Exploding Pyrex is an urban legend

By Barb Randall

The Lake Oswego Review, Nov 12, 2009 (1 Reader comment)

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My sister is far from an alarmist, so her e-mail about “exploding Pyrex” took my full attention.

The message described a Pyrex dish exploding in a hot oven apparently for no reason, “peppering a roast beef with small shards of very sharp glass.” Searching for an explanation the writer googled “exploding Pyrex dishes” and “got ten million hits. Exploding Pyrex is very common,” the e-mail claimed.

The e-mail stated that the original manufacturer of Pyrex, Corning, made the dishes out of borosilicate glass, which the writer described as “indestructible.” “But like everything else,” the letter went on, “the Bottom Liners had a great idea: Sell the technology to another company. The Chinese discovered that using soda lime glass was almost as good as borosilicate glass and a lot cheaper. Corning not only sold the technology to a company called World Kitchen, they also sold the rights to the original Pyrex logo. Seamless. The consumer will never know,” the writer ranted. “Now it seems people are getting hurt using soda lime Pyrex. We were lucky because the dish broke while the oven was closed and the damage was limited to the oven cavity. Others have been less fortunate. Some dishes explode when they are lifted from the heating rack in the oven with devastating results.”

And the writer went on: “If you buy a Pyrex dish, beware. The label on the front says oven safe, freezer safe, microwave safe. The instructions on the back tell another story. You cannot move a soda lime Pyrex dish from the freezer to the oven and expect it to survive. The fine print has prevented World Kitchen from being sued because they have warned the consumer that their Pyrex dishes are junk from the get go. And they are the same price as the original Corning dishes. What a bunch of losers we are for buying this crap.

“The reason the soda lime dishes let go is that over time they develop microcracks. Once a few microcracks are present and once some liquid finds its way into the cracks you have the bombs situation. The liquid is like shoving a crowbar in the dish and pulling it apart. Super-heated liquids expand rapidly and it is the super-heated liquids that force the soda lime glass to shatter into tens of thousands of shards.

“… We decided that one bomb in the kitchen is enough. The Pyrex dishes will go bye-bye in this week’s trash. I do not know what we will use for cake and pie dishes going forward. If you have some suggestions we are listening.

“I strongly urge you not to use the soda lime Pyrex for the oven, stovetop or microwave. The slightest invisible crack is all it takes to have a mess and possible injury.

“As to World Kitchen, them and their cheap dishes. In case you are wondering: World Kitchen is not a USA company.”

Urban legend? It had all the markings of one.

I know we have all had glass baking dishes break. It happens; in fact just last week I had one break on me. But I can only blame my breakage on my actions: The instant I slipped the hot dish into the sink of sudsy water I knew it would break. It didn’t shatter but simply cracked across the middle. But could Pyrex truly explode without reason? Could it truly be a potential danger in the kitchen?

I googled World Kitchen Inc. and learned it is headquartered in Rosemont, Ill., and owns Chicago Cutlery, Corelle, CorningWare, Revere and other kitchen ware lines. WK purchased the Pyrex label in 1998, and yes, they use soda lime glass, but Corning had made that change in the 1940s. Pyrex bakeware is made in a plant in Charleroi, Pa., first by Corning and now by WK.

WK states that it has received complaints from only a “very small number of consumers” about unexpected breakage, and notes that the Consumer Product Safety Commission has found no safety issue with Pyrex glass bakeware.

A few days later my sister sent a link for Snopes.com, the Urban Legends Reference Pages. Its job is to dispel or confirm rumors. And the site had plenty to dispel about Pyrex. You can read the whole report at www.snopes.com but here are some highlights:

n Pyrex is used in an estimated 80 percent of U.S. homes.

n Pyrex glass bakeware has an excellent safety record, established over decades. The CPSC, the federal agency charged with protecting consumers, maintains a database of injury reports to identify potentially hazardous products, and these records do not indicate any safety issue with glass bakeware. There has never been a recall of Pyrex glass bakeware.

Some Pyrex-branded products sold in the U.S., such as kitchen gadgets, are manufactured in China, but all the Pyrex brand glass bakeware products Snopes.com examined in U.S. retail stores have borne “Made in USA” labels.

Snopes.com reiterated that all glass bakeware is susceptible to breakage and suggests that all users of glass bakeware, regardless of brand, should follow some basic steps to minimize the possibility of such an occurrence:

n Read the instructions packaged with the product to make sure your intended use is within the guidelines. Some brands of bakeware may not be recommended for uses above a specified temperature, even though other brands are.

n In general, glass bakeware should be used only with conventional ovens, not on stovetops or with toaster ovens or broilers.

n Always use (dry) potholders or oven mitts to handle glass bakeware that has been heated.

n Avoid subjecting glass bakeware to sudden, extreme changes in temperature, such as submerging still hot pans in water or transferring them to a freezer. Instead, allow the pans to sit until they have returned to close to room temperature first.

I plan to replace my broken Pyrex pie pan with more of the same and use it with confidence. There is no need to avoid glass bakeware, but there are options.

A quick tour of a local kitchen supply store showed many options, including foil, tin, metal (check out All-Clad’s new bakeware line), ceramic (love the look and feel of Emile Henry) and porcelain (beautiful pieces from Revol).

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