Anyone have a good wok?

[Transom]

I sometimes crave good food cooked in a wok. A decent Chinese place is the only place to fix the craving for me. I have a lodge iron wok but it just cannot get enough heat in it on the stovetop to cook properly. I have been eying those big burners and a steel wok. You just cannot get the vegetables right without a powerfull burned I think.

[fishing66]

I sometimes crave good food cooked in a wok. A decent Chinese place is the only place to fix the craving for me. I have a lodge iron wok but it just cannot get enough heat in it on the stovetop to cook properly. I have been eying those big burners and a steel wok. You just cannot get the vegetables right without a powerfull burned I think.

Herein lies the problem with American stoves.....the largest single burner is limited to 24,000 BTU's by fire code. To go higher, you need to have a commercial fire suppression system built in above the stove. That being said, The Wok Shop in San Francisco has all the woks you will ever need and they ship them worldwide. They also have the chan and ladle. I went with a wood-handle, 14-inch hand hammered model. You have to first scrub the machine oil off the wok and then go through a seasoning process where you literally burn oil in the wok. After you have cooked with it for about a year, it will have a black nonstick coating. Be careful though, cooking acidic foods in a carbon steel wok such as tomatoes or citrus-based sauce will strip the coating in a heartbeat. While intoxicated, I purchased an outdoor wok cart that has a 130,000 BTU burner. This thing is SCARY.....food does not stick to the wok as it seems to levitate off the metal due to the raging heat.

[danbass]

While intoxicated, I purchased an outdoor wok cart that has a 130,000 BTU burner. This thing is SCARY.....food does not stick to the wok as it seems to levitate off the metal due to the raging heat.

Awesome!!

[jetdude]

Just fill a charcoal chimney get it going and set the wok on the top of the chimney. Should be plenty of heat.

[LTZ25]

I've got a giant wok , kinda its a Fire disk , love it .

[fishing66]

I had a frustrating wok experience last night. The biggest burner on my gas stove puts out 18,000 BTU's which is not nearly enough. It took way too long to stir fry the chicken and a telltale sign of insufficient heat is when liquid collects in the bottom of the wok. On my outdoor wok which I call "the Volcano", it gets so hot that meats sear instantly and don't release juices. Vegetables dance above the metal and develop that incredible cispy-crunchy texture instead of limp, wilted stuff cooked on a kitchen stove. If it wasn't so cold out, and if I hadn't jacked down 11 beers, I would have cooked outside. While the final dish was tasty, it did not compare to the same version cooked on the volcano. For anyone interested in an outdoor wok cart, they sell 130k BTU propane burners on Feebay for about $100.00. You can find a decent stainless steel cart at Sam's Club, Lowes etc for around $80.00. Measure carefully and cut a circular hole in the stainless table top, drop in the propane burner, hook up your 20lb propane tank and you're in business for less than $250.00. The pre-built wok cart I bought cost $400.00.

[KCLOST]

Use your Turkey fryer burner... Works great!! Outside of course....