Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Yes, this thing has a very stubborn coating (5 stars from me: a quality, 5-star wok with one star fallen for the tenacity of that unholy coating). So you're going to have to deal with that stuff, yep. I'm new to new wok prep, so I scoured (sorry) the net and found there are a number of different opinions on how to get the coating off a new high-carbon steel wok. Some actually just left it on. I was skeptical of leaving any coating and didn't like that some initial seasoning jobs seemed to result in a black base with nearly clean sides (didn't seem like the end result we want). What to do? So I did the following and got an evenly-seasoned wok that seems to be working great. First, I tried soap and elbow grease with steel wool. It removed some coating, not much. I think this was wise, though, because the followup "burn" on the stove top created a fair amount of nasty stink even in a well-ventilated small apartment. When I tried rinsing/scouring again after the "burn," I noticed the coating hadn't been removed totally and the water was really pretty foul during this cleaning. So I then removed the plastic handles (both can be removed--the smaller with screw driver and the larger by twisting the hook, which is just a long screw) and baked in the oven at 425 for about 30 to 40 minutes: less foul stink but still some. I cleaned in the sink again, found the water still dirty. So I baked again for about 25 minutes. This time not much stink, and the cleaning in the sink afterwards left me with relatively clean water and no more of that glossy, slippery surface. So, I then coated both in and out surface with with a light film of peanut oil and baked again for 25 minutes on 425. It came out a very even and dark brown on all surfaces (definitely not the brown/black gunk that was the coating burning during the first stove "burn"). Looked great. Wok-ed some ginger after this because someone said to, and then just wiped "clean." Def doing its job as far as that ginger thing, everything sliding around and not sticking and whatnot, with just a tiny bit of oil for the wok-in'. So, in the future I'd probably: scrub in the sink with steel wool and dish soap (to reduce the awful smoke/stink that I'll be creating), then bake one or more times until the coating was clearly gone (per observation of the amount of foulness in the water during sink-scrubbing each time), then season-bake with oil 425 for 25 min (I'd probably skip the stove-top burn). What do I know? All I do know is that following the bake with oil I got a very even and dark brown coating on all surfaces without any weird blotches or stuff that makes me go "hmmmm." Also, I now think that some of the browning/blackening that you see on seasoning videos for wok prep is a combination of coating burn and oil browning. Me, I'd def remove that wickedness before oil seasoning. But, that's just me; take it for what you like. Check out the picture of that even brown after the oil-stove seasoning.