Popcorn Machine, 6-Quart Popcorn Popper maker, Nonstick Plate, Electric Stirring with Quick-Heat Technology, Cool Touch Handles (Black)

First off - this is a fantsatic product. It does exactly what you bought it for - it pops popcorn like you wouldn't believe! The unit is made up of : 1)A small plastic lid, 2)A clear plastic dome, 3)A middle part with a two armed toner arm which swirls the popcorn around (very nice!), 4)A bottom unit with a heater coil in it, and 5)An electrical cord. My unit is black and red. Normal usage: 1)Make sure parts #1, #2, and #3 are clean. Wash in soapy water or put in dishwasher. 2)Assemble parts #4 & #3 by placing #3 on top of #4 and ensure the tone arms are locked in place. In other words - if you can still use a finger and rotate the tone arms - then it is NOT locked in place. 3)Put enough oil so there is a bit ONLY INSIDE of the inner most area. Part #3 has two rings inside of it. Oil should ONLY GO in the inner most ring. DO NOT DRENCH IT. Just make sure there is some in the inner ring all the way around. 4)Put enough popcorn kernels into the unit to basically cover the oil. So again - you aren't trying to feed the world! Just enough to cover the oil you put in. 5)Place part #2 (the clear dome) on top of the unit covering part #3. Make sure it actually is fitted together correctly. 6)Ensure the plastic lid is not on the unit. It should be sitting next to it. 7)NOW plug in the unit and turn on the unit. The toner arm should swirl around, moving the kernels. But do NOT panic if it does not. Sometimes the oil will make the toner arm just go over (or on top of) the kernels. Once everything heats up and kernels start to pop - then the rest of the kernels will start moving. 8)Once the amount of popping has gone down - turn the unit off via the switch AND THEN unplug it. 9)Make sure the plastic lid is set away from the unit. 10)Pick BOTH the clear dome (part #2) AND the middle part (Part #3) uptogether, flip it AWAY from you, and set it down on top of the plastic lid. 11)Once the dome is on the lid, lift the middle part (part #3) up, flip it back over, and set back down on the bottom (part #4). Now you are ready to enjoy your popcorn. Put whatever you want onto it. Have fun! :-) Ok - so the Good: It is durable. It does what it is supposed to do. Everything fits together terrifically. The domed lid does NOT crack easily. The dome lid is great for serving the popcorn in. The popcorn pops fantastically well with only a few kernels getting burnt on the bottom and otherwise - just wonderful popcorn! The Bad - The handles are not big enough on the unit. Parts #3 & #4 get REALLY HOT and some of this heat is transferred to the clear dome(#2) above. So it should be emphaized is gigantic letters that you MUST have something to pick up parts #2 & #3 after the kernels have finished popping. Second, it can not be emphasized enough to NOT FLIP the until TOWARDS you. You can get burned easily doing that. Next, the power on/off button is really way too small and hard to use when the bottom is hot. The switch should be changed to a different type of button that can be easily turned on or off. The Ugly: I managed to burn myself badly with the unit. I had made several bowls of popcorn during this past month without any kind of problem Then - tonight. I made a great big bowl of popcorn and when I went to flip it - my fingers slipped and touched the extremely hot middle section. Because there is almost no insulation on this section and because the handles are small - I managed to burn three of my fingers. Luckily, I also had a 2 gallon jug of freezing cold water I had just taken out of the refrigerator next to me. So I slapped the middle part (#3) down on top of the bottom (#4) and then grabbed the pitcher. So far - I am doing ok. But the lesson is clear - that middle section (#3) gets extremely hot. So the ugly truth is - always wear protective gear when dealing with this unit. I happen to have those Teflon gloves they used to sell and will wear them from now on. So, in conclusion: The unit is great. It does exactly what they say it is supposed to do BUT the unit gets very-very hot and if you don't want to get burned like me - wear somethen (or use something) when dealing with it. Don't get burned - literally. Otherwise - fantastic unit!

I eat LOTS of popcorn. I’ve had a Stir Crazy popper for years. I will never go back after trying the Yabano. I love the design! Heat is closer to the plate which pops popcorn fantastically. Easy to clean since the base is two pieces. Only thing to get used to is the base plate stays hot enough to scorch some of the kernels if you don’t turn it over instantly. The black lid isn’t easy to snap on until the heat stops rising out of the holes, so you have to adapt a little for that. I’ve tried laying the black lid on the counter so I can turn the bowl upside down in the lid right after stopping the unit. I might try turning it over on a paper towel, and then adding the black lid. The plastic bowl seems better than the SC popper. It is a super fantastic popcorn popper.

Love this little corn popper

I love this popper SO much!! Truly everything I could want, except for one thing. I’ve had it for a year and a half and it recently started cracking bad. Won’t be long before it’s completely unusable. I would expect this to last longer than a year and a half, especially considering it’s not something I use every day. They should make it to last or at the VERY LEAST sell lid replacements. :( I’ve also loved how this popper pops ALL of the corns, I only have maybe 1-2 that don’t pop. Now with all these cracks, it’s not popping as much and there are several kernels left unpopped. If you’ve had it less than a year a half, you’ll eventually be saddened. My parents got this popper about the same time as me, and recently replaced theirs for a different brand because the same thing happened to them with the cracks.

This popper is so much easier than pooping corn on the stove. I prefer to use small, heirloom kernels -- they pop up smaller than most popcorn, but they have much more flavor and a crisper texture. I dislike microwave popcorn with the odd, greasy aftertaste and waxy feeling it leaves behind in my mouth. Real butter, with just a smidgeon of sea salt, is the way to go, and this pooper does that beautifully. I love that the parts of this popper that touch the oil, corn and salt are all dishwasher safe, so I can choose to wash them by hand or just let my teens toss them into the dishwasher. The only drawback I found is the seal over the dome -- which turns into the bottom of the popcorn bowl to cover the steam vent holes when you tip it over for serving -- repeatedly falls off, messing up tables, clothes or my wheelchair lap blanket. What a buttery mess! A redesign should be attempted to remedy that situation. Simply pouring the pooped corn into a serving or large mixing bowl is a good work-around, but then, dirties another bowl and negates some of the ease of use.

I love popcorn. I buy mine from an Amish farm in northern Indiana. For 35 years, I’ve popped it in a Stir Crazy Popcorn Popper. Every so often, I’d have to buy a new one because it just quit working properly. Over the last 10 years, I’ve had to buy 3 of them because the rate of failure increased enough that I went looking for a competitor. I found this one. Strange name. Seriously better popper. The biggest failing of the Stir Crazy is the nooks and grooves that collect cooking oil and gunk up the popper. Since you can’t submerge the base, you have to clean it with damp paper towels and toothpicks. Not a lot of fun, but it worked. With this popper, the entire popping surface comes off of the heating element. It can be placed in a dishwasher and all of the gunk gets cleaned up like it was new. Second, they increased the power. MORE POWER! The element gets hotter, popping the corn faster. The Stir Crazy was underpowered and my batch would sometimes pop in three waves. This caused the wait time to produce a popper of corn to ten minutes or more, often burning some of the popcorn. That’s sacrilege! No burned corn! All in all, this popper wins. I don’t know yet if it will last longer than the Stir Crazy, but so far, it has solved all of the problems that still plagued the formerly best popper on the market.

This popcorn maker is a knockoff of the "improved" version of the West Bend Stir Crazy popcorn popper. It's OK, but they really should have knocked off the original version West Bend (model 82505) because it's better in most respects. I have the original West Bend and I eat a *lot* of popcorn, so I figured I'd try this one to see if it was any better. If you don't want to read past this paragraph, just take my advice and get the 82505. It's cheaper and much better. The "improvement" of this version is that now the cooking surface separates from the base of the unit, ostensibly making it easier to clean (you can throw the cooking surface in the dishwasher) and easier to handle as you invert it to dump the popped popcorn into the bowl. This seems good on paper, but in actual practice the advantages are negligible and it creates several major design flaws (below). As I mentioned, the advantages are non-existent in practice. The ability to put the cooking surface in the dishwasher isn’t useful, because it already has a non-stick surface and it’s just popcorn you’re cooking. Honestly, you just wipe it off with a paper towel and you’re done. I never had issues cleaning the original and I never felt compelled to put this one in the dishwasher. As for it being easier to handle when dumping the popcorn, the original version is also very light and I never had any issues dumping it. I can’t imagine many people would. And now, the flaws. The most serious is that since you can separate the cooking surface from the base, you now have two dangerously hot surfaces to contend with while dumping thee popcorn instead of just one (the actual heating elements are in the base). Apparently that’s one too many things for me to handle; I’ve almost burned my forearm/elbow twice while using this thing. If you have young children, the original version would require close supervision, but this version should be a non-starter. Also, since the heating elements are farther away from the cooking surface, the cooking surface doesn’t get as hot. Not only does this mean that it takes noticeably longer to cook the popcorn, but since there’s a longer time between when the first kernels pop and the last, the kernels that pop first will be burned by the time the last kernels are popped. This was never an issue with the original so long as you remove the popcorn promptly after it’s done popping. TL;DR - get the original West Bend!

I was quite hesitant to order this particular unit after reading some rather chancy reviews: used equipment, flaky quality, broken units, but finally decided to take the plunge. For decades I have been happy using my aluminum "whirley" popper on an electric cook top; great results and nice butterflies for decades: tasty treats. When the wife went to an induction cook top, those days expired. Now, I like my light, fluffy butterflies and the question was, can this popper regulate the heat to product these? Well, yes it does. At first, I followed the recommendations for proportions, but discovered that they recommend far too much oil which gets out of hand and coats everything; I use olive oil because of the taste, and have kept cutting back and cutting back. Now fewer that 8 ml. on 140-160 ml kernels. The first few pops are mushrooms, but once 5-6 pop, it hits the right temperature and smiles at me with beautiful butterflies. One other discovery: when it gets down to 5-6 seconds between pops, shut it down and immediately invert the popper/bowl combination to avoid scorching. We like to divide the large bowl into two bowls to share, and going from the original to a smaller one can be messy. We're still working on that. Yes,I like this popper. Yes, I would recommend it to a friend.