West Bend Popcorn Machine, Stir Crazy Black

Yep, the Whirley Popper went out to the recycle trash contrainer this week! I believe the tough corn we were getting was because the Whirley didn't eliminate the steam as well as it should, tough corn almost everytime. Enter the Stir Crazy. After reading the reviews I decided to order one and we sure are happy with ours. We use coconut oil (I know I know) which makes excellent tasting corn. I use about 1.5 table spoons of coconut oil and .75 teaspoon of popcorn salt and that seems to be just about right. The grand kids enjoy watching the corn pop in the plastic lid and the steam comes out the top, a lot of steam, and with that, we get very fluffy non rubbery popcorn with excellent flavor. The metal stir rod is easy to take off and put back together after cleaning. After making the first batch of corn, my wife told me "honey, we've been missing out by using the Whirley Popper, this corn is the best we've had in years!" She's right, as alway ;>) Easy to use, 3/4 cup of corn will fill the bowl and pops pretty much all the kernels, the corn is fluffy and crunchy, we love this popper, order yours and enjoy it too! ;>) UPDATE: Ooops, we must have gotten a lemon here, 6 months after we purchased this popper, it would no longer work and the Teflon had all but rubbed off in the center of the pan. I did order another one and the newer ones have a "B" in front of the serial number and they have a deeper pan, so this one is working well and popping the corn very quickly and without removing the Teflon from the pan ;>) Still a happy customer, what's $28 with free shipping, that's about the cost of 3 large popcorns at the movies ;>O

I don't like microwave popcorn. The stuff has some sort of heavy oil that coats my mouth afterwards and I'm turned off by all the warnings I've read of many health concerns over microwave popcorn, the stuff they use to coat the bag and the unnecessary added chemicals. I became a stalwart stovetop popper, generally requiring that I use too much oil, making too much mess with spattered oil all over the stove, unavoidable burning of at least a few kernels and smelling up the house that brought complaints from the rest of the family. I finally bought the Stir Crazy popper after looking around a bit for a plug-in self-contained table-top unit. I was heartened by all the positive reviews here, on Amazon, and once it arrived, I eagerly fired up my first batch. 2 tablespoons of oil and a half-cup of popping corn (and I've only used the store-brand supermarket popping corn) yielded a huge batch of popcorn in four minutes with either one or two, or more often, none at all, un-popped kernels. It works perfectly every time! No burning, no big mess, just excellent popcorn! For a unit under $30, it is a wonderful value. I would not hesitate to buy another. My only concerns are minor and they would not deter me from buying this again, but I'll state them nonetheless, The dome cover gets very hot. It rests directly on the perimeter of the cooking surface. Although I don't smell any chemical odors, I wonder about the risk of the plastic becoming unstable when heated and possibly out-gassing chemicals. The domed cover is a little thin and flimsy feeling. The cover that presses onto the top (which would be the bottom if you were to use it as a bowl) is just a press fit, it doesn't snap on or screw on or anything. That cover is left off during popping so that the released steam can escape and can be pressed on to use the domed cover as a bowl. I've resigned myself to not using it. I do not use the dome as a bowl and put the press on cover back in the box. The unit is not immersible. It would be nice if the cooking surface were removable for cleaning or if it was better sealed to the base so that water could be sprayed onto it without the fear of water leaking into the electrical area where the motor and heating element is. It does clean up easily by wiping with a damp sponge or cloth but I'd still feel better being able to give it a periodic washing. Aside from my minor criticisms, it's perfect. It performs flawlessly and my greatest concern now is that I'm now eating too much popcorn as a consequence!

Since my husband's heart attack and since we learned how to reverse his type 2 diabetes, we avoid *all* food chemicals as much as possible. We both loved popcorn, but we tossed out the door the chemical laden microwave convenience popping brands. The past few years we've used the Nordic Ware 60120 Microwaver Popcorn Popper 12 Cup and were satisfied.. until our microwave died. Once we went through the hassle of replacing our over the range microwave, my husband admitted popping popcorn was very hard on a microwave. Just Grrreat. So we were again on the search for a healthful solution to having our favorite healthy snack - popcorn! without destroying our microwave. We knew we did not want a hot air popper - we like the taste of the oils and we realize the important roles of healthy fats in the diet. Growing up his family had a West Bend. I had experienced the delicious popcorn at a friends house, but had never tried one myself. The West Bend arrived last week. We immediately unpacked it, washed the plastic bowl and ensured the prongs did NOT rub the non-stick coating (thanks to comments from previous reviewers!) With nothing to assemble it was mere minutes before we began experimenting with batches of popcorn (we have german shepherds who enjoyed the fruits of our endeavors!) We found the perfect mixture is simply: 1 cup popcorn, 2 tablespoons peanut oil, 2 tablespoons butter. (We realize per the manufacturer the butter is supposed to be in the butter cup above the popcorn - but we don't like any unnecessary mess to clean up!) Plug it in and monitor until the kernels slow / stop popping. We found for the most efficient pop was to warm the kettle for a couple minutes before loading with ingredients. Our granddaughters were coming over, so of course we had to experiment with "kettle corn". It came out amazing! We simply added a small amount of sugar to the above ingredients. There are a number of other recipes in the West Bend Popper manual that we still intend to try. Happy Popping! Update: The popper is still going strong! We have not experienced smoking issues when adding the butter directly to the kettle when adding the oil and popcorn (as has been otherwise indicated). We also add a bit of sea salt (good source of trace minerals!) for perfectly flavored popcorn, every time. We simply warm the kettle a few moments (since it's currently winter here in the Midwest), unplug, add the ingredients and start the popper - perfect results every time. One cup of kernels perfectly fills a Plastic Popcorn Tub - 8.5" Square however ours was very inexpensive from the local dollar store ;-) My husband has limited use of his hand, yet he finds this popper relatively easy to flip when finished. Pr-adolescents may need assistance to flip the hot popper over, but most older adolescents should be able to use this popper - with adult supervision of course!

I miss my old West Bend popper. It worked great for over 10 years and I was bummed when the heating element finally gave out. But, at least it popped great popcorn without a fancy "motorized stirring rod" that will likely break within a few years and didn't work on the first unit received. Don't get me wrong, this newer unit cooks great popcorn with most kernals popped, but the stirring rod scraped the bottom of the pan and would get stuck, so I had to return it for a another one. Grrr. The motorized stirring rod will likely break either due to water getting into the mechanism (from cleaning), or likely just from wear, so if W.B. resumes selling a model without the stirring rod, I'd say go for that one. My only other problem is this thing is HUGE. That may work for a large family, but it is way too big for just one or two people. It takes up a lot of room in my cupboard. Edit 9/2/10: Well, replacement unit is still going strong, with no real problems so I've upped my rating. I've been gentle with it using only a soft sponge to clean so maybe that's why unlike some others the teflon coating appears to be still on the base.

When I first purchased this popper, it seemed like a great innovation. It worked really well, and the popcorn tasted great. It popped fast, and almost all kernels popped. At that point it was a 5 star popper. I'm into it about 3 months now, and with light usage the popper is in pretty bad shape. I cannot safely use it anymore, and it cannot be repaired. 1. The metal bar that moves around scrapes on the bottom of the popper, scraping the Teflon off into my popped corn. I took it off and tried to bend it to keep it off the surface, but there is a stabilizing washer off the motor that heat has destroyed, so no matter how I bend the wire, the motor forces it into the Teflon anyway. 2. A chunk of the adapter plug on the popper broke off, leaving the positive and neutral terminals exposed on the bottom. Again, heat and a cheap polymer caused it to crack under normal use. Unless I am VERY careful to avoid the plug adapter at the popcorn maker, I will experience a 120v wake up call after I plug the popper in. 3. The working conditions of the popper (heat and oil) have caused internal parts to break fall off. I would need to take it completely apart to find out what - I can hear pieces moving around inside. 4. The butter cap has loosened up over time. This can be particularly annoying when I am using the bowl on my lap, the cap comes off, and the excess butter runs down my leg. This is a design flaw. Except for eating Teflon, being a shock hazard, falling apart slowly and multiple pants-changing, this is a great popper.

I would guess that my parents and I have gotten a new popcorn popper every decade since the 1970s. We've had electric, stovetop, hot air, and we've tried microwave popcorn. Simply put, the West Bend Stir Crazy Popcorn Popper is the best. No question about it. It pops in hot oil, so it makes real popcorn, better tasting than anything that comes out of a microwave oven -- and real popcorn is not only better tasting, it's more economical too! The kids can make all the popcorn they want, for a fraction of the cost of any other snack food. And they love to watch it work. I do too. The built-in stir rod, which slowly moves the kernels around while they are cooking in the oil, is perfect and it does a much better job than you could ever do shaking a pot on the stove top. I followed directions: 3 tablespoons oil, 3/4 cup of popcorn kernels, and plug in the machine. A few minutes later when the popping stopped I unplugged it. Perfection! Every kernel was popped. Literally: there was not one unpopped kernel! (I used Orville Redenbacher popcorn.) The dome cover, which can double as a serving bowl, was 100% full. (As has been said, it's important to leave the plastic top off the dome cover while popping, so as to allow steam to escape. Also, I don't put any butter in container on the top of the dome, so as to have all of the holes open and let the maximum amount of steam escape. Finally, I don't use the dome cover as a serving bowl. I find that there's too much condensed steam on the inside. Instead, as soon as the popping is finished, I turn the unit upside down, removed the heating unit and set it aside and put a clean bowl over the popper's dome cover, then holding them together I flip them over so all of the popcorn ends up in the clean bowl.) One smart feature I noticed was that the stir rod reverses direction if a few kernels get stuck under it causing it to jam. I would guess that this keeps the motor from getting too stressed. I will probably give this unit as a gift next Christmas. I love it!

This is a pretty decent electric popper that heats up fairly quickly and is reasonably easy to clean. The spin arm detaches from the heating tray and lets you clean the base with reasonable convenience while the bucket itself is a sturdy plastic that can hold quite a bit of popcorn. The butter tray on top however I find is largely useless, if you use it to dispense butter onto your popcorn as its popping more gets left behind than makes it through the holes provided and then if you're not careful later on, that lid can come off and you wind up with a mess in your lap. With ordinary grocery store, common grade popcorn it does a pretty good job of popping them with around a 90% pop ratio, though a bit of care has to be given to how much oil you use, too much and less kernels wind up popping, not enough and the popped corn tastes a bit dry and styro-foamy, I found the suggested oil measurements a tad bit on the low side but a good base to tweak off of based upon one's personal preferences. What I was disappointed with however was when I used higher quality kernels that have a much better taste profile that this popper doesn't pop them nearly as well. I imagine it has to do with how much heat the heating surface produces because when I make the gourmet kernels in my stovetop, they all pop except for a tiny few stubborn kernels. With this popper I'm lucky to get a 50% popping ratio with my gourmet kernels, and as such this wound up seeing progressively less use. Its good for what its intended for, making cheap popcorn with a minimum of fuss, but for the kind of popcorn I like I found its performance fell short of my wants.

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 lot Anyways, 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=1 4 lbs. Snappy White Popcorn Kernels http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00382UXU4/ref=oh_details_o00_s01_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 1 gallon of White Coconut oil (Snappy's) http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00A2A88ZW/ref=oh_details_o00_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 And 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=1 the 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 soggy I 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 improved Okay 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 popcorn I 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 corn So 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 please Another 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 pops Seriously, 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 stove I 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 cooking In 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 purchases