In a thrift store a couple of days ago, a pretty large and heavy piece of glass broke a couple of aisles over from where I was browsing. It was loud, and the resulting fragments were oddly small (in the bin after cleanup).
Apparently, a patron reported that it had broken (in the aisle where she was standing) for no apparent reason; nothing else was happening at the time--nobody had touched it, nor had it somehow fallen from the shelf. It had just exploded.
It was a large glass baking pan.
This reminded me of stories I had begun hearing a few years back of problems with heatproof kitchen glassware (cookware) after a switch from borosilicate to [some other glass formulation].
It has made me wonder about the glassware we have here. A Snopes article has caused me to worry that I would not be able tell with certainty which of two kinds of glass kind we have, and therefore to consider doing away with it all. (White Corning stuff is a different material; I may keep that.)
• <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyhdMa1ikKM> Very interesting.
Apparently there are several (many?) such vids @ YouTube.
Corning cookware @ Wikipedias:
We have some white Corning cookware: Some is over 40 years old, and is marked "for range and microwave"; one piece is newer and lacks the "range" marking. We use these pieces in the microwave oven only.
• We have this tableware (in plain white): <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corelle>. Apparently its composition is largely unchanged. (We have broken one piece, but others have been dropped and smacked without damage.)
• We also have one of these Visions glass saucepans: <http://www.discusscooking.com/forums/f89/stovetop-cooking-with-pyrex-visions-cookware-3174.html>. Although we have used it on the stovetop without incident, it may not be so safe, either. We use it frequently in the microwave oven.
We have several pieces of clear glass bakeware, which I will examine for clues about whether they are suitable for use: big and small cake pans, loaf pans, etc.
Researching this has been (will be) kind of a lot of work, but if it keeps even one pan of brownies from being wasted (or one eye from being put out)....
And more reading is needed.
Mark_
14 October 2016
