I bought this to replace my nearly 10 year-old model, It was still working fine, but I thought I'd be better off with a new one that is BPH-free. I have used the new one about a dozen times and the heat concentrator burns with one use. Not just a little - a hole is burned in the concentrator and it stinks of burning something, which taints the batch of popcorn. In all the years of using the older model, I never had a concentrator that even came close to looking like it was on the verge of burning. I always used the same concentrator over repeatedly, and tossed it when it started to get brown. According to what I read in the instructions, I probably tossed it before I needed to but the point here is, that now I can't get through one use without the concentrator being destroyed by burning. It is kind of freaky with popped corn wedged in the burned-out hole. I do not pop it any longer now than I did before, in fact am now stopping it earlier, trying to prevent the burning, resulting in progressively more and more un-popped kernels. Wish I had not tossed my old one. I don't know if this is a larger fire risk, but it isn't good popcorn.
I bought this to replace my nearly 10 year-old model, It was still working fine, but I thought I'd be better off with a new one that is BPH-free. I have used the new one about a dozen times and the heat concentrator burns with one use. Not just a little - a hole is burned in the concentrator and it stinks of burning something, which taints the batch of popcorn. In all the years of using the older model, I never had a concentrator that even came close to looking like it was on the verge of burning. I always used the same concentrator over repeatedly, and tossed it when it started to get brown. According to what I read in the instructions, I probably tossed it before I needed to but the point here is, that now I can't get through one use without the concentrator being destroyed by burning. It is kind of freaky with popped corn wedged in the burned-out hole. I do not pop it any longer now than I did before, in fact am now stopping it earlier, trying to prevent the burning, resulting in progressively more and more un-popped kernels. Wish I had not tossed my old one. I don't know if this is a larger fire risk, but it isn't good popcorn.