Quoted from Tbgolfen:

After seeing this thread, I bought a popper and made the first batch last night. It was easy and the family loved it. image.jpg

Quoted from Waldo:

From experience what brand has the best popcorn packs? Great Northern, Pop Weaver, etc?

Quoted from ovfdfireman:

Best advice, seal it in a 5 gallon pail.
As far as popcorn types, I love a tender white popcorn, made in olive oil light salt. This is healthy and incredible. We do yellow corn with coconut oil and butter for theatre style, unhealthy as hell but love it.
Popcorn types vary, snowflake or butterfly popcorn is well known for its use in theater-style and home-popped popcorn products, usually offered-up with nothing more than a little salt and perhaps some melted butter. Its relatively delicate shape means butterfly popcorn is best consumed fresh-popped for maximum crunch and freshness. It has fragile butterfly wings if you will....
Mushroom popcorn is perfect for confection-coated applications such as Caramel Corn. Its sturdy baseball shape (without those fragile butterfly wings) withstands the processes of candy-coating, and because of its exceptional surface area, accepts other flavors (like cheddar cheese!) very well too. The resulting products are less prone to crushing, and once coated, will tend to stay fresh and crispy much longer than their uncoated butterfly popcorn counterparts.
Also the expansion ratio is much higher on mushroom, so coated get a fuller bag for less $[quoted image]

Quoted from Pinballlew:

Check out weaselfest recipe reposted below from his post number 199 on this thread.
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/popcorn-machine-who-has-one/page/4#post-2149294
For you folks willing to go to the effort, here is my proven caramel corn recipe. I make 4-5 batches of this every Christmas. This is the only time I use air popped corn. Don't know if there is any truth to it, but I feel the absence of oil on the corn helps the caramel penetrate the kernel better. You will want a heavy pan to cook the caramel in, one with taller sides, as the baking soda will make the syrup foam up, almost doubling in volume.
2 cups dark brown sugar
1/2 cup white corn syrup
2 sticks margarine or butter
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
pinch cream of tarter
8 quarts popped corn (approx 2 cups unpopped) and oven safe pan to hold all with room to stir. I use an 18" wok or the turkey roaster.
In a large heavy saucepan/ dutch oven over medium heat, melt the butter. Add the brown sugar and corn syrup, mix well. Bring these first three ingredients to a boil, maintain for 5 minutes to bring caramel to the soft ball stage. ( Test a few drops in ice water) Add the salt, baking soda and cream of tarter and fold in to incorporate. Pour caramel mixture over popcorn, toss to coat. Bake in 250 degree (F) oven for 1 hour, stirring at 15 minute intervals. Lay out 2- 24" pieces of waxed paper to pour hot caramel corn on to cool. Break apart large clumps before caramel hardens. Store in airtight container on the outside chance there is any left to store. If you cook the caramel properly, this stuff will melt in your mouth.

Quoted from ovfdfireman:

I use premeasured pouches in my 8oz as well, seems the easiest and most consistent. Our popcorn popper is in our game room where we have no stove, so the added space of the popper is welcomed.
I use the whirly for making any kind of popcorn at home, but primarily white corn (like Colby Ridge). It is again the most healthy. In the whirly you can make basic corn for caramel coating, sugar corn, and even attempt kettle corn.
Recipes
Caramel
Pinballlew’s recipe is pretty much the same as mine, I don’t use cream of tarter. This one is labor intensive and batch size is very limited in a residential oven. Another option is to use gold medal glaze pop for quick easy caramel corn. Does not require baking. Plus they have other flavors, I like the cinnamon as well. No doubt the real recipe with butter etc is better......but sometimes I am not willing to spend 2 hours making it so it’s nice to have a quick version. https://shop.gmpopcorn.com/products/caramel-glaze-pop-2525
Kettle
I will be flat out honest, it will turn out “ok”. If it was easy to make kettle corn at home I would not have bought my own kettle. Timing is everything, when to add sugar etc, and heat must be high. If you use 1/2 cup corn, then use 1/4 cup sugar. High heat, plenty of oil, and add sugar just before corn is about to pop, but not so late it doesn’t melt. This will not work in a popcorn machine unless it is specifically meant for kettle corn, so it’s whirly popper or a special machine.
Hope that helps!

Quoted from tomservo:

Here's my Manley Aristocrat Model 32 (mid-1950's)
I have some history with this popcorn machine. My parents owned & operated a single screen movie theater in a small town in upper Michigan from the late 70's through the early 90's. I made the popcorn and sold concessions from when I was in 7th - 11th grade, so roughly throughout mid to late 80's.
Fast-forward: my parents sold the theater, popcorn machine went into storage from about 1995 - 2020, and I ended up with it. In spring of 2020, I got it out of storage and cleaned it up. It was pretty dirty when I got it out of storage, but it cleaned up very nice.
Still working great and making delicious corn 70+ years later. We make popcorn every Friday or Saturday for movie night.
A link to a google album of my clean-up and getting it going again is here: https://photos.app.goo.gl/YHYNFzBcQsN9iPF5A
Any questions about this particular model, please let me know...
Oh, and the manual for this popcorn machine, with many delightful selling tips ("Look neat in a starched uniform") and recipes... https://drive.google.com/file/d/1M210DLU92h4MSp_1tbntoDWP21OVofih/view?usp=sharing
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