Any Downsides?

While we haven’t been able to find any downsides of cooking with Carbon Steel, there are two considerations to keep in mind—namely regarding care and what ingredients to avoid.

• Care: Due to its high iron content, Carbon Steel can rust when exposed to high amounts of moisture (like after a cleaning or being in a humid environment). For this reason, the best way to clean your Pan is to wipe it out with a paper towel or rag to remove any food residue. Just like with Cast Iron Cookware, you should AVOID USING SOAP. Recommend to wash with a natural loofah sponge which is an effective but gentle scrub. As with all of our Cookware, Carbon Steel should not be cleaned in the dishwasher.
• Food to Avoid: Much like Cast Iron, Carbon Steel is not ideal for cooking highly acidic foods. Large quantities of tomatoes, vinegar, wine, and citrus can strip the seasoning from your Pan. If this happens, you’ll just need to reseason it.

Seasoning Tips:

1. Seasoning instruction from chef Grace: Cooking slices of scallions and ginger with vegetable oil, keep moving the ingredients around the pan for about 20 minutes.
2. Seasoning tips from customers: *Heat up the wok and add cold oil. Completely cover all the sides of the wok with the oil before you turning off the burner and wiping out the oil. Repeat the same procedure.
3. Most important, you can always re-season the wok for achieving a better performance.

Q & A

What Is it Made From?

Much like Cast Iron, Carbon Steel is an alloy, or metal mixture, made up of iron and carbon. So underneath the black layer, it's gray/silver high-carbon steel. Its main distinguishing features, however, is its weight—the percentage of iron to carbon makes it both lighter and more durable than its Cast Iron counterpart.

Why Is the Black Coming Off My Carbon Steel Pan?

The “black” is an oxide layer, from a heating treatment involves oil, which will increases the corrosion resistance and durability of the carbon steel wok. Cooking with acidic ingredients like tomatoes, or a deep cleaning that uses soap and water would have the black layer(NOT COATING) coming off. What you need to do is to RESEASON and COOK with it.

I thought my wok was well-seasoned, but food still got stuck. What do I do now?

Since your wok is new, the patina is not solidly " baked" or "burned" into the metal. Wok will season beautifully and eventually with use and time will be totally seasoned. You can RESEASON the area that was sticking with oil. Or boost the patina by stir frying a handful of pungent veggies, e. g. chives, scallions, onions, ginger, shallots, garlic (chives wok the best) with little oil, until charred. Discard charred veggies and wipe wok with paper towel which will be black, wash wok with hot water and good to go. Seasoning is an ongoing process, and will occasionally require maintenance like this over the life of your wok.

How to Clean The Wok?

1. Rinse the wok in HOT water while gently scrub away food particles with a nonmetallic scrubber, like a natural loofah sponge .
2. Rinse the wok till it's clean. (No soap)
3. Dry the interior and exterior of the wok with paper towels.

* Wipe the inside of the wok with a small amount of vegetable oil as frequently as you'd like.

If you do not use the wok daily/often, please do the following extra steps for storage

1. Place the wok on the stove top and turn it on to medium to medium-high heat.

* Do not apply oil as the oil may deteriorate over time.