Michael Chen
TVWBB Fan
For carbon steel pans (woks and otherwise), I use the following method which is somewhat similar to the one described by Tane Chan (of Wok Shop fame) in Grace Young's Breath of the Wok. There is a whole chapter in that book devoted to different seasoning methods for carbon steel woks, so this is not the only way, but this worked for me:
Bake off any factory oil/coatings/old seasoning. I actually just throw it in the Genesis and let it rip for about 20-25 minutes as if I'm doing a cleaning burn.
Scrub the pan in the sink after it cools down, dry, and apply a thin coat of your preferred cooking oil. I mean thin, as in barely perceptible. Wipe off the entire pan over and over again with a paper towel until there's just a barely-there sheen over the whole pan.
Bake upside down at a temp around the smoke point for about 30 min. I usually use peanut oil to season, so I'm using my Genesis outside at around 450 F.
After the pan cools, take it to the sink and scrub the living daylights out of it with a stainless scrubbie, almost as if you're trying to remove the seasoning by hand. I think this abrades the surface to allow the next coat to stick, and also ensures there are no thick spots to gum up and cause issues down the line.
Dry the pan, and repeat the oiling process twice more for a total of three layers. Then start cooking!
As others have mentioned, acidic foods are not a good choice for carbon steel pans, but after enough cooks, I've found that while the seasoning might look like utter trash to the point where it appears to have been stripped away, the pans are actually quite nonstick with just a little bit of oil used. I only consider reseasoning if I run into problems with rust.
(I have a bunch of carbon steel woks, the 11-inch version of the Matfer Bourgeat linked in the first post, and a tiny Japanese carbon steel fry pan)
Bake off any factory oil/coatings/old seasoning. I actually just throw it in the Genesis and let it rip for about 20-25 minutes as if I'm doing a cleaning burn.
Scrub the pan in the sink after it cools down, dry, and apply a thin coat of your preferred cooking oil. I mean thin, as in barely perceptible. Wipe off the entire pan over and over again with a paper towel until there's just a barely-there sheen over the whole pan.
Bake upside down at a temp around the smoke point for about 30 min. I usually use peanut oil to season, so I'm using my Genesis outside at around 450 F.
After the pan cools, take it to the sink and scrub the living daylights out of it with a stainless scrubbie, almost as if you're trying to remove the seasoning by hand. I think this abrades the surface to allow the next coat to stick, and also ensures there are no thick spots to gum up and cause issues down the line.
Dry the pan, and repeat the oiling process twice more for a total of three layers. Then start cooking!
As others have mentioned, acidic foods are not a good choice for carbon steel pans, but after enough cooks, I've found that while the seasoning might look like utter trash to the point where it appears to have been stripped away, the pans are actually quite nonstick with just a little bit of oil used. I only consider reseasoning if I run into problems with rust.
(I have a bunch of carbon steel woks, the 11-inch version of the Matfer Bourgeat linked in the first post, and a tiny Japanese carbon steel fry pan)
