Just joined the club! I'd been eyeing this thread for months and been talking about popcorn makers and the wife took that as a hint to get me one for Christmas. Definitely wasn't expecting one but I'm having a lot of fun with it. She got me the Roosevelt from Great Northern. She also bought the pre-packaged kits with the kernels, oil, and seasoning.

I've made several batches now and for some reason it keeps coming out chewy. I thought the kernels were stale so I went out and bought some kernels locally and they taste the same. Any ideas what I might be doing wrong?

I've tried a few different techniques. I've messed around with the machine every day since I got it and twice yesterday trying to get it right:

My first batch I made exactly as the package said which was to pre-heat the kettle for 5-7 minutes and then dump the entire bag of oil, kernels and seasoning in at once.

My second batch I made like the instructions on the machine said. Dump the oil portion of the bag in, then pre-heat for 3-4 minutes, then dump kernels and seasoning.

My third batch I dumped the oil in along with 3-4 kernels and as soon as those popped I dumped the rest of the kernels and seasoning in.

My fourth batch I used the new store bought kernels (assuming the pre-packaged ones were stale since it kept coming out chewy). I dumped in the pre-packaged oil along with 3-4 kernels and threw out the kernels in that bag. Once the test kernels popped I dumped in my new store bought kernels along with Flavacol. Still tasted stale!

My fifth batch I used our own coconut oil and the new store bought kernels. I pre-heated the oil as usual and dumped the kernels in. That batch was the best batch yet but still was chewy.

My sixth batch I went back to the pre-packaged stuff but this time I popped it with the doors open to let out all the steam. That's the best batch yet but still chewy. This time I put in the oil and let it heat for 5-6 minutes before dumping in the kernels.

The only thing I can come up with is that maybe I'm not cooking enough at one time? Our kettle is the 8 oz kettle and I've been using 4 oz packages. My next trial is going to be using two 4 oz packages to see if double the oil helps the situation but I'd love to hear feedback from you guys. Maybe this is just the way it is with these lower priced home-use machines?

Thanks for the advice everyone. I read about leaving the doors open a little on another forum and I did that for a few batches and while it helped some it didn't completely fix the issue. I also read that it's best to leave the popped popcorn on the warming deck for an hour to see if that helps and while that also helps some something was still off about all those previous batches.

kingfishtr: I did another batch last night and used my infrared thermometer and the kettle was getting to around 440. As a last ditch effort I decided to try and pop a full 8 oz portion instead of my usual 4 oz portions and what do you know...it worked. I'm not really sure why but it did. Haha. My only assumption is that 1 oz of oil for the 4 oz portion was too shallow for the 8 oz kettle? So now my next question is can I use 2 oz of oil for a 4 oz portion of popcorn or will it become a soggy mess from all that oil?