Little bit of vinegar, salt, and elbow grease 4 seconds later: *using a automatic scrubbing device*

You could've done a "100 layers of wok seasoning" video

"There is no chemichal, just like a very hard polymerized surface" - Chemestry: Am I a joke to you?

Hello Alex. You need to revisit this one. Flax oil is really bad for seasoning. I’ve tried and failed with it, and I’m sure you’ve noticed as well that it flakes off very easily. Refined grapeseed oil is what you want. Refined because it’s a pure oil with fibrous materials removed (fiber burn and cause carbon build up which causes sticking). Grapeseed because it has a high smoke point and a lot of polyunsaturated fat (which polymerizes better than other fats). You also want to bake it below the smoke point. I usually go 200° C for one hour. Check out “Cook culture” and the videos they’ve done on seasonings. The advice I gave you over comes from a phd in polymer sciences.

After 11 minutes of watching this i finally realized that i have no idea what he's talking about and don't know what I'm doing here

I need to hear you say “one hour later”

Ok so what I learned after 1 year with my carbon skillet! 1. Opposite to the dear lady's advice, you want to use an oil with a high smokepoint. With a low smokepoint oil, after a few rounds of cooking, your perfect seasoning will most likely start to flake & fall off. I use peanut oil, widely used in asian kitchens for seasoning woks, and seasoning is super durable, just keeps getting better and better over time. 2. No point in obsessing over the perfect seasoning, getting a clean black finish or whatever. A deep black finish of seasoning will not make the pan perform better in any way. Once you start using the pan and actually cook with it, it will look like shit anyways, and thats okay! Just keep cooking, that will make you and your pan happy! Thanks for your video!

Says: "elbow grease" *Pulls out a power drill

French guy seasoning a wok. Yes please.

I came upon Sheryl's Article years ago, and my my pans have loved me ever since

That is the coolest oven timer I've ever seen

I started using a couple of carbon steel pans, including a large wok, about a year ago. I loved them so much, that I eventually replaced all of my fry pans, including the teflon pan I used for scrambled eggs, with carbon steel. The matfer borgeat I use daily is amazing! I seasoned it using the potato peel method (which is what matfer recommends), and it is as slick as any nonstick. I just used it this morning to make a spanish tortilla and no spatula was required, at all, to get the omlette from the pan! Carbon Steel: it's amazing!

Teflon pans come and go and wear out, but maintained cast iron is nigh indestructible.

I tried it several month ago with my iron pan. Now I know how to stop an oil fire...

I just want to say I really appreciate it when a KZfaqr has an indicator of how long the sponsor section is.

Your technique is flawless. I work for company that sells carbon steel pans and woks. This is perfect. Exactly what I tell my customers who have trouble with seasoning....which is very many of them. Salut!

You can't repair the surface of a Teflon pan, you can fix up any damage with oil seasoning

3:50 when your accent gives out 😂

I've watched lots of videos about seasoning steel pans and this one with a slightly manic French dude is my favorite.

I've been cooking for a while now. And always wanted to know what a seasoned pan even meant and I stumbled on it by accident. Thank you Alex!

Thank you, Alex, you're an inspiration for me. I've used Tyflon for years, but I just bought two new De Buyer steel frying pans, and they're surprisingly good after I seasoned them. They require a bit more skill and proper heating, but I'm really happy with them so far. Thank you!

Alex you have a garden? You should make a series where you grow herbs.

Do the egg test without using oil nor any kind of utensil while cooking to truly test the nonsticking factor. if the egg slides well, then it passes the test.

I've had many cast-iron pans that were more non-stick than teflon. I recently got a fine wok, as a Christmas gift, and seasoned it according to directions. It's not quite non-stick, yet, but it's getting better as I use it.

Alex please explore the magic that is espresso! Make your own espresso machine, learn about growing coffee, roasting coffee, etc!

washing the pan with salt and water will clean the pan soft and gentle and polish the surface at the same time . my grandmother used this mothed for her cast iron .

nobody: him: all the RHHHUSTH iz goone

Thank you for doing lots of seasoning sessions in the oven. Love, your electricity company :D

Alex: There's no chemical Me: Hate to break it to you, but it's nothing but chemicals.

La vraie raison pour laquelle il faut utiliser de l’huile de lin, c’est parce que c’est une des rares huiles à être siccative: elle a la capacité de polymériser ou “durcir” (là chaleur en est un catalyseur). C’est pour ça qu’on l’utilise en peinture a l’huile! Tes vidéos sont top, je les attends toujours avec impatience!

You make a perfectly good argument for the seasoned pan over a teflon coated pan by mentioning the pros and the cons. That way you allow everyone their own choice. That is a perfect example of a not biased explanation. Im in your camp by the way. Thank you for your scientific explanation!

The one thing that sets you apart from most other cooking youtubers imo is that you're not saying thisnthat is incredibly easy. You keep making content around people that are just better at certain things and stay humble during the entire time. This makes advanced cooking and recipes a lot more approachable to me, thanks a lot!

teflon is always better for lower temps. If you're cooking very hot then teflon is not ideal. For eggs teflon is fine. For stir-fry then you don't want teflon.

congratulations on 1 million, Alex; fully desrved.

I always knew my damn oven was in the wrong part of my house. This is my first of your many videos that I am spending the rest of my week watching and liking. You are a human after my own soul. Keep up the wonderful work my friend. Like and subscribe to this awesome channel.

I love you bro. Your videos consistently cheer me up as well as educate me. Thanks for all the great stuff

in woodworking you can use higher and higher grit sandpaper to smooth layers of poly or any coatings. It's essentially the same, if you took a 2000-3000 grit sandpaper at the end, you could smooth it to glass

This is awesome! Alex you the man...we never use our wok because every food sticks to it, but now we can :)

Waiter: How would you like your egg cooked? Alex: Burnt to a crisp.

Can't beat a properly seasoned pan. I have some cast iron from the late 1800's still works great!

0:41 - “vinegar, salt... elbow grease” Really Alex? 0:52 - **uses hand drill** 😂😂

Thank you Alex!! You just made me save alot of steel (carbon steel) pans!!! Appreciate

Great episode. Flaxseed is a 'drying' oil and much better suited to seasoning cast iron/carbon steel. I've switched over and re-seasoned my pans. Also, a touch of dish soap occasionally to get the pans cleaned up will *not* strip/break down the coating. Until I did a little research and actually tried it, I would never have let a drop of soap touch my seasoned pans. But remember, the polymerization is a molecular bonding to the pan, a little soap here and there is not gonna hurt it and helps keep things cleaned up. Just remember to recoat with oil after drying. I like to reheat the pan to make sure the water is gone then apply a light coat with a silicone basting brush - paper towels can leave little bits behind.

I bet Alex is slicker than a nonstick pan with the ladies ;) Love you Alex!

Thanks for the sponsor loading bar Alex, keep up the good work.

This is the Video i found you for... Little did i know that a few month later i watched basically ALL your videos :D Thanks for everything and keep it up

Loved this, editing is spot on

When you peeled the pan before seasoning, it looked beautiful. By the end it was even more. Salut :)

Sheryl : "I did research into chemistry and found the best way to season a pan based in science" Alex: "Okay but I'm still gonna do it different"

I am allergic to teflon - it has taken me 15 years to work out where my headaches came from - so YES your non-stick version is much better - and who wants a fried egg without the butter taste! Thank you for teaching us how to do this.

I season my pans with whatever I can get but this is very informative, I like a hard finish but not lumpy and the thin coating worked a lot better! I even finely sanded with a 1000 grit between layers to get a unique surface. Kinda like layers of paint really!

The hardest, easiest, and most non-stick coating I have ever done came from Flaxseed oil. I've heard you can do even better with Safflower oil though.

This guy is a straight up genius. Videography and editing is so smooth. Such an incredible variety of tasks he has knowledge on.

Your oven timer makes me happy

Ok, i saw two of your videos and i like them. The editing, how you communicate to the viewer, very informative channel and entertaining as well. Now im a subscriber. Keep doing quality vids. :)

Hi, I used these instructions to season my first cast iron pan (thinnest possible coating of linseed oil, baking it in the oven). At first I thought it worked perfectly: after 6 iterations, the pan was almost jet black and the first cooking tests were amazing. But the coat is extremely brittle and easily breaks off. Also, it seems to be very sensitive to heat. People on reddit told me that linseed is actually not very well suited for seasoning. The low smoke point makes the burning in easier, but the coating becomes heat sensitive. Also, linseed oil becomes too hard, the resulting coating is brittle. Many people seem to advocate using an oil with a very high smoking point instead. Also to just burn in one or two layers, then use the pan for daily cooking and wait till it seasons itself. How did this seasoning work out for you, was it durable? Maybe I messed up the process after all and the mistake is on my side.

My new carbon steel wok just passed the egg test this morning. Love your videos! Merci beacoup!

a shear joy to watch you and listen to you!!! so much intelligence and humour!!!

Clicked on this video as soon as I saw the notification!

Found you through This Old Tony, been hooked ever since. Great content keep it up.

Alex, you are brilliant, I don't understand all the negative people. Keep on doing your stuff, I love it.

I realize I only see this video after some time. Great job! I do have to add though, that a wok pan absolutely needs the inner curved sides of it rough instead of smooth because it is originally made for one pan dishes. These rougher upper sides serve for keeping earlier preparations warm while using the lower portion of the pan searingly hot... Just My 2c

It might interest you to know that flax seed oil polymerization is used to create the floor covering called linoleum, which is a very hard, but flexible material perfect to use as floor tiles.

Interesting. I use sunflower oil for my steel skillet- works well. Also I found out that cooking temperature is as important as seasoning. You might have a million layer glass smooth seasoning and still overheat the pan and get sticky food. But then again, you can clean the pan, reseason it and start over :)

That wok is gorgeous man! Great job!

Mate, my research ends here. You and Sheryl Canter made science out of it!

Interesting video, Alex. What do you think of ceramic coated pans or enameled cast iron vs seasoned pans?

The trick for nonstick on a regular pan is to use cold butter and press it into the surface. It's the little divots in the surface that make food stick. So as long as those are filled with oil, and not air the food won't stick to the pan.

la vidéo la plus complète que j'ai vue sur le sujet ... bravo et merci

I like the idea of taking what we have and making it better. I like the craftsmanship involved in taking a pan and seasoning it into a non-stick pan. For the same reason that I appreciate blued guns. What I mean to say there is that, much like with firearms, there are more effective modern coatings than bluing (a coating of black iron oxide, preventing the formation of red iron oxide from forming) But there is a sort of beauty in performing an older, less effective method of coating a firearm that requires care and knowledge of your tool (firearm/pan), especially when performed by the owner. The only place I take issue is when one refers to seasoning a pan as a natural or non-chemical method of making a pan stick less. Flax seeds dont naturally press themselves into an oil, land on a pan, and heat themselves to the point that they polymerize. And polymerization is definitely a man made process, creating a chemical change. Furtger, the person intervoewed states that we are actively looking to create the process heating oil which causes carcinogens in eaten food. I enjoy seasoning my pans. Maybe its safer than teflon, maybe its not. Regardless, seasoning a pan is still creating a manmade chemical coating which, if ingested, is not guaranteed to be safe. I am not stating that chemicals are bad and natural is good. I am stating that I feel it is intellectually dishonest to refer to manmade polymerization as natural/non-chemical, simply because we recognize all of the ingredients involved as natural. Trace any "chemical" back far enough, and you will find a list of completely recognizable ingredients. Trace gasoline back far enough and you get naturally occurring minerals paired with animals and plants fermented by naturally occurring bacteria/fungi. I am not posting this to be confrontational. I am posting this because you asked for opinions on the topic. I love the video (and gave it a like), and I love taking care of my cookware. It says a lot when you walk into a kitchen and see a cook that seasons their pans and sharpens their knives with care.

Never knew a non-stick pan was create from oils. I learned something today lol

Tip, don't use paper towels when cleaning or spreading oil between layers. Use a cotton towel, paper might leave small fragments that will become toast in the heat later on.

I use grapeseed oil, and I season on the grill, but the last step is magical. After three coats of the oil, cut up a red onion and cook the onion (with more grapeseed oil) until it is brown. Use a wooded utensil to stir the onion. This will add that beautiful black layer of beautiful seasoning we all love.

I have wok researched for years and have finally found the way I keep up my wok in perfect condition. I found it at The Woks of Life website. I can make my wok great but the secrets are cooking and maintaining the surface. Plus I can’t imagine any Chinese person using 6 hours of oven time to season a wok. Just saying. Cook cook cook is secret to perfect wok. Love your show by the way. I just found you through Refika’s Kitchen. God I love KZfaq

I feel like he is an American doing a French accent... lol

a nonstick wok is all i want out of life.

Alex, I so enjoy watching your show. Sometimes I learn a lot, sometimes I have fun watching your struggle, but I think you bring a very human element to cooking and I love that about you and your show. If I ever make it over to France, I would so love to hang and cook something

Just in that little conversation w/ Sheryl Canter, she answered my question about smoke points.

I'm not a cook but I'm a cook in my soul and you made me 💯 pumped up i want that so bad 😭

It’s like you’re bluing a steel gun, preparing for Flavor War in the heart of the Flavor Jungle.

"there's no chemical, it's just like a nice, very hard, polymerized surface"

I don't have a wok, however, I do use a Field cast iron pan, and a De Buyer Mineral B. I use Grapeseed oil over the stove. Each time I cook, I clean the pan, then heat it up, apply the oil, wipe almost clean, and let it sit on the heat for a few minutes. wipe, then wipe again while cooling to avoid sticky. then let cool to room temp, and store.

I did it with linen oil, took me whole Sunday, today I made my first stir fry. First washing afterwards (no soap, mind you) and here goes the patina :D

3:49 **Suddenly becomes American**

“We will get rid of the rust with vinegar , salt and elbow grease.” - proceeds go use a Brillo pad attached to a drill.

I use (outdoors) a charcoal chimney starter full of red hot coals to get the bluing. I (per Grace Young I believe) make popcorn in the wok every now and then to maintain the seasoning. EDIT: Never mind... Right after watching and commenting here, KZfaq suggested that I watch Alex's video on making a wok burner out of a chimney starter. 😁

I agree with you in saying that the seasoned wok is better than a Teflon pan. The reason being Teflon isn't nearly as hard or durable as the oil seasoning and, in my opinion, scratches very easily. Pus, the seasoned pan has the benefit that its cheaper and can be redone basically forever, whereas a Teflon pan gradually gets stickier and can't be as easily fixed. Besides, cooking with a little oil or butter will just add flavor alongside it helping things not stick.

Speaking of BBQ... When will you start doing some BBQ on the channel??? The things you can do with a used Weber Kettle BBQ will blow your mind Alex!!!

How do you feel the linseed (flaxseed) oil held up over cooking time or when cooking at higher temperatures such as stir fry? I found it to flake off at higher temps.

I recently seasoned a pan of mine. Tried flaxseed - got a sticky mess. Tried a good coconout oil - worked a treat.

This is nothing that is unfamiliar to cast iron pan owners like myself. What I'd say is that firstly, the pan/wok needs heating with no oil first in order to drive out any residual environmental moisture. In the case of iron, this "opens" the pores (which is not a literal thing, I know). I wipe oil my oil (also linseed) whilst the surface is still warm so that the oil has a lower surface tension and is able to work itself into the surface's structure, microscratches and imperfections better. Beyond that, it's much the same process as here of wiping till cloths come back clean, baking for 30-60mins and repeating several times.

Actually, a textured surface up the sides is a good thing. You often want to move food to a cooler zone up the side, and the texture helps it to stay there. Also, you should have tried the egg before you wasted so much time. It’s ready to use after one or two seasoning cycles. It will get better with time and use but you don’t need to spend all day seasoning before it’s ok to start using it.

A Teflon pan is indeed usually more convenient, the drawback is the fumes one gets when forgetting it on the stove while it's on. My personal preference is doing the same process you did with a regular pan.

Definitely steel for me! No cancerous teflon in my food! Also teflon pans get bad in a couple of years, it's a waste. I have one steel skillet I already use for 20 years and I still love it. Great tips about the seasoning! Definitely going to try this!

So glad I found this video!! Subscribed :)

Hehe, love your jokes ! "spread this like butter on a non-stick pan"!!

*holds up a mirror of blue-black goodness "yeah it's not good enough, it needs a little more smoothening"

I don't have much interest in cooking myself but I love watching cooking videos. With that limited knowledge, my opinion is that a wok is better as you can keep maintaining it throughout the years as compared to Teflon which is assume is hard if not impossible to replicate outside of a factory or lab.