West Bend Stir Crazy Popcorn Maker - Black Electric Popcorn Popper for Home Theater, Movie Nights & Parties - Perfect for Family Fun & Snack Time

For the record, I've only used this popcorn popper once. That said, I spent a lot of time reading reviews before spending the $28 that I did to buy it from Amazon. I also researched the other ingredients I needed to make the Movie Theater popcorn experience I was after, and found using the right ingredients. First of all, what almost no one mentions, or perhaps they don't think about is this has a 1000 watt rated heater, which means it pops the corn quick and efficiently. I looked at the professional models of popcorn poppers and the best (IMO) made in the U.S. uses a 1200 watt heating element, in all of their commercial poppers, so for this consumer model to have 1000 watts, that's saying a lotAnyways, I doubt once the corn kernels started popping, it didn't take but a minute to pop all of the 1/2 cup of white popcorn kernels I added. When I bought this popper, I also bought these ingredients in the same order:Flavacol Seasoning http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004W8LT10/ref=oh_details_o00_s01_i01?ie=UTF8&psc=14 lbs. Snappy White Popcorn Kernels http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00382UXU4/ref=oh_details_o00_s01_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=11 gallon of White Coconut oil (Snappy's) http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00A2A88ZW/ref=oh_details_o00_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1And a Gallon of O'Dell's Super Kist Two Topping http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002YLNUL4/ref=oh_details_o00_s00_i01?ie=UTF8&psc=1the O'Dell's product is a butter topping you add after the popcorn is popped. I bought a plastic mustard squeeze bottle to pour the O'Dell's topping into then I ran it in my microwave oven for about 45 seconds to heat the oil up. This oil is soybean oil with flavor enhancers added. As I read others say and I agree with them, you use this topping for the texture it gives the popped corn, and you squirt it on like you would add melted butter to your popcorn, but this has no water content like butter has so your popcorn wont get soggyI also followed the advice of others when I made this first batch of popped corn. What I did was to add 3 tablespoons of coconut oil directly to the popper before plugging it in. I then added 1 teaspoon of Flavacol Seasoning on top of the coconut oil, then I plugged the machine in which turns it on as there isn't an on and off switch. When you plug this machine into a wall socket, it's running and wont stop until you unplug it. That said, I did a short dry run with my popper by plugging it in and observing how the wand rotated in relation to the bottom of the popper. Some have had the turning wand arms touch the base of the popper and remove the non stick coating after so many uses. Mine did not touch but if they did, the gage of the metal wand is light enough you can bend the metal to eliminate a rubbing possibility. On that note, on these newer Stir Crazy corn poppers, the center nut which holds the wand in place is a threaded cap, is spring loaded, and enables the metal wand to not touch the popping surface, so the new models like this one have been improvedOkay so the dry test run was completed, making sure the popper got hot and the wand wasn't rubbing...I added the 3 tablespoons of coconut oil, 1 teaspoon of Flavacol and only 4 kernels of popcorn. I then plugged it in. I didn't add the entire 1/2 cup of popcorn as I read it's best to get the machine up to operating temperature before adding the popcorn, and by adding only 4 kernels of corn while it warmed up, once the 4 kernels popped, I knew it was hot enough to add the rest, which I did and that 1/2 cup of pop corn popped in under a minute. Yeah!, it went that quick. Pre-heating your popper eliminates the possibility of over cooking your popcornI want to mention. You don't want to leave the center removable lid on the clear inverted bowl/cover on while the corn pops. The top of the bowl with the holes drilled in it acts as a vent so steam from the corn kernel can vent. If you keep the cover on the vent, that moisture wont escape and you will have soggy popcorn, so leave that lid off while you pop your cornSo how did the popcorn taste? IMO?....it tasted better than what you buy at the movie theater. I was concerned that 1 teaspoon of the Flavacol seasoning might be too much, giving it way too much of a salty taste, yet my biggest critic (Mrs. Jake) told me (when asked) how my popcorn rated on a scale of 1 through 10 with 10 being the highest score. She told me she rated my popcorn a 20. It doesn't get any better than that, and she's hard to pleaseAnother point worth mentioning...you want to add the Flavacol to you oil and not shake it on the popcorn after it's popped. It's flavoring salt (giving the popcorn a buttery salty taste) but this salt is flaked salt and not granular. It's designed as a cooking salt and meant to be added to the oil while the corn popsSeriously, if you research how to make Theater Popcorn at home, you can do it with this Stir Crazy popper and it only costs $28 and not $300 like the better home theater popcorn machines start at. Plus, the Stir Crazy has a smaller foot print, and is much easier to store in a cupboard than a professional popcorn popper for the home, which most leave out in their home theater. I thought about all of this before deciding to buy the Stir Crazy instead of a home theater popcorn machine. I like quality cooking gadgets, but I also like simplicity in my life and I doubt you can get any simpler than a Stir Crazy corn popper, if you want a plug and play corn popper and not the type of machine you have to attend to every second while it's running like you do with the hand crank poppers you use on top of your stoveI also researched what type of oil to use and my research led me to use coconut oil. I also bought the white instead of the yellow coconut oil as I didn't want the beta carotene food coloring that comes with yellow coconut oil, the type that is used for popcorn popping. I'm sure the yellow colored coconut oil is fine for popcorn but I will also use this coconut oil for other cooking tasks, hence the desire to not have yellow enhanced coconut oil for other types of cookingIn closing, it might seem on the surface that buying a gallon of coconut oil and a gallon of O'Dell's Super Kist Two topping is a bit over board, and you can buy smaller containers, but the smaller sizes end up costing a lot more per ounce and if you like to make popcorn, you will be using all of these oils up before they go bad. Same with the Flavacol Seasoning, but I have not seen a smaller container of it for sale. Coconut oil will store for two plus years if stored correctly. Even if I don't use up the entire gallon of topping within the year pull date it comes with, it's still cheaper buying it by the gallon than buying the 16 ounce container of it. I'm totally happy with all of these Amazon purchasesI purchased this two years ago exactly. I had owned one previously, back in the 90's which I gave away when I moved. This is why I purchased it several years later online two years ago. Despite this I am purchasing a new one. Now, about the item: It is fairly easy to keep clean. But, after time oil works its way down between the hot plate and the plastic shell, and with lots of use you'll have drips of old oil leaking out of the bottom and a sticky mess on your counter top under the popper. I was very, very careful. There is nothing you can do to prevent this that I know off. And the hulls also sink down into that gap. I plop the bowl, stir rod and the little screw knob that holds it down into the top rack of the dishwasher without bad results. The settings it has survived is "extra hot water, steam sanitize."Do be careful how you handle the bowl, it could crack a little when hot and it wobbles. Especially during hand washing. Better to put in the top rack of the dishwasher. The edges of the bowl tend to get little cracks over time, but it still is pretty solid regardless. Just handle it with care as it gets older so as not to crack it. The little lid you put on the bottom of the bowl still stays on after all this time! One note: Do not fill the bowl up with water when washing, then try to move it, or pick it up, to dump out the water - that's how I cracked my bowl, about a 2 inch crack by one of the handles. Even so, I was surprised, with basic gentle care, how the cracked bowl held up for another year. :) The crack did not get an worse. Thank-goodness! If you immerse the bowl in a sink full of dishwater - be very careful when picking the bowl up. Even with the holes in the bottom, and water leaking out, the weight of the water could cause your bowl to crack.I have made kettle corn in this. Place a warm wet rag on the cooking plate while still hot to prevent the sugar from glue on to it. Remove the stir rod and the screw down knob and plunk those in some water till you wash them. Also, it would be best to use a separate bowl for serving so you can quickly wipe off the sugar from the popper's bowl because if you don't, melted clear miniscule sugar drops will stick all over it and harden by the time you finish the bowlful of corn, and be very, very difficult to remove when you wash it. Especially since you can't fill the bowl with water and leave it to soak. The bowl can't handle the weight of the water. You could immerse it in a sink of sudsy water to soak, just be sure to gently turn it sidewise to remove the bowl from water!The instructions say not to add salt to the oil. If you do add the fine pop corn salt I noticed that there is a drag of the stir rod, and even the fine pop corn salt sounds like it is scratching the popper's cooking plate. Because of that I do not add salt and spices to the oil unless I need a certain flavor through out.Using butter on the top works, if you cut the butter up into small little bits and distribute it evenly over the holes. My butter was cold and hard, straight out of the fridge. I would help it along by moving the parts that were melting too slowly over a hole every once in a while. Eventually I decided it was much easier to melt the butter in the microwave and mix it in after popping.We used this frequently - sometimes twice a day but also had several months go by when we didn't use it, and decided to use a hot air popper. So, I can honestly say it didn't get used daily over the two years I had this. I was quite sad when I had to chuck the popper out with the trash.What happened is that the popper started having more and more unpopped corn kernels. Over the past month I would sometimes have a failed pop, and when I did a second batch, it was okay. Then one day, I had to pop corn 5 times in a row, and leave it popping even when normally I would have stopped it, (left on even when it popped once ever couple of seconds). I ended up with 1/2 a bowl of popped corn accumulated from the 5 poppings. About 75 percent of the kernels didn't pop. Normally the popped corn would scorch when popped so long. This time not a bit of the corn burnt at all. To me this indicated that the heating elements were not heating the pop corn enough. And out in the trash it went that very day.It seems that the old one I had in the 90's kept better than this one I bought two years ago. I must admit, it probably didn't get as much use as the one I bought two years ago. I did buy a similar, very good brand name pop corn popper,(not a hot air popper type), and it broke after a week or so. It was very poorly designed. I probably have a review of that somewhere on Amazon. So, in comparison with that - I feel this popper held up fairly well. And at the price, I feel it is worth purchasing it again.I am keeping the old bowl, lid, and removable parts and cord as spares for the new one I am ordering given the flimsiness of the bowl. And it will be nice having two bowls when family comes over and wants lots popped corn!We are very disappointed in this product. We had a previous model and it was excellent. The lid broke so we bought this new model and it is very unsatisfactory - leaves at least half the kernels un-popped - and we have tried fresh and different brands of corn. I waited too long to get a refund or replacement so now will be looking for another product. I hope the manufacturers (West Bend) read these reviews!Es muy fácil hacer palomitas, el problema es que la base de teflon no se puede desprender, por lo que cuesta mucho limpiarla. Además tienes que tener mucho cuidado al volver a poner el alambre que las hace girar, ya que hay veces que parece estar puesto correctamente y hasta el momento de girar te das cuenta que no cuando pasa eso se te quema la mitad.item arrived on time and thought that there were no issues. However, the popper has been making very loud grinding noises over the past couple of months. It appears to be coming from inside the machine, gears maybe. Not sure if it is the individual machine or the overall product...At this point in time I would not recommend it.The popper worked good, did as it said it would, however it is not a very robust product. The bowl on the top is made of very thin, brittle plastic. It cracked when I hit it onto my hardwood floor off of the counter. Glass I could understand, but a plastic bowl, I am not impressed.This is my second Stir Crazy popcorn machine, I liked the first better but it died. This does a decent job but the oil sometimes pools in the middle which makes it more difficult to pop all the kernels