Mr. Bar-B-Q Cast-Iron Wok
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List Price: Our Price: $44.00 Availability: Usually ships in 3-4 business days Category: Kitchen See more product details |
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Kitchen and Housewares Reviews of Mr. Bar-B-Q Cast-Iron Wok
Customer Review: Fantastic Wok
Summary: 5 Stars
I'm extremely happy with this purchase. At first glance, I wasn't impressed with the appearance of the wok. The edges were not smooth and uneven. Also, the weight of the wok wasn't what I expected (lighter than I thought, but turned out to be better). Overall, I thought the wok was not well made. With an open mind, I washed the wok with hot soapy water using a plastic brush. Then, I thoroughly dried the wok. I lightly coated the wok with some grapeseed oil with a paper towel. I baked the wok in the oven at 250 degree for about 4 hours. After taking the wok out of the oven, I placed it on an electric stove at high heat and pored some peanut oil (any vegetable oil is fine)when the wok was really hot. I threw some roughly chopped Chinese chives in to the wok and stirred them around it in order to minimize the new wok odor. This is a tip that I learned from a Chinese lady. If Chinese chives are not available, then green onion, ginger, and crushed garlic will do as well. Anyway, after all these, I used a paper towel to wipe the wok and put the wok back into the oven for another 2 hours at 250 degree again. I'll tell you the wok came out just perfect. This evening, I decided to cook some Chinese dishes. I made fried eggs with scallion, ung choi and pak choi with shrimp in black bean sauce, and chow min with vegetables. Despite my concern with the weak heat due to my electric stove, the wok heated up so quickly and very evenly at high heat. Thanks to the seasoning procedure, the wok was completely stick-free even with the soft chow min. Usually, I have to use three different pans to make three different dishes, but with this awesome wok, I was able to finish cooking in about 30 minutes excluding the prep time for the ingredients (took about 10 minutes). It was amazing actually. Then, I pored some hot water into the wok and let it sit for about 6 minutes. I used the brush to clean up the left over food and rinsed the wok with hot water. That's it. It was so convenient. In order to prevent rust, I dried the wok on the stove at low heat with a paper towel and sprayed some Pam oil. I wiped the oil all around the wok with a paper towel and put it away for the next use. This may sound complicated and long. It was absolutely easy, though. Besides, I only used one pan or wok. I'm sure that I'll be using this wok a lot. By the way, I own a 12" Lodge pan and a 11" Lodge grill pan. Mr. Bar.B.Q cast iron wok is as good as the Lodge cast iron pans. If you are looking to buy a cast iron or any kind of wok, then I strongly recommend Mr. Bar.B.Q wok. You'll be surprised how efficient the wok is. Two thumps up!Customer Review: SERIOUSLY PEOPLE/ 4-5 STARS/ ARE YOU KIDDING ME?
Summary: 2 Stars
This is my 1st Amazon Review and I'm trying to help here as many of your reviews have helped me. I bought this wok because I love cooking with cast iron and I'm cheap...most of the time, and like you I agonized over the reviews: broken, cracked, broken, broken, LOVED IT!!!!, almost vomited after using, Great Deal, etc.
My wok arrived unbroken unlike many of yours. This is CAST IRON, readers. Netflix can send flimsy plastic DVDs in paper envelopes by the MILLIONS and they don't break! 1 star.
I followed the wok's cleaning directions (hot soapy wash, bake in oven) just to see what happens when a novice is faced with cleaning/curing this item. I am currently writing this review in the dead of Winter with all of the doors open in my house because the machine oil smoke is SO RETCHED! This will NOT happen with the "expensive" Lodge wok. Your call. 1 star.
Here's what I would suggest if you do buy this wok. When it arrives, thump it with your finger or a wooden object. If it is not cracked, the wok will sound like a lovely bell. If it buzzes or thunks, stop here, return wok or throw away. Don't waste your time cleaning because it's cracked.
Take wok OUTSIDE and scour it with GOJO (or any mechanics hand cleaner which is a safe but powerful degreaser) and steel wool. Rinse thoroughly with warm water. Repeat scouring with GOJO. Rinse. Repeat. Rinse. Bring wok inside. Wash in warm-hot, sudsy water. Rinse, repeat, rinse, repeat, rinse, dry wok. Place in cold oven. Heat oven on BAKE to 300-350 degrees (hope wok doesn't crack while slowly heating) and allow wok to bake for 30-60 min. YOU WILL STILL GET SOME HORRIBLE OIL SMOKE IN YOUR HOUSE but nothing involving an ER. 1 star.
After 30-60 minutes, turn oven off and let wok cool naturally inside oven. This will ONLY take several hours and allows the stresses inside the iron to gently subside so the wok won't tend to crack in the future. 1 star.
When wok is cool enough to handle, cure it as per the instructions but bacon drippings will cure it better than vegetable oil...my opinion after doing this for a long time. Vegetarians, the oil works fine it just takes longer to build up a nicely cured surface.
OR, you could just spend another $30-$40 and get a Lodge wok and begin cooking immediately. Finally, I am NOT associated in ANY WAY with Lodge, but if the Mr. BBQ ever fails me I will not hesitate to buy the Lodge next time. Good luck and happy cooking! 1-2 stars. 3 stars if you're lucky, cheap like me, and have all day to mess around.
Customer Review: awesome especially for the price....
Summary: 5 Stars
Ok currently i have a joyce chen carbon steel flat bottom wok which i do enjoy. It does get extremely hot but there is only one problem with it...as i start to fill the wok the temperature starts to drop so much sometimes i end up steaming the food instead of searing it (breath of wok) because moisture released from the food does not instantly evaporate but instead collects in the bottom of the wok. I have a high powered gas stove with a 16,000 BTU burner. If you don't know cast iron is one of the best materials if you don't want the heat to be sucked out of your pan by your food. Cast iron does take longer to eat up but once its hot it takes a lot to bring the heat out of it.
Ok i received my wok tonight. I could not wait to cook with it. I did not experience any of the problems that other people had. My wok did not arrive cracked. It was in fine shape. I followed the directions to season the pan. I then removed it from the oven and let it cool before i started cooking with it. I decided to cook thai food. I heated it up and let me tell you this thing was awesome. Unlike the carbon steel wok it didn't loose much of its heat when i added the food. It seared everything perfectly. I loved the shape of the pan too. It was nice and wide. For being recently cured in the oven it was surprisingly non-stick. I can't imagine when the patina develops how wonderful it will be. There are some things you got to be aware of when cooking with this wok
1) its a lot heavier than carbon steel. I did not mind this but some might. I think it had a nice feel to it
2) The temperature difference between the sides/bottom won't be as different as a carbon steel wok so be careful. When i cooked i didn't have any problem with this
3) When you turn off the wok it will retain heat longer than carbon steel so just keep moving the stuff in the wok till it slightly cools down.
So this wok is a steal for the price for $16.00 shipped i have an awesome cooking device. If i had a high power burner like they do in the resteruants (which no home stove can do) i might stick with carbon steel but with a home stove i definitly prefer cast iron.
Customer Review: Cast iron woks are better
Summary: 5 Stars
My wife and I love this wok and use it every day. The cast iron is easy to take care of and distributes the heat very well. The feature we really like is the true "wok shape." What I mean is the shape is like a bowl within the wok, but the bottom is flat for resting on our electric stove. (And it sits VERY steadily because of the weight!) This really produces good results with all kinds of stir-frying--no sticking and quickly, evenly cooked dishes.
I have to say that before we were using the Joan Chen carbon steel. I got uncomfortable with the way (even after a year) it kept rusting even when oiled, always leaving a thick residue of oxide on paper towels when we wiped the pan. I figured this was going into our food. The new cast iron wok is just like a cast iron skillet: it really doesn't throw off a lot of oxide when cared for properly.
A few tips: scrub like crazy with good stainless steel or brass before using it the first time, then boil some soapy water in it and repeat. This gets rid of the machine oil used for shipping. (Good instructions are included.)
After the first several uses, rubbing the inside down with oil and then heating the wok in the oven at 350 degrees for 20 minutes will ensure a good start to the seasoning process. From then on, keep the wok from rusting while stored by heating it a little before rubbing it down with oil.
NOTE: I'm ordering another one today, May 3, 2008, for a Chinese friend who had lunch with us and fell in love with the wok. I see other customers have had problems with cracks and figuring out how to remove the shipping oil...I will report back when the new one arrives!
OK! I've now received two of these in great shape (5/6/08). No strange machine oil. Fantastic deal!
Customer Review: Cast-Iron Doesn't Peel
Summary: 1 Stars
Dear Consumer,
I will try to be as unbiased as possible in writing this review to be as fair as possible to Mr. Barb-B-Q.
The wok arrived in one day, which was great. I was impressed by its weight and solid structure. I did however notice a 2x4 inch raised ridge (defect) along the bottom of the inside cooking surface. I thought nothing of it and figured it wouldn't effect the cooking.
As directions said, I applied a thin layer of vegetable oil to the whole pan and baked it for 350 in the oven. I wanted to get another coat on so I used peanut oil this time to help get the desired flavor seasoned into the pan. The second time it came out uneven. After cooking on it and then lightly washing it, I placed it on the stove to dry by heat and applied another coat of oil. This is where everything went wrong.
The inside surface begun to crack, blister up, and peel off. The more and more I tried to gently reseason it, the worse it got until there were actually potholes on the bottom surface revealing bright shiny metal underneath. It is my understanding that cast-iron does not do this. It is my understanding also, that cast iron is very durable and would not crack or peel like this.
When calling Mr. bbq customer service, they assured me that all their woks are made with 100% cast-iron. I am now thinking that their manufacturer in China plaid Chinese joke on me by covering up a defective wok surface with some sort of black polish.
Bottom line is, if you are worried about products that come out of China, I might think twice as I did about getting a replacement from this company. Who knows what type of chemical coating I ingested. At least I only did it once.