn parts (mostly around the handles) that I just couldn't get to. This is when I figured out that you can remove both the handles. The helper handle has 2 screws and the long handle you simply turn/unscrew the holder hook and it comes out. But I was done for the day.Day 2: I washed and scrubbed with dawn dish soap and then dried and threw it in the oven at 500F (After I removed both handles). It was in there for hours (6hrs+) and not much was happening, the remaining spots were definitely getting lighter, but they were still there. I moved up the rack until it sat as close to the broil element as I could and made sure that the two handle spots were aligned with the burner element. And I broiled for another 3hrs. This loosened up some more but after another 3hrs the gunk was still there. I should mention that besides the stubborn spots the rest of the wok was getting to a nice dark bluish black color, I had gotten down to the carbon steel on about 80% of the wok at this point. I turned off the oven and let it cool down in there and went to bed.Day 3: I washed it in the sink with more dawn soap and a copper scrubber. It took a little bit of the gunk off but not enough. At this point I figured my gas bill was going through the roof, so I took some bar keepers friend and the scrubby side of a dish sponge and covered it in bar keepers friend let it sit for a minute and scrubbed it. Rinse and repeat 2 times. I finally had a perfectly clean, no residue left wok!!!! It was a triumph. In hindsight I think I could have probably just started with bar keepers friend. I now had the perfect bluish black tint all over, and now it was time to do my actual seasoning. I dried the wok, put the handles back on, and put it back on the burner with medium high heat and let it heat up for about 3 minutes. Then I dropped 2 tbsp of vegetable oil in and coated it as much as a I could by swirling. Then I folded up a paper towel and swirled around the hot oil, getting all the way up the sides, while wiping off excess. This is when I learned that 2 tbsp is way too much oil for this step. You only need 1 tbsp. I kept it on the burner until it the oil looked even, and I couldn’t see any clearly defined, overly oil spots. The oil will smoke during this step, especially when you are wiping away excess. You have to kind move the wok around to see if there is excess oil anywhere. I let it cool, rinsed with warm water and lightly scrubbed with the soft side of the sponge, this removed the sticky dried spots of oil. Then I dried and repeated this step 3 more times. I got a nice patina everywhere.I used it that same night to make some stir fry and it worked great. I did have to re-season about 3 times after my first use to get the bottom to have the same nice patina as the sides, but I figure that's normal for the first dozen or so times I use the wok.This is my seasoning adventure. Hopefully you learn something from this epic tale, and it doesn't take you 3 days to get to the final level. The image above is after my first cook, you can see the bottom isn't quite as seasoned as the sides, but I'll re-season before I cook again. But that nice patina is what you are looking for after you season.

I've been using this wok several times a week for over a year now. I've been completely satisfied with its performance.Short review:Ok, you've decided on carbon steel for a wok, but which one, there are so many choices... what's different about this one? The phenolic handles and the thicker gauge steel. I have had zero problems with the handles - they're solid, look sharp, easy to clean, and they stay cool during use.The thicker steel, only half a millimeter? It makes a difference. It's very solid, no flex or warp, and it holds heat better. It has noticeably more heft than the 1.5mm, but isn't too heavy. IMO it's worth it.Overall this wok earns its "pro" label every time I handle it.Long review:Wok material - basically three choices: non-stick, cast iron, and carbon steel.Don't bother with non-stick. Proper wok stir-frying is done at high temperatures, and that doesn't go well with non-stick. A non-stick wok is really just a regular pan in the shape of a wok. Meh.Cast iron is not a bad choice, such as the option from Lodge. But it's very heavy, making it difficult to store and manipulate. And you have to use pot holders to handle it. It takes longer to preheat, and then its strength of heat retention becomes a weakness if you're looking to change the temperature quickly. What about the lightweight cast iron wok option, which comes with handles? Too sensitive to thermal shock, i.e. can easily crack due to temperature changes, while the cooking performance isn't really better than carbon steel.So, then there's carbon steel. Like cast iron, it needs to be seasoned (google and use the ginger and green onion method, not the standard methods used for cast iron). But it's stronger and more durable than cast iron of a comparable gauge, and lighter and more easily manipulated than thick cast iron. And it handles the high heat needed for proper wok stir-frying. It's the best choice. And this wok is the best choice of the carbon steel options.Flat or round bottomed? Round bottomed is the traditional shape, but unless you want to mess with a wok ring or retrofit a specialized burner, just go with the flat bottomed.Seasoning: This is not flavoring but building up layers of polymerized oil that protect the steel (or iron) from rust and provide non-stick properties. Look at 10 different how-tos for seasoning and you'll find 10 different variations. The aforementioned "ginger and green onion" method helps get the raised sides properly seasoned, then it's just a case of maintaining it properly.I've been using a traditional bamboo wok whisk with great results; there's a number of them available here. Or you can use some sort of non-scratch scrubber designed for cast iron. The key is to use something that won't remove the seasoning. Rinse it off in hot water (no soap), use the wok whisk to remove any stuck particles and rinse again, dry off with a paper towel, heat it a little bit on the stove to dry any remaining moisture, then coat it with a thin layer of vegetable oil after each use. Basically the same as cast iron. It's easier than it sounds.And the best way to maintain / improve seasoning is to keep using the wok for stir-frying or deep frying, the more you use it the more it builds seasoning naturally...Utensils, I originally used a cheapo wood-handled metal wok spatula from the local Chinese supermarket. It worked fine, until the wood handle kept coming off. So I replaced it with the Tablecraft bamboo handle SS wok spatula found here. It's a quite fine quality wok spatula, but with one problem - it's too good, the stainless steel is too hard and it scratches off the wok's seasoning, a problem I didn't have with the cheapo spatula. I've recently switched to an all-bamboo wok spatula and so far, so good...As of this writing this wok costs 25% less than I paid for it a year ago. Yet I still think it was worth the price I paid. Buy with confidence.