Making the best Popcorn

[Darin Steffl]

Just replying here after we switched to SupurKist a few weeks ago. We were using Louana and Funtastic Buttery flavored topping before.

My opinion is that Supurkist has an amazing aroma and taste compared to the other two we used. The others had almost no aroma and I couldn't taste anything while it was on the popcorn or if I just put some on my finger and licked it.

With Supurkist, the smell and flavor are rich and addicting to me. I've asked some others if they noticed a difference and they claim it's much better. My thoughts are the other topping we used were just for appearance because they didn't do anything to help the taste or smell.

So we are sticking with Supurkist unless something even better comes along.

[Jesse Crooks]

Since there hasn't been much mention of it thus far, I would add that you need to thoroughly clean your kettle on a regular basis. If the bottom of your kettle is black from scalded oil, it needs some help.

[Mike Blakesley]

^^^ True -- you would think that would go without saying, but I have seen many a machine over the years that has caked-on scum.

We have a pretty iron-clad cleaning regimen for our machine -- mainly the kettle must be cleaned and shined every night before the concession crew can leave. The rest of the machine is wiped daily and every Wednesday we "deep clean" it, discard all the old maids and what-not. If you wipe the kettle down good every day while it's still warm, then the oil and crud won't build up and you'll have a shiny machine for many years. (NOTE: We use coconut oil, I'm not sure if the above procedure would work as well with other oils.)

[Marcel Birgelen]

Most oils are still liquid at room temperature, so wiping them down should be easy. Coconut oil melts at 78F/26C, so in most cases it will be solid at room temperature. Keeping your kettle clean is elemental to avoid burning your corn, especially if you're making sweet corn instead of salted popcorn.

[William Kucharski]

What I get a kick out of is "large sized" people asking for "extra butter" on their jumbo popcorn, but then they buy a small Diet Pepsi.

Jokes aside, this is often an issue for diabetics, either type I or type II.

Diabetics don't want the massive amount of sugar in regular Pepsi or other sodas, but are prepared to deal with the carbs in the popcorn.

Though butter is caloric, it has zero carbs and won't affect blood sugar levels, so yes, extra butter on the popcorn and a large diet soda actually does make nutritional sense for some.

[Bob Ezra]

old thread. for Mike Blakesley, seems like Superkist 2 is no longer available. Curious what you've switched to?

[Jack Ondracek]

Years ago, Superkist 2 was a product that had more of a butter look to it. IMO, it tasted much more buttery and less like flavorless oil than some other products out there. "Superkist" was also an O'Dell product you could get. To me, it looked like Carotene-colored Canola oil, with much less flavor than Superkist 2.

We used Superkist 2 up until it was discontinued. I was told, by our foodservice provider, that the company had discontinued Superkist 2 in order to eliminate a trans-fat issue.

I miss the original Superkist 2. It was, IMO, one step below O'Dell's butterfat. Today, I'm using Lou-Ana, because it happens to be what my provider carries and doesn't have the Lecithin in it. It's a lot like the Superkist that's available now... I'm not a fan, and consider this an unresolved problem, since everything short of actual (and more expensive) O'Dell Butterfat just tastes like Wesson oil or Crisco to my blue-collar palate.

There are other butter-flavored toppings out there... some of them quite good. We can't use any of them, because the lecithin builds up in our old Server dispensers, and just about takes a putty knife to remove. That leads my imagination to what might be happening to my arteries.

I imagine the B-in-B dispensers are in our near-future, since Sever is kaput. My guess is that will reduce our options further, since there aren't a lot of companies that sell the oil in that kind of package.

[Bob Ezra]

We were using LouAna until our supplier ,Vistar, stopped carrying it.
Now they have Sunglo- it's ok but seems greasier ( taste wise and floor and carpet stain wise).

There was a Superkist 2 NFT (no trans fat) but that too is discontinued.

BTW we still have a Server butter dispenser,

[Jack Ondracek]

Server... Going to be sad when those things give up. Expensive, but they've sure held up well.

Vistar here, too. Daughter looked it up and says Lou-Ana is currently available from the Portland branch, but she says she has to actually order it to find out if it's in stock.. She says she had to shop around last year, because Vistar's had a tendency to run out of staple items. Seems like it got worse during Covid, and they have yet to recover fully. Coconut oil brands have changed around somewhat frequently as well. A couple of years ago, they ran out of butterfly popcorn. Our salesperson tried to sell us on mushroom corn, saying it was the latest thing, and everyone was switching to it. We started shipping in pallet-loads of butterfly from Gold Medal, just to avoid worrying about backorders.

[Mike Blakesley]

old thread. for Mike Blakesley, seems like Superkist 2 is no longer available. Curious what you've switched to?

I had been told that LouAna had bought out Orville Redenbacher and the LouAna stuff was the same as the O.R., so that's what we've been using with no issues.

We just switched to Vistar a couple months ago and are having the same issue with oil. We've been using LouAna coconut oil for quite a while but just got in a shipment of the SunGlo, so it'll be interesting to see how that goes. I'm a little uneasy about it, given the "greasier" comment above. We have 3 boxes of it currently but haven't put the first one on yet.

One of the main reasons we switched to Vistar was our previous supplier constantly being out of stuff unexpectedly, combined with not having a website to order through. I figured with Vistar being a much bigger company, these shortages and outages would be a thing of the past, but there are some really popular items they are constantly out of. No distributor is perfect, I guess.

[Frank Cox]

The outfit that I get my popcorn supplies from tells me that an item I've ordered is out of stock, and when the order is delivered it's all there anyway.

I guess that's a lack of communication between their office and warehouse.

[Jack Ondracek]

Over the years, we've had good service from Vogel and Weaver popcorn. Currently, both are a little hard to get in my area, at prices I can live with. They've gone from 50lb bags to 35, but the price-per-bag didn't reduce in same proportion. Shrink-flation?

I haven't been a fan of Orville, maybe because of what makes it popular. It pops up like crazy and has great yield, but, I think, that super-expanded volume also makes it more airy and brittle. When my teenagers sift the old maids, they tend to break up a lot of good corn, which goes to waste because I don't want to give my customers a bucket full of little pieces. Trying to train the kids out of their aggressiveness on busy nights hasn't worked well, so we went looking for a slightly more resilient popcorn.

Right now, my corn-of-choice is Tastee-Pop... a Gold Medal product. Its yield is slightly lower than Orville's, but it's a little more dense, which may be why it's less fragile. The finished product isn't quite as huge, but we don't waste nearly as much, so I think I'm ahead on that count. It tastes good, not chalky at all and my customers seem to like it a lot.

Fortunately, I run through enough corn that I can buy, and store it in pallet-size volume. That saves a lot in shipping and lets me buy a notch up the distribution food chain.

Unfortunately, this is kind of how it is right now. Raw corn, buckets, topping, popping oil and staple candy items always seem to be in stock and available to the 3-letter chain (which also is a PFG customer), but sporadically are out of stock when the independents around here get in line. So... we've had to shop for backup sources. Sorry, guys... just can't be out of popcorn, for cryin' out loud.

[Harry Smolin]

We get Vogel and Weaver (they alternate) popcorn from Somerset Foods in Edison, NJ and use LouAna popping oil and Flavacol. I think it's the classic blend of LouAna that we use but I'd have to check on that. Somerset's service has been great. I'd recommend checking with them to see if they service your area.