Here’s the deal: my wife was cooking ribs, and the Pyrex baking dish shattered in the oven! :eek:
Not a huge deal, really… but it has us puzzled as to why it happened.
Before anyone asks, the dish was not chipped or cracked at all (yes, I’m sure; I had just washed and dried it before the wife popped it in the oven.).
The dish had survived many trips to the oven bearing chicken, ribs, etc. The only thing different this time was that my wife, for some reason, placed the ribs upon two thick, round slices of onion, so that the ribs were lifted above the bottom of the Pyrex dish maybe a half an inch or so. In the oven they went, riding above the onion slices, and about 30 minutes later we heard CRACK! The dish had shattered into a million pieces (estimate… I didn’t actually count.), and we were ordering pizza.
Any ideas? Could the fact that the ribs were raised off the bottom of the dish have caused some weird air circulation deal that shattered the dish?
It wasn’t previously put in the microwave, was it?
Microwaves can cause tempered glass to explode… and not necessarily right away. My friend chose to disregard the warning and it blew up after we had all helped ourselves to reheated brownies.
Nope… it was never in the microwave. It was too big to fit in there.
And it wasn’t that old… maybe a year or so? All the dishes we have are fairly new, as we had to buy new ones when we moved to San Diego from Korea last year.
Pyrex can handle extremes of heat and cold, but I know from experience that it can’t necessarily handle instant changes from deep cold to high heat, or vice versa. How cold were the ribs? Perhaps the glass heated up, but the ribs were not in contact and did not heat up–then they collapsed on the glass.
I’ve had some crack from sudden spreading of pooled liquid. Glass comes up to oven temperatures, and then the fat, marinade, or whatever overfills it’s carmelized boundaries and spreads… cools the glass rapidly and CRACK.
I haven’t had one “shatter into a million pieces”, which makes me think it was a manufacturing defect… improper annealing or something.
The exact same thing happend to me a year or so ago, only I was using an Anchor-Hocking glass dish.
I had taken the dish out of the cupboard and put the thawed ribs with onions and bbq sauce in it, popped it in the oven and about 20 minutes later I heard the glass shattering.
We, too, had pizza.
( heres a suggestion, clean the oven as soon as it cools enough to do it, I waited and I regret that. )
A slight hijack here, but do you have a cite for this warning? I’ve often used a Pyrex™ measuring jug (1 or 2 cup) to reheat food in the microwave and, obviously, never had a problem.
For some reason, I can’t seem to find Pyrex glassware. Anyway, I was using an “oven safe” one-cup measuring cup to cook some French onion soup in the oven. It’s really good Trader Joe’s soup that comes frozen. I put the frozen soup into cup (which it fit perfectly in diameter) and cooked it. When it was done I went to pour it into a bowl. When I tilted the cup, it shattered. I had cooked the same kind of soup in it many times with no problem. Bummer, since I was realy hungry. But not hungry enough to eat glass.
Every Pyrex container I’ve ever purchased is clearly labelled Microwave, Dishwasher, Oven safe. I’ve also microwaved my Pyrex oh, about a gazillion times.
Methinks you’re thinking of something other than Pyrex.
Yeah, I always thought Pyrex was marketed as being convenient because it can be used in so many different kitchen appliances, like microwaves and conventional ovens. I tried to search Google to find more information, and apparently it is used for sex toys, too. Very versatile. :smack:
I should explain something about Pyrex, and borosilicate glass in general. The reason ordinary glass shatters when heated or cooled is because it heats unevenly. Heat expands things, and uneven heating causes uneven expansion – one section of glass is “trying” to be bigger than a neighboring section. The internal strain breaks the glass.
Pyrex (and Kimax, a competing brand of borosilicate glass) are used for laboratory and kitchen products because they expand very little when heated, causing less strain. But they still expand a little bit, and repeated use, physical abuse, or minor imperfections can upset the whole works. Pyrex also has a softening point around 600ºC, IIRC, and an empty container that gets too close to a heating element can get that hot.
If you’re in DC, you can just drive (or take the Metro) up to Bethesda and visit Night Dreams, where they’ll be happy to show you their wide selection. If you don’t like the wide ones, they’ll show you their skinny selection, too… :eek:
Seriously: it’s a good store with a friendly staff. If you just want pics, Google is your friend.
More like a softening point of 850 degrees or so, but a strain point below 600 degrees.
Astroboy14, were you baking or broiling? Pyrex is pretty darn durable, but broiling can still cause problems because of the uneven distribution of heat. Ask me how I know!
I’d just like to note the pyrex most certainly can shatter in the microwave, as my roomates once discovered while heating wax for beauty treaments. Aint nothing like cleaning a microwave full of hardened glass infused wax.
