r/wok Mar 25 '22

All about non-stick.

144 Upvotes

This comes up repeatedly so here is comprehensive guide to non-stick coatings and how it pertains to your wok.

Unless your non-stick coating is ceramic, it is most likely coated in a material called polytetrafluoroethylene, or PTFE for short. More commonly known under the brand name Teflon, PTFE is an industrial plastic. It has near the lowest friction coefficient of any material known to man which is what gives non-stick pans their non-stickiness. It is extremely inert and will not react with acids, bases, alcohols, and other solvents. It has good heat resistance relative to most plastics. That combination of properties makes it excellent for manufacturing, and an effective coating for cookware.

Where PTFE starts to fail is in durability. It is just plastic, after all, categorized as a medium-soft material. Mishandling it will damage it. Scraping hard material like metal utensils or other pans against it will cause plastic to break off, which may end up in your food. If you can see visible damage to the non-stick coating, it is no longer safe to use and should be thrown out.

The temperature range, while high for a plastic, is still only 500° F. That's well below what a common household stove can reach and lower than you want for many stove top cooking techniques. Once overheated, PTFE will start to break down and release toxic gases into the air. These gasses cause flu-like symptoms in humans and are very quickly lethal to birds. After being overheated, a PTFE coated pan should be thrown out. You can't undo the damage.

Perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) is a chemical that used to be used in the process of manufacturing PTFE cookware. It is classed as a carcinogen and has a very long half life in your body after ingestion. In the US, all cookware sold since 2015 is required to be PFOA-free; if you have a modern non-stick pan PFOA should not be a concern.

If you bought a non-stick wok and the coating is damaged, you may encounter people who suggest you can strip the coating off to make it bare carbon steel. While technically possible, it's not recommended. Since PTFE is so inert, chemical stripping is not an option. You could heat it until it flakes and scrape it off, but it must be done carefully outdoors and there's no data on what may or may not leech into the metal while PTFE is breaking down under high heat. You could machine it off, taking a small layer of metal with it, if you have access to the right equipment. But when a nice carbon steel wok can be had for under $40, that seems like an awful lot of work.

To conclude the fact portion of this post, when handled correctly PTFE is considered safe to cook on and even safe to ingest. It is one of the most inert chemicals known and should pass through your body with no ill effects. It has even been tested as a filler food to assist people in not overeating.

That said it is still a plastic. In my humble opinion, the care required to maintain it is not worth the convenience of the additional non-stick properties over cast iron, carbon steel, or stainless steel (aluminum is a topic for another time). It is far too easy to accidentally overheat a pan while prepping other food while it preheats. Unless you're monitoring it carefully with an infrared thermometer then you likely have no idea if your pan has ever been overheated or not. Most of my stove-top cooking involves high heat searing so non-stick pans would be of very little use to me even if I did have one to care for.

I really can't make peace with the idea of cooking on and ingesting plastic no matter what the studies say. Part of that may be that I work with it in an industrial setting so I'm hyper-aware of the fact that a sheet of PTFE doesn't look much different than PVC. Nothing about that makes me want to cook on it or ingest it. When all the iron atoms are gone from the earth, then maybe I'll consider it. Until then my cast iron and carbon steel will pull their weight just fine.


r/wok 1d ago

Egg Rolls in 14" Wok, so happy.

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55 Upvotes

Hello everyone. I wasnt sure where to post this but wanted to share a short clip of frying up some egg rolls in my wok. I use an outdoor burner, and a carbon steel round bottom wok. So much fun cooking outdoors. The best part? The mess stays outside and I don't mess up the stove with all of the grease. Spend more time eating and less time cleaning up afterwards is a major plus.


r/wok 1d ago

Do I need to remove the build-up near the top edges of my wok?

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9 Upvotes

r/wok 3d ago

Is it normal for the wok to look like this?

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260 Upvotes

I’ve had this wok for a couple of years. It’s been this colour black/brown for a long time now, as though it has burnt stains that can’t be removed. Did I do anything wrong to make it like this? Cheers


r/wok 4d ago

New to Carbon Steel wok anyway to bring this back

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21 Upvotes

I bought this carbon steel wok recently and i tried seasoning it and not much blueish color came out and it just looks like it burns the oil i am usin , anything different i can do to get the appropriate result?


r/wok 5d ago

Strata Wok Popcorn: my favorite less-conventional way to use a wok

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14 Upvotes

A regular after-dinner snack in our house is popcorn. Ages ago we bought the bagged stuff. Then i saw the price difference of making it myself. So then my Lodge Signature sauté pan made our popcorn. But if you didn't get it out in time it would start to burn. As our family grew so did the quantity of popcorn needed grew. Then we moved to Dutch Oven popcorn. But that got heavy and took forever. If you got impatient and turned up the heat, you scorched the popcorn. Then we did silicone microwavable bowl so the little kids could make their own. That lasted awhile. But eventually I was like wait... what if I use the wok... i used the Yosukata Wok until the Strata wok came in a few months ago. Both work great but i find myself reaching for the Strata more now. With the wok only the small surface area on the bottom gets hot and the carbon steel doesn't heat up too fast to scorch and the walls stay relatively cool on low heat. Scorching is far less likely to happen and it comes out great and I can do a little bit or over a cup of it if I want.


r/wok 5d ago

14”: More than one serving at a time?

4 Upvotes

I have been loving using my 14” wok on my propane wok burner outside. It’s a blast. But I don’t understand how people make more than one bowl of stir fry at once. I just don’t feel like there’s enough room in the wok for it all. What am I missing? I end up making each person’s stir fry one at a time. Which is fine especially because I can customize to each person’s preferences, but I feel like there’s got to be a faster way, no?


r/wok 6d ago

Help me spot the difference?

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1 Upvotes

The 1st two pictures are the same wok. The last picture is by itself. I tried researching online if these are made of the same material. I even tried translating the text on the 1st picture. I am semi decent at home wok cookery but would like a good wok that'll season non stick well. Will either of these work for me? Any recommendation how to season properly either of these woks?

I currently have a cast iron from The Wok Shop.Unfortunately somehow it has a 1" crack in the bottom that goes all the way through. I need a replacement and I dont want to go back to The Wok Shop. Thanks for the help!


r/wok 7d ago

Finally got the outdoor setup going after a couple years, a couple fails but todays pork stir fry came out great! Kept it simple, mixed veggies, pork, oyster sauce & mushroom soy sauce, still getting used to the intense heat of the burner, have no hairs left on my hands.

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47 Upvotes

r/wok 6d ago

Rust

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0 Upvotes

Away for college

Came back to a rusted wok

How can I fix it

It's splotchy like this all over


r/wok 8d ago

Rovsun single burner

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4 Upvotes

Does anybody used this brand of burners for wok? I looked at Eastman outdoors though I did not like the design of their legs.


r/wok 8d ago

Help please. First time cooking outside, grabbed this burner when i was in Thailand 3 years ago, finally got it "going" but theres almost no heat, been trying to season my wok for the past 15min, was i sold a weak regulator for my setup? Theres no way its supposed to be this slow?

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4 Upvotes

Title


r/wok 9d ago

Mongolian beef anyone?

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42 Upvotes

But seriously, ever since I started cooking with a wok, I’ve been enjoying it so much. It’s not just about the recipes or the ingredients—it’s the whole cooking experience. There’s something about it that feels really simple and genuine, like you’re making food the way it’s meant to be made.


r/wok 9d ago

Two woks —> tandoor oven

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59 Upvotes

Making paneer tikka between two woks. Came out pretty well actually!


r/wok 9d ago

The paneer tikka etc.

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25 Upvotes

1: “tandoor oven” made of two woks
2: paneer tikka that I cooked in the “tandoor oven”
3: opened the lid to check on the veggies and the wok was literally glowing. 😬
4: veggies post-inferno.


r/wok 10d ago

First meal in my new Yosukata 13.5" wok

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37 Upvotes

r/wok 10d ago

First meal

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32 Upvotes

First meal cooked on my new Cuisinart outdoor wok station. Garlic bok choy and Thai Steak and Basil.


r/wok 10d ago

Morso Vulcano vs. Roaring dragon

1 Upvotes

Hey guys,
Really struggling and need some buying advice. I’m torn between the the vulcano wok burner and the roaring dragon. Of course the dragon is superior but it is stationary and can’t take it with me.
Has the Vulcono enough power for proper woking?


r/wok 11d ago

Chinese Noodles

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30 Upvotes

Yummy Chinese Noodles

Recipe:

2 spoons Peanutoil
1 medium carrot , sliced in little stripes
Some slices of leek
5 eggs
1 spoon Dark Soja sauce
1 shot Oyster sauce
1 teaspoon ketjap manis

First sear the carrots in 1 spoon Peanutoil , then the leek , then remove the vegetables from the pan, 1 spoon Peanutoil again in the wok .

Now crack 5 eggs and insert the eggwhite with the egg yolk in the wok , Stir several times.

Now add the pasta. After this add the vegetables again, then add dark Soja sauce, then oyster sauce , then the ketjap manis First sear, stir it several times.

Then serve it et voila.


r/wok 11d ago

UK Outdoor Wok Suggestions

1 Upvotes

What do you guys use for outdoor Wok cooking UK.?


r/wok 12d ago

Countertop induction vs gas burner vs electric range for indoor cooking

5 Upvotes

Looking to get into wok cooking but my apartment has an electric stove (flat, not coil) and cooking outside isn’t an option. Getting a concave induction cooktop was my first instinct for safety reasons (1800W/120V - located in the US and can’t get behind my stove or rewire outlets), but now I’m wondering if I should get a countertop gas burner or even just try my glass electric stove with a flat bottomed wok (haven’t tried it before).

For induction, I was thinking Leconchef or abangdun. Nuwave’s reviews kind of freaked me out and it’s more expensive anyway.

For gas, I haven’t done much research but the Iwatani 35FW seems to be a good option. After getting a wok ring and fuel, it’ll be almost as expensive as the induction burner, though. I already have a (less powerful) camp stove, too.

I don’t mind spending a little bit of money (< $200 all in ideally), but I also don’t want to waste it if I can get almost the same results on my electric range. I know a lot of people don’t like flat bottomed woks, especially on electric stoves (for valid reasons) but I’m also relatively new to wok cooking and only cooking for 1-2 people usually. Just keeping that option open.

Any thoughts? I’m having a hard time finding posts from other people in the same situation.


r/wok 12d ago

did i bluify my wok enough?

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10 Upvotes

This is my first wok, gifted from my bf: yesterday i bluified it, but had no time to complete all the steps. Today i ve to create an antiadherent layer adding a tsp of oil while heating wok on the stove.

Is it good enough or do i shall give it another "fire baptism"?


r/wok 12d ago

Chili garlic shrimp in the wok

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6 Upvotes

Tried making chili galic shrimp in the wok today with chilies, garlic, butter, oyster sauce, and a little wasabi mixed in. Surprisingly good. Made indoors on a gas stove, I kept the vent hood running. Helped keep the kitchen from getting too smoky.

For cleanup, I usually add some water, bring it to a quick boil, scrub it out, wipe it with a peper tower, then put it back on low heat until the wok is fully dry. Do you guys oil your wok after cleaning, or dry it like this?


r/wok 14d ago

Used a Carbon Steel Wok for the first time and now the bottom looks like this. Did I ruin it?

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1 Upvotes

r/wok 15d ago

What did I do? How do I fix this?

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4 Upvotes

Bought this Yosukata carbon steel wok about a week ago. Seasoned according to directions, everything looked good. Used twice, stir fry both times. Made these same dishes in previous wok many, many times over about 10 years, never saw this happen. What should I do?