this happened to my sister and also at a pot luck. i think it's crazy common! the scary part is that the couple who brought brownies to the pot luck joked about it and still served their dessert. ack!

Happened to me about 6 months ago. Called Pyrex and they asked me about my usage for a bit, then mailed me out a new bowl free of charge.

Funny thing is, they Pyrex site swears up and down they still make everything the same way.... and the internet is all lolnope.

Is there any way to tell if you go to say a Goodwill, whether you're buying old or new Pyrex? I'd love to buy some of the old stuff as we need new glassware....

so how does one (from the USA) obtain glassware from Europe?

From the Consumer Reports warning list:
"Never place hot glassware on top of a stove, on a metal trivet, on a damp towel, in the sink, on a cold or wet surface, or directly on a countertop. "

So where are you supposed to put a hot dish after pulling it out of the oven? I usually put it on one of the (turned-off) burners of the stovetop.

Ah yes, this was me two weeks ago. We took the oven apart and put it back together to remove every last shard of glass. And brought out the vacuum cleaner.

caliH: Look for Marinex (made in Brazil), Frigovere (made in Italy), or Luminarc (made in France). Most small kitchen boutique type places will have one or more of them, and you can also get all of them on Amazon.

This has happened to me twice! Took forever to get all of the glass shards out of the oven. I've stopped using glass bakeware as a result.

@e53, I usually put mine down on a wooden cutting board.

Pyrex has been this way for years. Such a shame too. Borosilicate works amazing and just cause it cost them extra pennies, we can't hardly find it anymore in bakeware.

Happened to a friend of mine (in Canada so I guess we're not getting the European version here either!). She was baking squash and RIGHT before it was ready, BAM.. the dish just exploded in her oven.

This story was on my local news a couple weeks ago. I'm just counting down the years until my dish explodes...

This just happened to me with a jadeite reproduction pie plate from Crate and Barrel, It cracked in the oven while I was roasting squash.

Lock&Lock sells borosilicate bakeware at very reasonable prices. So far it's worked well for me and most of it comes with locking covers. GREAT!

Ack, now this has me all paranoid--I bake and reheat all the time in a (new) set of Pyrex dishes... I haven't seen any mention of specific temperature--but I would imagine it's a higher-temp issue?? Or is it just kind of random? What would cause a glass dish you've been using for ages just fine to suddenly do this?

I shattered a pyrex lasagne pan in the oven cooking game hens, what a mess and waste of good food! I am now pretty cautious about heat shock, though I do put the pans on my stove top to cool.

ugh. something new to worry about! :)

WOW. I was actually just telling a co-worker not more than 5 minutes ago that i only buy the vintage pyrex because I've had two modern pyrex glassware pans shatter on me.

correction: they did not literally shatter on me, but while in the oven, thank goodness

The article I read said they did it because borosilicate glass can stand up to the high temps. associated with cooking meth. Now meth heads have to steal their borosilicate glassware from labs.

@allisonmf, what a silly excuse on their part. It reality, plain ol generic glass is cheaper to manufacture. And besides, if methheads really need the high temp glass, it doesn't take a genius to know you can buy lab glass online or in any town at a school or chem supply shop (just doesn't work so well for us with casseroles and roasted potatoes!)

First time this burned me was heating up something in a Pyrex measuring cup. Grabbed the handle out the microwave and after a few expletives, it was on the ground in pieces. My dad walked in at the time and said the ol "they don't make em like they used to" Borosilicate doesn't get hold heat like cheap glass.
Now if only I could buy Sudaphed when I have a cold without feeling like a hardened criminal!

Wow, that video's crazy! (Sidenote: doesn't that lady's job look awesome? How does one become a professional blower-upper?)

It's a shame that Pyrex changed their glassware to save a few pennies on the borosilicate. It'll cost them way more in lost customers. No way would I buy new Pyrex products now.

I have had two glass dishes break in the last few months - one in the oven and one in the dishwasher. Luckily, both split rather than shattered. I thought it was because I was storing them stacked and creating some sort of weird pressure point that weakened them.

Last Thanksgiving my mother handed me what she thought was a Pyrex bowl for me to pour hot drippings in for the gravy. I don't know if it was Pyrex or not, because it shattered all over the stovetop and the floor. This was about an hour before the company arrived and really threw everything into chaos - several dishes had to be started again. Luckily, one year my mother didn't turn on the oven to cook the turkey, so a shattered bowl can't even rank as the worst Thanksgiving disaster ever. ;)

It's called planned obsolescence. Just buy some cheap, classic stoneware instead. It works just as good and looks nicer.

If you don't want your Pyrex stuff to break, try putting it on a wood cutting board.

Glass breaks because of thermal shock (gets too hot or too cold too fast). That's why putting it on, say, a wet towel will break it - the wet towel absorbs the heat too quickly. A metal trivet can absorb the heat too quickly too.

Wood does NOT absorb heat quickly, so it's a good option if you're stuck with a lot of inferior glass bakeware.

The thing that annoys me most about the fake pyrex these days is that it chips like crazy! My mother's bakeware never had any problems like this.

Thanks so much to everyone who recommended real borosilicate brands - I will definitely have to look into investing in those.

If anyone has tips for recognizing old bakeware at garage sales, I'd be grateful!

I'm in Canada, and I've had it shatter. I had a pan of Greek lemony roast potatoes on top of the stove to check them, and, silly me, added some liquid (water or lemon juice) because it had dried out, not thinking about the fact that I was using glass this time, not metal. It exploded all over the stovetop and my counter. Fortunately I didn't get hurt - last time I knocked a water glass over on the counter, I found shards of glass in the back of my hands (!)

We took this up in class awhile back. Our professor (an expert in brittle materials) said that one (of many) way you can tell if your glass bake-ware is borosilicate by looking at the color of the glass. Make sure that the glass does not have green tinge in it. If the color is clear, then it's borosilicate. If not, soda-lime.

Because I remembered and had fond memories of the durable Pyrex bakeware my mother used, I invested in a few pans of various sizes two years ago. Then, this year, I started seeing articles or comments about the pans shattering while being used and now I'm thinking it's time to go back to metal pans.

this shouldn't be so surprising. it very explicitly states on the pyrex website:
"Pyrex glass bakeware has been made – first by Corning Incorporated and now by World Kitchen – using the same soda lime composition and heat-strengthening process for more than 60 years. "
http://www.pyrexware.com/index.asp?pageId=30
Soda lime glass is more resistant to breaking if you drop it, but is more sensitive to the extreme temperature changes (not just heat/reheat), and is clearly labeled on every piece of new pyrex. if you don't put cold liquid into a hot pan, or a frozen pan into a hot oven, or set a hot pan on a cold marble countertop/wet spot, in general it isn't a problem.

this happened to me! but it exploded when i took it out of the oven and i had to throw out the brioche buns i was cooking. that and it scared the tar out of me. i had no idea it was a common phenomenon

My square pyrex glass "tupperwares" are pretty consistently breaking when cooking in them in the tinnny toaster oven. Pisses me off because when I'm cooking a $10 filet the lazy way, I do not want to have to throw it away due to fear of glass shards decimating my insides.

Plus those Pyrex dishes are expensive!

And JillyAnnie--Happy someone knows the trick to looking for legit old school Pyrex! Thanks for letting us in on the secret! :D

I'm always super paranoid about sticking my Pyrex measuring glass in the microwave. Guess I'll stop that practice altogether.

The rest of my Pyrex is from the 50s and 60s, so no worries there.

This is shocking. I've always trusted Pyrex.

Ours exploded too (anchor). We took it out of the oven and put it on top of the stove (which was off btw). As someone else has mentioned: where else are we supposed to put it? Why do we have to jump through hoops in order to use a baking dish for its intended purpose? That's like saying I can buy a car but I'm not allowed to park it on the ground.

I thought the explosion was pretty cool, actually, but I sure do get sick of checking my dinner for shards of glass. I still find the tiniest pieces that escaped sweeping, vacuuming and scrubbing. I find them by getting them lodged in my feet as I'm walking by. That's nice.

They switched to lime soda glass because people were cooking meth with the borosilicate? I hope that isn't true. Nobody deserves to have glass explode on them.

I've never had anything glass explode, but about half of my glass bakeware is from the early '90s or 1980s, or even earlier.

Here are some things I do in general to avoid glass breaking due to temperature changes:

1. If pouring hot liquids into a glass container, always put in a metal spoon. The spoon will absorb the heat instead of the glass, which theoretically will not break. (learned that one from how to poor boiling Moroccan mint tea in those teeny thin glasses).

2. You can get cork trivets from IKEA for super cheap, which is what I use a lot. Alternately, I use thick crocheted squares - just make sure they're not wet or damp first. Although I have also put mine on the stove burners, but my oven leaks heat through the top, so my electric burners are almost always warm if the oven is on. Or maybe I've just been lucky so far.

3. Be careful with it when washing! Dropped or banged glass, even if it's not broken, can have weak spots that could facilitate breakage. FoodinJars made that point about using mason jars to eat out of - apparently using metal spoons or forks to eat out of them helps weaken the glass and can lead to breakage if you try to can with them.

But yeah, I'm totally paranoid now. I hope this doesn't happen to me - or anyone else for that matter!

Wow. Way to spellcheck myself. I meant "pour," not "poor." I don't know how one would divest boiling water of money...

Borosilicate glass is recommended in chemistry labs, and I was told it was in regards to acids and especially bases. Having spent a few semesters in labs, I am aware of the risks but tend to do inadvisable things (like making jello in glass measuring cups). I always wanted to do all of my cooking in chemistry glassware. Now I'll have to start converting my casserole recipes to beaker sizes!

this happened to me last weekend. my anchor glass baking dish shattered in my oven luckily while the door was closed. i had JUST opened it a minute earlier. still cleaning up all the little shards a week later, i can hear it popping in my oven everytime i turn it on. luckily we have two ovens...

It's happened to me twice as well. One of those instances occurred while I was taking the dish out of the oven. I actually had my oven-mitted hands on the dish and it shattered in every direction, in the oven and all over the kitchen. It's amazing that I wasn't injured. Glass shards were everywhere around me.

Yet more stuff to worry about :( I was going to downsize my kitchenette by getting an electronic skillet until I started reading about incidents of cracking/exploding glass lids :I

This happened to me one night, just as my husband's colleagues rang the door for dinner. I heard the crackling noise and ducked, thankfully. There were shards ALL over the entire kitchen, and I was mortified, but luckily unhurt.

I've never had a problem with my new Pyrex, but my mom sent me a warning about this after it happened to her friend years ago and she did some poking around and found out everything mentioned here. I never put it in an oven set higher than 375, though, and I always have that little twinge of, "Is it going to shatter on me this time?" Some reports indicate that Pyrex started switching glass tpye as early as the late 40's!

This happened to me a few months ago. I was baking rolls, set the pyrex dish on the counter, 1 second later it exploded all over my kitchen. I was really lucky I didn't get injured.

Let's tell the whole story folks...
The primary reason Pyrex changed to soda lime glass is that it is less harmful to the environment. Basically, the EPA forced the change. The EU regulations are lax in the this regard. Borosilicate glass production is very dirty.

Oh, and we we use all glass storage (the cheapest type pyrex makes) and it hasn't broken yet. We just cork trivits.

This makes me paranoid. When we moved, I purchased glass bakeware and a few weeks later read about the 'explosions'.

I don't know what to buy! I also had some sheetpans that 'popped' and warped while I was roasting potatoes and it caused a greasefire!!! NYFD came and everything ugh.

I'd love some guidance on great sheet pans THAT CAN HANDLE HIGH HEAT!! and even just a good brand of casserole dishes (besides le cruset $$$)

I have a lodge dutch oven and have not used it in the oven yet....

Oh no! Well I guess I have a reason to buy those wonderful vintage pyrex dishes I saw at the thrift store yesterday :)

Yep, this happened to me as well (Anchor baking dish - my Pyrex hasn't done this) when I was making a lasagne a year or so ago. It literally blew up in my oven - I heard a huge bang, then when running over to the oven and saw that the dish had shattered and exploded in the oven (which was at 375).

When I called to complain, they acted as if this has never happened before and accused me of misusing their dishes. A quick search on Google revealed I was not the only one that this had happened to...

Any time you put anything hot on a puddle of cold water, it will likely shatter. Video doesn't prove anything to me. That being said, I did have a "microwave safe' glass bowl explode in the microwave. It wasn't pyrex.

After I had a pyrex pan explode on me I researched pans and came up with the same results. They don't make 'em like they used to!

hmm, never had it happen to me. but then again, I just assumed it was common sense that if you're cooking with high temperatures to not use glass. Nevertheless, i'll definitely start taking more notice to how I deal with my glass pans from now on and keep my eye out for vintage pans.

My 15yr old son turned on the wrong burner, on med heat on a flat top stove, my Pyrex dish was on it, it exploded into a million pieces, he was home alone, thank goodness he wasn't in the kitchen at the time, we found bits of glass for a couple of weeks

I didn't realize pyrex changed their formula. I grew up thinking the stuff was practically magic ... hence my lack of common sense. Maybe borosilicate glass would have failed too though ... it isn't a metal. I heated an empty pyrex pan to 425F, pulled the rack out an inch, and added boiling water to the pan ... and it exploded, luckily (amazingly) not injurying anyone.

Never heard of this, here in Europe.

Another old article being trotted out!

Anyway, the real question is what are the brands that DO use borosilicate and where can we buy them if we need a new glass baker?

Those unidentified reposts are really annoying and since I've been watching the blog for at least 3 years now I spot almost all of them. And there's been a lot, of late. BOO.

i had this happen to me recently with a vietri casserole dish we got as a wedding gift (could never afford this brand otherwise), which was surprising as they are expensive as hell. you would think they would be of better quality, but we ended up running into the exact same problem...

My mom sent me an email about this probably 5 or so years ago.

I work in a lab and most glass labware is made out of borosillicate glass. I would think our glass is a bit thicker to withstand more use, but I've never had a problem of items just shattering. We regularly autoclave items at 121C (~250F) so at a much lower temp, but with high pressure and I haven't had anything shatter.

That said, I do own two hand me down Pyrexs and haven't had problems yet (knock on wood!!)

I definitely agree! Maybe they should just head the post with "A blast from the past" or "Articles worth revisiting" or "In case you missed it" or... something. They are pertinent, sometimes, but if its just content filler... oy.

I definitely agree. I had a new-ish (about 4 years old) pyrex dish explode on me a few months ago. But the old pyrexs that were either hand-me downs or bought at thrift stores are still good.

It is annoying to read an article referencing a report from "earlier this year" which, in fact, is from last year. Could you please mark up these old rehashed posts or edit them to make them pertinent? It's frustrating to reach the bottom and realize that we're basically reading out of date information and that there are already close to 60 comments from a year ago on the article.

I've only had one Pyrex dish explode, and it was completely my fault. I'd baked BBQ chicken in it and was having trouble getting the hardened sauce out, so in a moment of complete stupidity, I decided to boil water in it on the stovetop. Cleaning up all the glass shards was a pain, but the explosion was actually kind of cool.

Agreed with meatified! This is happening all the time now! Maybe half the posts a day are recycled old posts.

This happened to us a few years ago. With a Pyrex baking dish full of drumsticks roasting in the oven, the dish exploded. It took me forever to get the shards out of the oven. Even after the landlord replaced the oven for other reasons, we were still finding glass fragments. I'm inclined to use Corningware stoneware for such jobs in the future. All the same, I also noticed, to my dismay that Corning has taken similar steps. Whereas my mom's old Corningware 'GrabIt' dishes from the 70s were fine for range tops with a totally lacquered undersides, mine, purchased in the '00s have unfinished rings on their undersides and are labeled as not being for rangetops & broilers. Bah.

The soda-lime Pyrex typically has a bluish hue to it. I've made the mistake of buying it before, but won't again. From now on I buy Marinex - they use borosilicate.

My glass baking dish shattered just a few weeks ago. It was sitting on the stove and BLAM! I was lucky that I didn't get hurt since I was standing right in front of the oven. I'm still finding glass shards all over my kitchen and living room.

manjar is right - soda-lime glass has a blue/green tint to it when you look at the edge of the dish. I've found Pyrex both made of soda-lime and made with borosilicate (I'm assuming; it has a greyish tint if you look at an edge of the dish) in Canada.

This happened to me last year, only I had taken the dish out and put it on a stove element. It sat there for about a minute then spontaneously exploded into a billion fragments all over the stove and floor.

The worst part was what was inside the dish: a really saucy lasagne that instantly poured all over my ankles and feet. Had to visit the ER where I was treated for 3rd degree burns and glass in the soles of my feet from stepping back.

According to this website, PYREX® is made with borosilicate and pyrex® is made with soda lime. Lower case vs all caps apparently is enough to tell the difference!

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120202/15510717640/shattering-pyrex-to-show-massive-weakness-trademark-law.shtml

thanks so much for that link, Tara in Florida - very interesting information - but i'm actually surprised by so many of the people, especially here on TK, going on about the whole glassware issue; it's simple really - DON'T BAKE IN GLASSWARE! problem solved. you're all welcome. sheeshe!

Don't bother importing Pyrex from Europe. My recent purchases in UK have done nothing but chip on the handles. My USA Pyrex dishes have never chipped and are more than 40 years old.