Damn- I found this thread too late- that sale appears over ;-(

Is this still a good starter machine if one has to pay the full $259 price?

Alternately, anyone know of a better price on it?

Gold Medal 4 oz

but would buy the next time a 8 oz

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It is meant to be mixed with the hot oil & corn in a popcorn kettle. Not really meant to be used as salt by sprinkling on the popped corn. That said, you can attempt to sprinkle it on to your liking. However, since it is so "powder-like" and it tends to stick to itself, it will not sprinkle very well.

As MrBally already mentioned, it's supposed to be mixed in with the oil. Have you ever tried popping your corn in a pot with coconut oil instead of using the air popper? It's obviously a lot higher in calories, but it tastes 1,000 times better. It doesn't come out quite as good as it does from a quality machine, but you can still pop some delicious corn in an ordinary pot. Just add the oil and then mix in the Flavacol after it has melted. Chuck in a couple kernels. When they pop, the oil is ready to add the rest of the corn. Once it starts popping, make sure to shake the pot back and forth on the burner/heating element so the unpopped kernels work their way to the bottom. You'll obviously have to use a lid, but you should keep it slightly askew so that the steam can escape. As far as the Flavacol goes, you'll have to experiment to see how much you like.

The theatre here puts out shakers full of Flavacol next to the hot butter machine. Their popcorn is already horrible and too salty so no idea who uses that, but eh.

For the popcorn gurus:

Looking at this from Costco:
Great Northern "Good Time" machine, 8oz
http://www.costco.com/Great-Northern-Popcorn’s-Good-Time-8-oz-Popcorn-Machine-with-Cart.product.100107720.html

I'm trying to figure out if this has the desirable HEATED warming deck.
The description Says "warming deck"
But there is no actual switch for it. The 3 switches are for:
Pot heater
Stirrer
Warming light

I'm just afraid the warming deck is heated from just that light?

I couldn't find a model specific manual to help clarify either....

We have an air popper and what I do is pour some melted butter and throw on Parmesan cheese; fantastic.

The light usually turns on the warmer for home units.

We have the black version of that one at the office, and it does have a heating element underneath the deck that warms the popcorn in addition to the lamp. I believe both are turned on by the same switch.

Thanks!! I just ordered one!

You are gonna love it.

We did three 8oz packages on the 4th of July, the popcorn was a huge hit.

Yes- the timing on this is perfect...

My teen daughter recently started making popcorn on the stove in a big iron pot-something one of her orients started doing.

I was about to tease her for not just microwaving it..... Until I tasted the difference!!!!

She's gonna be in heaven with this machine!

I'm planning on an 8oz maker. How well does a smaller quantity work? Can I put a 2oz or 4oz and the corresponding oil in it? The reason I ask is I'm wondering if the oil for 2oz or 4oz will be "deep" enough in a larger 8oz kettle for it to work well. Most of the time I'd be consuming a small amount but I want a bigger kettle when there's a party going on...

I do half batches all the time in my 8oz popper and it's fine. Scoop in one tablespoon of oil, heat for 5 minutes, add 1/2 cup of popcorn, flavacol, done. Haven't tried less than that.

I've never done a 2oz in my 8oz, but I've done the 4oz packs in it just fine.

I should have bought a 16oz version! My wife had her family over last week and we went through 15 pre-packed 8oz bags!

Whoa! That's like 4 billion dollars at a movie theater.

Yup- I just wish I could find one locally- I think Im stuck with 7-10 days shipping from Costco... hopefully not directly from China

Im starting to rethink the 8oz version a bit too....

Overkill for MOSTLY family use and occasional party use?

I think 8oz hits the sweet spot for home use. You can always pop 4oz or 6oz portions in it, but it's nice to be able to churn out larger batches when you want to.

8oz is just fine for home use with the occasional party.

You see 8oz in small bars all the time. They cook up 4 batches to start the night, then play it by ear.

Which model is it though? Im now seeing like 5 different 8oz machines they have:

Antique
Foundation
Good Time
All-star

ugh!

Damnit.... thread is costing me money!

Even more dollars using Canadian currency. The GST and PST are oppressive.

The government has gotten rid of GST and PST and change it to HST (Harmonized Sales Tax). Just wanted you to know. Still very impressive!

8oz is perfect for me, my wife and two children under 6 on movie night. We eat the entire thing.

Well, I spoke with a super nice guy from a local Gold Medal branch (Greensboro, NC) and it convinced me I wanted to try to buy a GM machine if at all possible.... I also realized we have 3 of their machines at our high school (I'm on the sports booster club, so I get stuck running concessions about 4 times a year).

The challenge- the cheapest GM they quoted me was like ~$500 for the 4oz and ~$625 for the 8oz (priced with cart- since I really wanted a cart)....

So 2-3x the cost of the Great Northerns I was looking at.... so I took a shot in the dark with ebay and craiglist..

BAM, Almost unused GM machine (with cart) listed today! $300! For a Gay 90's Whiz Bang?!?!?!

Gay '90's Whizbang?
OK, that made me nervous... I was expecting for the price that would be some small cheesy model.

Nope. Actually bigger than I wanted (which might be an issue?). So, I bolted out the door to look at it (it was only 15min away). Sure enough, it was in near perfect shape- still had some protective plastic stuff on the metal pieces!

SOLD!

Funny that when I was in Windsor a few days ago and ate lunch with my son, I never looked at the receipt. I would have noticed the HST instead of the two other taxes.

OK, this is the model.... its sexy as hell!

But now I need supplies! All the pre-packaged stuff I saw on Amazon was for 4, 6, 8oz machines.

1. Can I get away with running an 8oz batch? too small?
2. Do I just double-up the 6oz packages?
3. Do I need to bite the bullet and just buy bulk stuff?

Killing me that Im staring at this machine and will probably now have to wait 3 days for popcorn supplies! Im half tempted to go to food lion and buy some plain kernals and coconut oil and tryi it out!

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Congrats! That's a beautiful machine, and a real workhorse. They have the exact same one at a hardware store by me. They've been churning out popcorn with it every day for YEARS. Those commercial Gold Medal poppers are built like tanks.

If you go to Food Lion, make sure the sell by dates have not been tampered with nor was anything soaked in bleach

That is a great machine. Those hanger arms are real solid. GM Greensboro will have 12oz Mega Pop kits. It will make the best popcorn possible. You can proabably buy 12oz Mega Pop kits anywhere are online. Two 6oz kits will work fine too. I would not buy bulk. You will not make enough popcorn to justify the small savings. Measuring out good oil is no fun either.

I asked this same questions and apparently the only difference is the styling.

+1 on the GM Mega Pop kits.

A word of warning, do not leave popcorn or butter or anything liquid on the roof of the machine, on the gears for the stirrer, or on the screws on the roof. I am getting a lot of my great northern popper replaced for free by the company because it rusted. The roof rusts, the gears rust and the screws rust all on the inside ceiling. If you clean religiously after use you may get some good mileage out of the machine, but if you do not the parts will all rust and the machine will become unusable extremely quickly.
To reiterate, the ceiling, gears and screws on the inside roof of the popper are NOT made of stainless or rust-resistant material and there are no upgrade parts available. Clean religiously or lose your machine. If it happened already, great northern may replace the parts (they did for me, my popper was bought in April of this year).

Most machines say to coat the interior metal parts with coconut oil to "season" the metal before you start to use it.

The baked on oil coating helps prevent rust from all the salt.

Buy a machine that is made in America if at all possible.

GM mega pop kits arrived today....

new Gold Medal popper out into use 5 minutes later

I was recently at a local collector's home to purchase his nice HUO 'Jurassic Park' pinball machine and he had a few extremely nice restored 'Holcomb & Hoke Butter-Kist' popcorn machines in his collection. A couple of his popcorn machines are pictured below.

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I found the following YouTube video showing this type of popcorn machine in action.

I also really liked the 'Evans Ten Strike' machine that he had which is shown below.

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Gord

I'm getting those rust spots already on the ceiling of mine. Just bought it a couple months ago. How did you contact them for help?

Am I crazy or is the DAY OLD popcorn from this machine still delicious (and still 10x better than mirco stuff)?!?!?!

Just turn on the heater for a while and you are good to go.

I didnt bother... just kept grabbing handfuls when I walked by.

The warming deck heater CRANKS though.... I assumed it would just take the chill off the stainless steel deck, but that things gets HOT. Glad I opted for a model that included that feature!

Mine is less than 2 months old and I'm seeing rust where you mention. I'll probably just swap them out with some screws from the hardware store. For the gears I'll bath them in coconut oil as Vid suggests.

If you do swap out the screws, please let us know what size they are.

What's interesting is that if you look at the thousand plus reviews on Amazon, rust is only mentioned a handful of times. Either people posted the reviews before the rust occurred, it only happens on some machines, or a majority of the people simply don't notice it. Regardless, it's still very concerning. I guess there is a reason why the Great Northern machines are so much less expensive than brands like Paragon, Gold Medal and Cretors.

I checked and I also have a small amount of rust on the screws and gear. I'll treat them this weekend and try to take pics/notes.

Can so one post a pic of the rust. Want to know exactly where to look. Thanks.

If nobody does it before I get to it on Saturday night then I will for sure.

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I emailed sales at greatnorthernpopcorn and they were extremely easy to deal with and very responsive. The unfortunate conclusion is that this popper is lower quality than I wanted, with no upgrade available, so I am gonna fix it and bathe the thing in oil and live with my sorrow for a while before I bite the bullet and sell the poc and buy a better model from a more expensive and established company.

Any restaurant supply or sheet metal shop could bend you a new roof out of stainless steel, if you don't like the look of the galvanized metal reacting to all the salt.

A 24"x 24" square of 26ga stainless is ~$20 + .25 hour shop time ~$15.

Or if you have a sheet brake at work or your father in law's garage, bend it yourself for free.

Hell, run off 25 of 'em and sell them on Pinside.

Mine has had no reaction on the top or the hanging brackets for the kettle. My rust is just on the screw hardware they used and the e-clip they used I believe.

If only they would have known in advance that the machine would produce a high humidity, high salt environment.