My Pyrex bakeing pan just shattered!!!

[D L and K's Mom]

I came through the door and DH had made dinner (he is a doll!) He had the pork roast in a pyrex baking pan and was taking it out of the oven and placing it on the smooth top stove when the baking pan shattered. It made a popping noise and shattered. The stove top was not hot but it was not cold either. The heat from the oven makes it warm. The burners had not been used as DH microwaved all the sides. The glass shattered and small shards went in the food, in the oven (DH still had the door open) and all over the stovetop. It was so hard to clean because it sort of stuck onto the stovetop because of the stickey marinade juice. I had to throuw away all the food and shop vac the inside of the oven. I saved a piece of the glass pan. It is all cracked like when safety glass cracks, all small squares. It was a huge mess!!!! I cleaned it all up but I am confused as to what may have happened. I know not to put it from cold to hot or hot to cold, this is very odd. DH got chinese food instead so he is happy. Oh well, I am hoping this does not put a stop to him trying to have dinner ready for us!! Has this happened to anyone else? I checked the PYrex site and read the "Care Tips" and we didnt do anything that is listed as a "no, no".

 

[Mermaid02]

No but it happened to a friend of mine. When pyrex breaks it splinters into a million pieces.... I guess when it's ready to go it just explodes!

 

[poohandwendy]

Sometimes there can be a very small imperfection in the glass that when it gets hit at just the right angle (when you set it down) will cause it to shatter. I've had the same thing happen. It's freaky, and obviously a very messy clean up.

 

[Imzadi]

It sounds like it could have been one of two things: thermal shock or a fault in the Pyrex glass.

How old is the Pyrex glass? Have you used it often? The fault may have been there for quite some time & finally gave way from too many heatings combined with being set on the stove top.

Although the pop sound could also have been thermal shock. When DH set the pan on the stove top, it was NOT the same temperature as what was in the pan. So one side of the glass instantly cooled to one temperature (and shrank,) while the food was still very much hot & heating it on the other side, expanding the glass.

A smooth stove top takes longer to heat (and longer to cool down,) so it would have been cold on that side of the glass for too long. A better option is to place the Pyrex or ceramic pan on an oven mitt. The fabric would heat up quickly & insulate the pan from thermal shock.

 

[PrincessPaczki]

OMGosh that just happened to me yesterday. I pulled my pyrex out of the oven and set it on a warm pizza stone. All of a sudden it made a loud pop noise and cracked in several pieces. I could not believe it! If you look on your recycling schedule it actually says that they do not take pyrex. I can see why, it shatters!

 

[cccm]

Happened to my sister. She had little shards stuck in the kitchen floor and the cabinets. The kids weren't allowed in the kitchen for weeks without shoes.

 

[blana]

I had that happen once. Inside the oven. Macaroni & Cheese everywhere. I still think I'm finding bits when I clean the oven.

 

[mudnuri]

Does pyrex have any warranty against this?

I've never had it happen to me, but I have all of the pampered chef stoneware and only use that. however, if my Pampered Chef stone shatters, I send in a piece and get a new one....I think its only good for X amount of years though...??

Brandy

 

[irishbosoxfan]

I had one go one me just after I got married--I was making a chicken and the pan ran out of water,being fairly inexperienced in the kitchen I grabbed the tea kettle and poured some more water in.

Boy did that thing explode!! There was tiny slivers of glass everywhere to include my arms,legs(had shorts on) and my face--I was never so glad in my life that my son wasn't right there with me.

It was a long time before I was confident enough to use another glass pan.

 

[ducklite]

Another DIS Boarder had this same thing happen to her a month or two ago. Makes me wonder about using Pyrex. I mostly use it to bake brownies and pineapple-upside-down-cake in.

 

[D L and K's Mom]

I have tons of pyrex. I am getting nervous to use it!!! It was everywhere...lettle needle like pieces. Arggg hard to clean up when they are sticky. I dont know how old it is ...maybe a year or two. I sent an email to Pyrex. I will let you know what they say if anything.

 

[wnissen]

Well, glass of any kind, even high-quality borosilicate (Pyrex) expands and contracts as its temperature changes. Anything that causes a rapid change in temperature can stress the glass and crack it. Pyrex is better than regular glass, but not indestructible.

In general, I avoid putting Pyrex on anything but a pot holder when it's out of the oven. I also don't pour large amounts of cold liquids into hot Pyrex, as this can cause the same problem. However, eventually the stress caused by countless expansions and contractions will weaken the glass to the point where it breaks. Once in college lab I was working with an expensive, delicate piece of glass, suspended over a Pyrex beaker. My clamp slipped and the glass fell onto the beaker. Luckily for me, it was the beaker, not the thin handblown globe, that shattered. The beaker had apparently been weakened by all that use in the lab and sacrificed itself. I was never so happy to see boiling water spilling onto the lab bench.

Walt

 

[solferino]

That popping sound is the fa-reekiest sound ever! We had a pyrex piece explode in the oven once and I was cleaning up shards of glass forever afterwards, or so it seemed. Thank goodness it was where it was when it exploeded because I just can't imagine what it would have been like elsewhere.

 

[weregoingtodw]

Same thing happened to me a few years ago, during a tropical storm no less. I was convinced that our house had been hit by either a tornado or a tree coming in, it was THAT loud and THAT much flying glass. VERY scary. It totally ruined our kitchen floor; we had to replace it. Tiny flying shards of glass everywhere. Like PPs, we were cleaning it for days, and were scared to go in there without shoes for weeks.

 

[Linzybrooke]

I had that happen to me once in college. My mom had given me her old set and I was making something, and it just exploded in my oven. Scared the crud out of me!

 

[muffyn]

Another DIS Boarder had this same thing happen to her a month or two ago. Makes me wonder about using Pyrex. I mostly use it to bake brownies and pineapple-upside-down-cake in.

if you want to try something 'else' for pineapple-upside-down-cake.. try cooking one in an Iron skillet!!

 

[D L and K's Mom]

It was an awful sound said DH. I think we got all of it up. There maybe some little shards in the oven. I just bought two beautiful blue pyrex bread pans for baking pumpkin bread and now I am very apprehensive about using them. I am thinking maybe go with metal.

 

[mickeysgal]

You know, hearing this story just reinforces why I don't cook.

Cooking is dangerous for my health.

 

[Imzadi]

Let this thread be a timely warning not to use Pyrex on Thanksgiving. The last thing people need is to have their Pyrex pan of sweet potatoes shatter & explode all over the turkey & all the sides & totally ruin Thanksgiving.

Does pyrex have any warranty against this?

I've never had it happen to me, but I have all of the pampered chef stoneware and only use that. however, if my Pampered Chef stone shatters, I send in a piece and get a new one....I think its only good for X amount of years though...??

Brandy

The very nature of how Pyrex glass is tempered to withstand the heat is unfortunately also what makes it brittle and shatter & explode.

Stoneware, without getting into names of chemicals you won't know, is made of a combination of more "stoney" materials. While you need to take the same precautions to prevent thermal shock, with stoneware, when you hear that CRACK! what usually will happen is that one side of the clay wall will warp & pull away from the other side and you'll get a big crevice like the Grand Canyon and everything will leak out immediately, or it will split in two, or you'll get a long hairline crack and you won't find it until you scoop out the last piece of lasagna and then find all the oil has seeped out all over the table beneath. Then you'll say, "Oh, that's what that loud noise was about."

Stoneware doesn't normally explode all over the oven like Pyrex. Any exploding would have happened in the first kiln firing while the raw clay was being turned into the hardened stoneware.

 

[java]

Hey that just happened to me on Halloween. It was a pyrex glass pie plate= it was less than a year old.
I told my kids it was a ghost