Ikea sells a flat-bottomed steel wok ("Pyra"), suitable for induction. But I haven't used mine, as yet.

I have a Lodge cast iron wok and haven't had good luck with it. A big chef skillet seems to work better for me.

I use a Demeyere wok (model # 53936) and would recommend it. This wok has 3 feet, so although it's round-bottomed, it can "stand" on the cooktop.

In general, I think in order to do wok cooking on induction, the wok material needs to conduct heat very well. Otherwise, the side of the wok would remain too cold. That implies the wok should be made of SS with copper or aluminum core. There are many other woks fit this bill but I only have experience with my Demeyere wok. I'm curious about how, say all-clad woks, perform on induction.

Here is a link that might be useful: Demeyere 53936

dapitou, I thought that induction cooktops heated the pan based on the portion of the pan that was in contact with the cooktop... how much of the Demeyere wok actually touches the cooktop?

The cooking vessels don't need to be in contact with the induction element in order to be activated. If I remember correctly, within 1/4" will do.

To answer your question, the bottom of my wok gets very close to, but not in direct contact with the cooktop. When boiling water, I can see that the center of the wok, about 6" in dia., gets activated.

The next question is, will a flat-bottomed wok perform better? I am not sure. I have tried some cheap ones but failed to make them work. I don't know the exact reason: Is it because they are flat or they are cheaply-made or I'm not a good cook. Unfortunately, it's cost prohibitive for me to find the answer.

Induction hobs generate field lines in a manner that might be described by the shape of a half bagel cut for toasting. When the cooking pan is on the cooktop, the field lines are drawn into the metal due to its higher susceptibility and heat it due to its poor electrical conductivity. A modest gap should have only a second order effect on efficiency. The heated part of the pan is thus an annulus, but this shape is easily smeared out over the bottom if the bottom includes a sufficiently thermally conductive metal. Hence the relatively even behavior of All Clad type cookware, and relatively uneven behavior of thin steel or stainless steel pans.

(This applies to conventional large circular hobs and not necessarily distributed mini hobs intended for pan-anywhere cooking.)

A flat wok should work ok with a flat cooktop so long as there is good thermal conductivity along the wok bottom. However, one won't have sides capable of holding some ingredients out of the hottest zone.

Curved woks will work best in a concave hob, such as Cooktek makes. The Cooktek supplied wok, however, is somewhat too thin in my judgment, and a thicker wok should be better. There is more than enough heat at full power to sear anything in the heated annulus.

kas

I use a large skillet. Works OK for me, but I'm not an accomplished Asian cook.

thanks everyone... kaseki, interesting to learn more details about how induction works - so far, I've only gotten the relatively simplistic "pan in contact with the cooking surface" story. chac_mool, I checked out IKEA and they have a couple of inexpensive wok-type pans we could start out with (I love how IKEA clearly identifies which types of cooktops each of their pans is suitable for).

I'm really looking forward to (re)learning to cook on the new induction cooktop!

Kaseki: Thanks for the detailed explanation.

ilovepoco: Forgot to mention that another way of using round-bottomed wok on flat-surface induction cooktop is to use a wok ring. See the link below.

Here is a link that might be useful: Gaggenau wok and ring

K: the power induced into the surface falls off as the square of the distance.

I've used the IKEA wok on our induction. It is fine, but I am no way an expert Asian cook. The only thing is with the burner layout and the flare of the pan, I can't really use any of the other hobs when the wok is in use.

weedmeister: R^2 applies to energy propagation, but only in the far field.

This R-squared factor may be appreciated by considering a searchlight beam, or flashlight beam. Until one is distant from the lens by approximately the lens diameter divided by the beam divergence, the rate of reduction will be less than R-squared, and will be nearly unaffected by distance very close to the lens.

It is reasonable, however, to ask what the far field really means for an induction hob, which is a torroidal open-gap inductor. In this case, we don't have significant energy propagation, and one can easily get almost entirely out of the field within a modest distance much less than the marked hob circle of effectiveness. On the other hand, up close, the field lines can be "pulled" into the metal (proportional to the difference in mu between the metal and air) over some region of the space over the hob.

The region of tolerance for pan heating will be proportional to the inductor air gap, and not having taken apart an induction cooktop, I'm unsure what that is for various hob sizes. I suspect that it is in the range of an annulus with a difference in radii of an inch or two. Hence, one might expect the field lines to be well captured within some portion of that dimension of height off of the laminations. This distance includes any gap between laminations and cooktop material, and the cooktop material thickness itself, so there is probably only a quarter of an inch left on a small hob to play with. A larger hob should be good for significantly more gap.

I guess I'll have to test this if I can find a large pan with a thin bottom that is inductive.

kas

I use a Joyce Chen carbon steel wok from Bed Bath and Beyond. It works well.

I believe that the feet of the Demeyere wok help to pass the energy up the sides, similarly to the Gaggenau wok/wok unit/ring (not sure that the Gaggenau ring/wok work (well) on other units).

I have a Le Creuset cast iron wok which is flat on the outside and round on the inside. I think Lodge makes one too. The technique for using it is different than for using a traditional thin wok, which doesn't bother me, since, according to my Asian mentors, I'm hopeless with a wok anyway. :) The big problem with it is that the portion that contacts, or is close enough to the cooktop is so small that one can't use the outer, high power, part of the large double ring.

The difference for cooking is that it takes a long time for the sides of the wok to heat up. I think it might be more practical to partially warm it in the oven first. Once the whole wok is actually hot it does work very well, at least by my limited abilities. The difference is that it does not cool fast either. There are a lot of techniques that involve cooling the wok and/or food by lifting, tossing, etc., that are out of the question. One could lift and toss, perhaps two handed for the weight, but lifting isn't going to cool cast iron, and while adjusting the setting on the induction will have an effect, it's going to take awhile to cool just as it took awhile to heat. If one does want to cool the food, a better way might be to add bits of frozen peppers, or even ice chips. Most induction units nowadays (including mine) do allow one to lift a pan long enough to toss the contents to mix them without turning off, so that isn't a problem. Again, it's not a one handed flick, but it works fine.

For me, the whole point of the wok is the interior shape, so this works well for me. I also have gas (though not blast-o-burner), so I could have a traditional wok. I am no expert at wok cooking, though I know a lot more theory than expertise, and I'm not sure I understand all of the insistence for ever hotter burners. If one is stir frying, I get the point of fast heat recovery, and the need for a certain amount of power to make that happen, but one doesn't want the wok itself to get hot enough to scorch the oil. I was taught, by my home cook friends, not to get the wok too hot. This may be why being able to quickly lift and cook a thin wok is so important.

Once it's good and hot, the cast iron wok doesn't have the quick cool down when ingredients are added, and the recovery with induction is pretty good. That is, there isn't the instant heat transfer of the traditional charcoal fire and hand hammered carbon steel, but the wok doesn't cool off instantly either. This is with a smaller, family sized portion, however, not a big ol' party heap. At some point the quantity of ingredients will overwhelm the heat retaining mass of the cast iron.

I have bought an wok from Calphalon Triply and also a induction hob wok from Equipex. Here is a list with induction wok hobs and wok pans which I have consulted before. http://www.magneticcooky.com/induction-wok-pans-and-wok-hobs/ . Is very difficult to find these woks and also the hobs to suit them.

Thats a very pretty pan.