I think if wok cooking is priority, then open burner is a must. This is from personal experience. Do a search on "edge heating" or "perimeter heating" and you will probably find some discussions about this. I didn't mention Capital because, at least for now, there is not a Culinarian (i.e. open burner) drop-in cooktop yet. Once there is, my vote would move to that based on my experience with my CC range. Restaurant wok cookers/ranges are all north of 100k BTU some of the larger ones are around 200k BTU. Plus they use gas jets to focus the heat into a 3-5 inch diameter. It's pretty typical to get the bottom of the wok red hot while pre-heating... and yes, these high btu burners can get really dangerous in inexperienced hands. I have a 135k btu outdoor portable propane burner from outdoorstirfry which can outcook both the CC and BS.

The instructions that came with the wok and The Wok Shop's how-to video on YouTube didn't work well for me. It created a rough, sticky patina that flaked off. There's a video by Poh's Kitchen on YouTube that details a technique that worked better. You don't have to do it as thoroughly as I am, you can let it build a season over time, but I wanted a well seasoned wok in one day. First, clean the residue out of the wok by filling it with salty water and boiling for a few minutes. This removes most of the residue, but leaves some clumps around the top. Not a big deal, just scrub it with some steel wool and dry it off. The clumps are minor and will burn away over time. Turn the burners up to high and hold the wok over the flame until it turns a silvery blue, and continue to move it around until the whole thing changes color. With the wok scalding hot, use a pair of tongs and folded up paper towels to wipe the inside of the wok down with a thin layer of peanut oil, which will start smoking. After it's fully wiped down, turn the heat down to medium and keep moving the wok around for 15 minutes or so to kind of let it burn in. Then turn the heat off and let it cool. Once it's cooled, wipe it down with another thin layer of peanut oil, and then turn the heat back up until it's smoking again. If you look closely at this point, you can see the oil forming droplets and retreating away from the heat source. I found that if you get the right balance of heat, the oil droplets will retreat a bit and then spread out into a thin, flat layer, darken, and appear to solidify. I watched it closely, but you don't have to get that picky about it, you can just keep moving it around and repeating the cooling, oiling, and reheating process. Repeat this process as many times as you want (I did it five times), then use the Wok Shop's technique of coating with oil and putting it in the oven at 400 for 20 minutes. Take it out, cool, and repeat--the 2nd time turning the wok upside down. This helps smooth out the inside coating. You could call it quits at this point, but I did the burner method a couple more times. I was going for the equivalent of several weeks of wokking in just one day. Once I was done, I put a bit more peanut oil in, chopped up some onions, and stir fried them until they were charred. The onions slid around effortlessly without sticking. Cleaning the wok was as simple as running it under water and wiping it down. It cooks completely differently than my first wok did using only the Wok Shop's method. The surface should be shiny, smooth, and slick. A bit of seasoning will come off the first few times you use it. That's fine, just rinse clean, dry, and wipe it down with a thin layer of oil before putting it away. Just keep using it regularly and the patina will stay in good shape. TL;DR - YouTube "Wok Seasoning" and do the Poh's Kitchen method three to five times. Then do the Wok Shop's method a couple times. Then do the Poh's Kitchen method another time or two. Then stir fry some onions. Rinse and wipe.

asolo, Sounds like you have experienced wok soup, as have I. The wok cooking with this unit is totally different. It is so hot, I can't believe the power. That is a luxury in wok-ing, as you know. I am smitten with it, and this after only fixing two meals in that number of days. The one I purchased has the 18" carbon steel wok, so I believe that is the smaller version. I used a 14' wok on my range, so that was my frame of reference. The 18 is huge, but I think they offer a 22, which you could feed a pile of folks with. Outdoor wok cooking is a natural. Wok cooking produces so much smoke and concentrated aromas that doing it outdoors just makes sense. Kind of like frying fish. P.S. I was sort of shocked to learn that my large burner on my modern smooth cooktop range can only manage about 12,000 BTUs. No wonder I was getting wok soup, or at least not the results I had hoped for. This outdoor burner, with 65,000 BTUs at hand, did the trick for me!

Hi! I'm here. Unfortunately, my kitchen isn't. I'm still waiting on tile. Still. Sigh. Re high heat cooking, it depends on the unit you buy. There are some that have a large, high heat burner that doesn't use power sharing or boost. It's a case of you get what you pay for. I was originally going to get Gaggenau dominoes but the price increase and a feeling that they were eating up my kitchen drove me to choose a Gaggenau 3 zone (from Europe), an Wolf for my gas. A big reason I chose these is that I do not do a lot of high heat cooking, and the boosted large induction element was sufficient for me. Same the two medium gas burners. I'm more a long and slow kind of cook. I think the food tastes better. :) Gas dominoes will not give you blast furnace heat. They're "cooktops". If you want that, you can get a single burner rangetop. You can also get a specialized wok induction single element unit. Some are dish shaped so you can set your wok right in. The Gaggenau unit is a domino (15") and has gonzo power. It's also flat, and you pay extra for the special wok holder that transfers the induction. Gizmonike has one. That one can also be used flat for other cooking. I don't remember so much about larger units. I think both Gaggenau and Miele have the high heat large unboosted element in the middle. Most of the big elements have a less powerful middle portion for smaller pots, and kind of power share with themselves or something. My best advice is to read all of the specs in the online documentation (owners' manuals, planning guides, etc.). The Induction Site is useful, but isn't 100% up to date or accurate. Re scratches, apparently sugar is a big culprit. They warn you against that specifically. I'd guess any grit could scratch. But the great thing about induction is that you can lift your pan and wipe the stove in the middle of cooking because it just doesn't get that hot. Re shaking, you can do that. Check the specs of the particular unit you're looking at. Some let you lift the pan by a quarter of an inch. Others have a delay before they shut off. The habit you'll want to change, though, is lifting to reduce heat while shaking, which is what one does with gas. Instead, get easy to use controls, and adjust the level. Induction is as instantly responsive as lifting. Shaking on induction (I studied a chef who was making individual portions of pasta to learn this) is done low, and also a smaller gesture. A little flick of the wrist will mix the pan contents without the unit shutting off. Re controls, if you want fine control go for a unit like the Miele you mentioned that has separate controls for each element. Then you don't have to waste time choosing the element before you adjust. Re the pan sizes for your batch cooking, read the manual online. Generally, most units have a tolerance for a diameter about two inches larger than the ring shown. If you cover up too much of the glass it's possible to send some units into a tizzy as their electronics get hot, and they beep and shut off. One of my favorite pots is the Le Creuset "soup pot", which I use for making spaghetti sauce and all kinds of other things besides soup. That has curved sides that flare out. We had a chef on here once who explained why this is such an awesome shape for cooking, but I forget. It's a great way to "cheat" however, because the part that touches the stove is a lot smaller than the pot itself, yet it actually holds more than similar sized pots (and comes in a few sizes). Re moving around, yeah, I've had that just on my portable, with nice full 2 qt. pots. That's what the silpat or paper towels are for. I suppose you could try drawing wiggly silicone lines on the bottoms of pots too. This one can be an issue, especially on the Miele which doesn't have a texture, but it can be overcome if you other wise like induction. BTW, I started this thinking I'd be getting a Wolf rangetop, so I know where you're coming from. I thought I loved cooking on gas. Loved it. But I expect to use the induction more than the gas on my new installation. The gas is mostly for stuff that requires flames. I'm not an outdoor cook, so needed a little bit of flame.