Customer Reviews

Waring WPM40 Professional Popcorn Maker

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I purchased the Waring Pro WPM40 after happily using a West Bend Stir Crazy for many years. A few months ago we instituted a weekly movie night among some friends. When making numerous batches I found that the Stir Crazy had a problem with an unacceptable increase in unpopped kernals after the first batch. Purchasing two brand new Stir Crazy poppers did not resolve this problem so I decided to follow the Movie Theater example. After doing a bit of searching on the internet I was unable to find any informative reviews on this style of popper for home use. Without wanting to spend a large amount of money on the true movie theater models I settled on the Waring Pro WPM40 in part due to: it's more reasonable cost; it's close resemblence to the 'pro' models; it was being advertised by some reputable catalog merchandisers; and the Waring brand name.

The popper arrived in perfect condition and was assembled with little effort. Upon reading the manual and comparing it with the user instruction label on the door I found the two disagreed on the amount of oil and popcorn to be used. After numerous trial runs I was able to get mediocre results from it. Rather than use a half cup of popcorn I found that one third of a cup resulted in less unpopped kernals being ejected from the pot(which was still considerable). The problem with this is that it yielded just a small amount of useable popcorn so I had to make numerous batches(approx 10) to have a sufficient quantity for 4 guys(all healthy eaters). This process took perhaps 50 min to accomplish and afterwards the clean up was just as time consuming. After the 10 batches were done the pot was showing noticeable signs of burned on oil residue which required a couple applications of Easy Off oven cleaner. This entailed disassembling the pot and stirring mechanism. After that there was considerable work to clean the popcorn bits and husks(and oil) off of all the inside surfaces(it gets everywhere imaginable). The net result in my opinion, was that there was too much effort in the popping and cleaning processes when compared to the yield.
I decided to return the WPM40 popper and go back to the Stir Crazy(using two machines alternately this time since giving each sufficient time to cool after use appeared to increase efficiency on followup batches).

This unit is by no means a professional popper because it cannot produce enough popcorn fast enough to serve more then one person every 4-5 minutes.

The product info claims that about half a cup of unpopped kernels can produce up to 12 cups of popcorn from this unit. I tried numerous times, using different varieties and quantities of popcorn and oil. The fact is, even when this popper is working at its best, it will only produce a single small serving per batch, (about the size of a large cereal bowl) and it will always waste about 10% of the popcorn kernels you put into it.

The so-called "warming light" is just a standard 60 watt lightbulb. It's not going to warm anything.

Waring calls this a "professional" popper - that is just a brand name. This is a consumer unit made in China. If speed and efficiency is your priority, you can save yourself time, money, and popcorn if you stick with a $20 stovetop manual stirring kettle.

If you're determined to have that movie popper experience, and you have the patience to experiment with how much popcorn to use (as well as having to make multiple batches at a time), this model could function as a novelty toy...

If you take the time to pop up several batches, one right after another, you can fill the bottom/front of the unit like the theatres do, and then scoop it into containers like they do at the movies. If your guests don't mind small servings, they can theoretically get theirs "right out of the kettle" but it will take a few extra minutes to serve everyone.

This was a birthday gift for my wife's birthday. It does an excellent job and is as advertised. Clean up is fast and easy. So is making the popcorn. You can have excellent popcorn in less than 10 minutes. This involves getting the device out of storage, putting it together, preheating, popping and serving.

If you do not clean it everytime which is probably not necessary, well at least IMO but not my wife's, then plan on having excellent corn in about 5 minutes.

My wife, the popcorn lover in the house, verbally swore off Microwave popcorn in front of me while the unit was sitting idle upstairs just waiting to be opened on her birthday.

I guess I bought the right gift.

I purchased this from the Neiman Marcus site where it stated that the kettle held 6-8 oz of unpopped kernels when in fact it does not. It only holds about 4oz of unpopped kernels and even then we still get so many leftover kernels that didn't pop. This machine is terribly overpriced for what it does.

I use this popcorn popper at work daily and got one for at home too. I really like it. It has a seed catcher and if you pop the smaller hulless popcorn you will loose less seeds and we like that baby rice better anyway.

What a great little popper. After having a Nostalgia Electronics 2 oz. popper for several years, I received the Waring Pro WMP40 as a Christmas gift. It worked wonderfully and made great popcorn in minutes. My grandkids love it, too. Clean up is very easy and, with portion-pak oil & corn, there was very little waste. Lots of fun on movie nights!

We originally purchased the smaller model(WPM20...I believe) and returned it because we would have to run two batches to make enough popcorn for 5 people....it seemed much bigger from the outside of the box than it actually was. One batch in the WPM40 is perfect and we love that it has a heating lamp. Cleanup is pretty easy and the machine just seems better built. No complaints at all!

I purchased the Waring Pro WPM40 Professional Popcorn Maker for my husband for a Fathers Day gift. He eats popcorn almost every day so I thought it would be a great idea to get one for him. He loves it and uses it almost every day, especially when company comes over. It is a great conversation piece too. I searched around and compared prices before I found the Waring Pro WPM40 Professional Popcorn Maker. I am very pleased with my purchase and recommend if you are looking for a popcorn maker with great quality and price, try this one.

I bought this machine for my wife who is a real popcorn lover. We've had it for a month and have used it at least 15 times with great results. The machine works wonderfully - just as advertised. The quality of the popcorn it makes very much depends on the quality of the seeds and the oil you use to pop them. I've tried several brands of each with varying results. So far, Orville Redenbacher's original theater brand seems to be the best for us. It came almost completely assembled (no tools required), and clean up is quick and easy. Take care when cleaning as there are a few sharp edges under the bottom panel around the seed tray. This has been a great popcorn popper for us so far, although it's still relatively new.

I got one of these for Xmas and one batch popped enough popcorn to fill a 10" x 5" x 3" (medium size theater bags) in less than 3 mins. If they really love popcorn I would recommend one batch per guest. It actually tasted just like theater popcorn. Clean up was very easy because the door, the lower door panel, the bottom, the kernel tray, and the kettle are easy to remove and replace.