The 35 Paella pan is finally here! Here's a pic of it next to its smaller G1 siblings for scale.
I appreciate the refined fit-n-finish of the new pan. As many of you know, the handles of the original pans have fairly sharp edges. One day I'll get around to grinding them down. Darto has clearly heard our concerns, and so they took the time and effort to slightly round off the edges from the handles, underside of handles, pan edges. Much appreciated!
The pan came with a protective coating of wax, or something or another, that just took some elbow grease, dawn, hot water, and a stainless scrubby to remove.
As far as seasoning, I admit I don't really fuss or buy into the multi-layer baking process. I own these 4 Darto pans, a boatload of Lodges, other carbon steel pans and woks, and all I've ever done was "sacrifice" a couple of eggs during 1st seasoning.
I just heat up a neutral oil till smoking, throw in the eggs, a load of kosher salt, and just "scramble" till the eggs dry up. Again, as many of you likely know, if you just put oil in a pan, it can gunk up and turn sticky. The eggs serve as both an oil sponge and a towel of sorts that allows me to rub the oil in the pan smoothly.
Dump out the eggs and salt, wipe it down with paper towels, and done. Time to get on with normal cooking.
I don't know if this helps or just inflames the "seasoning" argument, but this is what I do, what I've done for a couple of decades, and all my various iron / steel pans are super slick.
I plan to use this pan extensively for Tapas on my 26" Weber kettle. I burn white oak and cook the tapas over open flame in my Darto pans, Columbian black clay pans, Spanish cazuela, etc.