Worked Perfectly the first time, Easy Setup, Good Popcorn

I purchased one of the StirCrazy popcorn poppers after reading multiple reviews for it online. We like popcorn alot and have tried making it a number of different ways. In the past, I often used a large, (12quart) pot on the stove to make popcorn. I just moved and now we have a electric stove instead of a gas one. The electric stove has a smooth glass top, and I have been afraid to shake the pan around nearly as much as I did on the old gas stove, because I noticed the pan leaving some scratches on the glass top, and as a result of not shacking the pot as vigorously on this stove, my popcorn was not turning out as well. Thus the search for a better solution, and along came the StirCrazy.

The StirCrazy was packaged well, and pretty easy to open and unpack. It was easy to clean and I was able to pretty quickly understand how to use it. I used the 1 cup of popcorn and 3 table spoons of oil as they recommended. I used safflower oil. I like safflower oil, because it does not burn easily and it is a good clean light oil. (I have some nappacks of coconut oil that I will try, but have not tried yet). I put in 1 cup of Orville Redenbacher standard popcorn (I normally use high quality locally grown corn from here in Wisconsin, but I had some of the Orville Redenbacher popcorn, and I though I would use it up).

It took only a few minutes to start popping and it popped very well. One thing I did differently, was I used a popcorn salt that I bought locally ( I bought it from this store: http://www.valleypopcorn.com/ however, I do not see the same salt on there web site) The salt is like a orange very fine powder like talc. I added about 2 teaspoons into the oil with the popcorn in the bottom of the stir crazy. I did not need to add any additional salt to the popcorn when it was done, it worked very well to salt the popcorn.

I put the 6 pats of butter on the top of the unit as the book directed, however the mistake I made was to wait till after I started the unit running to slice up the butter and put it on top of the unit. So the butter did not have enough time to melt. The other mistake I made was that when the popcorn was all popped up, and I saw the butter was not melted, I tried to allow the unit to run for another maybe 20 to 30 seconds, and that was a bad idea, I slightly burned the popcorn on the very bottom. If I had but the butter on in the beginning, I think it would have been find. I unplugged it and pushed the butter around a bit with a table knife, and it eventually melted from the heat of the popcorn and it dripped in on the popcorn. Then I flipped over the bowl as directed, and everything was fine, only thing was I had a few burnt pieces on the top that I had to scrap off the pile into the sink.

Tips I would like to share for everyone to remember:

1. Put even thin slices of butter on the top of the unit before you plug it in.
2. One full cup of popcorn might be slightly too much depending on the brand of the corn, try a little less, like 3/4 of a cup at first and see how it goes.
3. Use better (high) quality popcorn for a much better flavor (i.e. www.valleypopcorn.com [this is the place I buy most of my stuff from, including my salt I talk about below, but they do not have there salt on there web site], www.popcornlovers.com , or from another high quality source). Good Quality Baby Rice popcorn is almost always excellent to use, it has small kernels and is more expensive, but it is worth it.
4. Add a high quality very very fine popcorn salt (powder like) in with your oil. I think this is a far superior way of salting the popcorn, it is a far more even way of salting your popcorn and tastes much better, the trick is to have the very very fine salt. I wish I knew a place online to tell you to but it from, but I can not find the exact product, the following are some suggestions I have for you; (I think this is a fine salt, but it would be better if you can find one locally to look at it and make sure it if a very find powder like talc, I have found that these are the ones that you can mix in with your oil and they will coat the popcorn and flavor it well http://www.ht-express.com/catalog/catalog_detail.asp?CID=100&PI=7349# , The following type of salt is readily available from groceries and such, but it is not really find enough to add straight to the oil in my opinion: http://snappypopcorn.stores.yahoo.net/whitpopsal.html It often is in small glass bottles at stores like Wal-Mart for several dollars) One last option would be to call the place I get it from and ask them to ship it to you, There information is as follows: Valley Popcorn Company, (920) 722-CORN (2676), FAX: (920) 232-1630, E-mail: info@valleypopcorn.com , Toll Free: 1-800-554-5767, the product I use called Flavor-all premium popcorn salt, it is a private label, so I do not know who made it. It was $4.50 for what I would say is about 3 pounds of the product.

These are my suggestions for using this product in the optimal way. One last thing, as far as I can tell, this product will make about the best popcorn you can get short of getting a real popcorn popper (theatre kind) which will run you between $300 and $400 for a pretty good unit.