16" Carbon Steel Hand Hammered Wok with Wok Ring

The wok is thin but not flimsy. The wok heats up quickly and cools quickly. The handles are secure but I think they should been welded on. Only time will tell about the durability of the wok. Happy with the purchase!

There seems to be a lot of conflicting information in the reviews, so I will try to address the information that concerned me.First, this is hand hammered. If you look closely, you can see the marks from where the hammer struck the steel. They are not deep indentations, but they are visible.It did not arrive with any rust. In fact, it was covered in machine oil and wrapped in plastic. Since one reviewer actually didn't understand what this meant, I will explain it for others. You have to REMOVE the plastic! Do not cook with the plastic on! Do not cook with the oil on! You need to remove the plastic, and scrub off that machine oil! I used soapy water and steel wool until a paper towel could dry it without turning black. After seasoning, do not use soap again.Seasoning the wok was very simple. I put the ring and wok on my 18,500 btu power burner, put the heat on medium, and wiped the wok with a bacon grease covered paper towel held with tongs. It created lots of smoke, but seasoned it quickly. I put on a few coats, and it was dark black/bronze in no time. I also seasoned the bottom, by putting it in a 500 degree oven upside down with a coat of bacon grease on the wok, and foil on the bottom of the oven.As far as cooking, this worked great. I used an infrared thermometer first to check it. The middle was in the 500-580 degree range, while from the midway point to the top the temperature ranged from about 425-300. My chicken stir fry cooked much faster in this than my old nonstick wok, and I was able to move the chicken up the side to prevent burning and to cook the vegetables in the hot zone. Carbon steel cools quickly, so I turned off the heat, added my sauce, and did so without scorching it.This wok is something I really wish I had bought sooner. Everything cooks up more crisp because it is not crowded on a flat bottom, and there is plenty of room to get a good sear. It also helps that it is not chemically coated to be nonstick. This means that I can heat up the wok, then quickly add the oil and ingredients. This technique is called hot wok, cold oil. With surfaces such as teflon, this would release harmful chemicals.

When it arrived it had a very sharp burr around the rim from where the initial steel disc was punched from the sheet. I ground that down smooth so I would not get cut. The oil coating did not seem overly heavy. It was easy to wash off. Looking at the outside of the bowl, it did not really look like there had been any hammering except at the top. You could still see the unaltered sheet metal mill finish. The inside looked like it may have been worked a little bit. But it really seemed more like it was stamped sheet metal that had a little hand hammering done. But I am no expert about these things. The rivets holding the handles on are very big. I like them. I do not think they will loosen over time like the ones on my Joyce Chen. And the wok cover that came with my Joyce Chen sits neatly on the rivets, which seems to work very well. It is heavier than my Joyce Chen, which is spun steel. It heats up a little bit slower. I was hoping for lighter gauge. I have a butane burner to cook on, and don't use the wok ring. I have used the wok ring on the electric range burners, and that works very well. The round bottom cooks much better than a flat bottom. Less oil. Small portions are much easier to cook. The smooth temperature gradient, hotter at the bottom, cooler up the sides, gives you lots of control. If cooking goes on for more than a few minutes the small loop handles definitely get too hot to touch without pot holders.I was not too disappointed about possibly not being a fully hand made wok because I went to the local Asian restaurant supply house to buy a wok there first, and all they had were stamped steel woks. No hand hammering there at all. If the chefs are cooking in stamped steel, I felt a little silly for thinking it was that important. This is a bit more worked than those. One feature I wanted was the ability to pull food up the side and have it drain while I cook other items. This kind of works. But I don't really know that much about Chinese cooking. Maybe someday someone will teach me more. I mostly try Filipino recipes.But I love cooking in it. It is exactly what it should be, and I would rather have a wok like this than any of the more fully manufactured products I have seen. I manage the seasoning of the surface, and can renew it whenever necessary. I don't think this wok will ever decline or wear out. Just keep getting better. It already has a nice wok hei, a decent non-stick surface from the seasoning, and it cooks wonderfully.

If you are serious about Asian / Chinese cooking and wok cooking then you need to get a real wok. Not one of those fake non-stick surface woks. Not one of those stainless steel ones. You need a carbon steel wok.Does it take some investment of time to season this wok? Yes, but the short time investment will pay off continually for years to come each time you pull this out to cook with it. Takes about an hour of your time and you can get this wok seasoned and ready to begin cooking with it.I recommend if you purchase this wok you go on YouTube and view a couple of "how to properly season a carbon steel wok" videos.The only way to go if you're going to get a wok is carbon steel. The more you cook with this wok and handling, cleaning it properly the better it'll cook for you and the more non-stick it'll become. Better than a non-stick pan! And the hand-hammered ones aid in keeping food on the sides better when cooking and needing to move food from the center up the sides at times. If you season this properly and take care of this wok properly it'll last for decades and cook wonderfully.Once seasoned you'll have a real non-stick surface. And the more you cook with this wok and handle and treat it properly the more non-stick it'll become and the better it'll cook.I love this wok. Only way to go is carbon steel. I like the hand-hammered ones because the random small markings of the hammering aid in retaining foods on the sides when you need to move them around the wok in cooking.