I concur with the 16" recommendation. Not only does it fit better, I found it provides just the right amount of extra area over the 14". I've cooked on 36"+ woks so I might have a different point of view than most but I find my 14" to be a bit confining. When I was just cooking for myself and maybe one other person, 14" was fine but now I'm typically cooking for 4-6 so 16" is just right. I have a drop-in cooktop so I don't have the option of removing the inner grate ring. Just this weekend, I took one of the grates and cut the 4 "fingers" off at a 45 degree angle leaving 8 points of support. Cooked on it already and it's perfect. Heats up fast, stable, and perfect height. Only thing was I had to put a strip of aluminum foil (folded over a couple of times) between the burner and the nobs to keep the knobs from getting too hot. This is not an issue but had the burner on high for over 30min straight. I wouldn't bother with that to make just 2-3 dishes. The Wok Shop (http://www.wokshop.com/) is a great place to get a wok. Great selection. I'm local so I went in and picked out the wok I wanted. They import direct and have a huge selection. The variety in the store is more than they offer online so call them if you have any special requests. Get a hand hammered wok. I've had both the pressed iron and the hand hammered and hand hammered has better non-stick qualities and has a slightly different feel. I ended up with this one http://www.wokshop.com/HTML/products/woks/wok-our-hand-hammered.html . I didn't particularly care for the "hammered" dimple design but I wanted a single handle hand hammered which is a limited combination. I found one in the store but it had a riveted handle and in my experience, they just don't last as long as a good welded handle. The owner of the shop was in the back searching for 30 minutes. She was extremely helpful and willing to go out of her way to help find what I wanted.

Fori, I don't lift my wok to go anywhere when I'm stir-frying. Instead, I use my long handled wok scooper to dish each layer out of the wok, which rests on a platter while I cook the next. Sometimes I lift the platter to the edge of the wok while I scoop the contents into that, if the pieces are eluding me. It all goes into the wok for a final warm-up at the end, but not for very long. As I often par-boil some of my vegetables like broccoli, I use the wet paper towel they dry on to clean the wok between each layer of food I cook. I agree that you can't get a cast iron wok too hot to cook in, although you can cook your ingredients too long so they overcook. Cooking the dish in layers keeps the wok from cooling down, and everything sears well. I personally wouldn't cook in a porcelain enameled wok if I had to worry about the coating, since hotter is better in this case. I still have the mentality that you wrap the pan in flame so it stays hot. I agree with you completely!

Thank John for additional data point on BlueStar. 3min 40sec seems to be consistent with Trevor's test on Capital 3min 36sec with 25k BTU burner. For my AEG induction wok hob @ 3.2kW, it takes just 2min 52sec to evaporate 80ml of water. It is best however to see in pictures how this behaves. This is a 14" wok that fits the curvature rather well. It sits with bottom half or third touching the recess area. This is somewhere around where the water edge is. It is also around the area where induction coil locates. You can see the darker seasoned area. That's where the main heating zone and my main cooking zone is. At a few seconds in after the induction unit starts on P, we can see bubbles forming. That makes sense as it is the area where induction coil is. At 11sec, steam starts to form. Bubbles now form a solid ring around the edge. At 16sec, steam starts to fill up my cooking area. At 41sec, this is smoking hot wok. Water is boiling vigorously though out. It is a bit difficult to see with this amount of steam, but you know what it is. This show the amount of steam from a different angle. At around 2min mark, the huge heat from induction is dying down. This is mainly because the water level drops below the area of the induction coil. So it is entering the much cooler spot. The heat that keeps evaporating the water now is from conduction, which is not the best thing for thin carbon steel. You can see that it takes quite a long time to evaporate this very small amount of remaining water. The slight red glow clearly shows where the induction coil is. At last, we get there by 2min 52sec. Cheers to induction wok hob. You're the best.

Thanks Toronto Veternarian. Another advantge of a rounded bottom is that you can quick cook everything with super hot oil on the bottom, thus preserving the flavor. And then you can let the oil drain from the food on the sides. A wok with a small flat bottom can achieve the same thing as a rounded bottom wok,, but one with a flat bootom that exceeds 6 1/2" will necessarily have the sides be so steep that food will slide down. By the way, I would love to have someone who have used a 15,000 BTU butane burner and a 1,800 Watt induction burner compare the two for wok cooikng using a 6" diameter flat bottom carbon steel (or cast iron) wok.