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I used to worry about this but there's not a meaningful difference if you have any care for the tools and basic precautions. Borosilicate glass also tends to be more dangerous when it breaks. I've broken far more pieces of glassware due to mechanical reasons than thermal reasons.

Pyrex doesn't have a maximum temperature limit in a kitchen environment if you are careful. Preheating the oven is the #1 way to prevent issues. If you put a piece of glassware in an electric oven without preheating it, you can create massive temperature deltas between top/bottom. I can get an iron skillet beyond 700F in my electric oven if I leave it in there while it's preheating for a set point of just 450F. If the heating element has direct line-of-sight to the cookware, you always need to be wary of radiative heating effects.



Preheating the oven can also increase the risk of thermal shock shattering the glass. The maximum tolerated temperature change for soda-lime glass is only ~60C.

Not being able to put it under a broiler is a huge disadvantage for nicely finishing dishes like a lasagna.


I have had this happen. Mac and cheese into the preheated oven, boom. Glass shards all over the dishes on the lower rack. Almost ruined Thanksgiving.


I thought preheated was the LEAST shocking to devices in the oven, otherwise they're in the cold oven (fine) until you start heating and they take the full energy from the elements trying to get the env to temp(not good). I guess too it would depend what the dishes are being set on in the oven - wire rack versus pizza stone/steel, ... I wouldn't think the hot air (poor conductor) would be as shocking as the direct energy from the full-on elements.

Unless your mac&cheese was premade, put into the fridge, then directly into the oven at cook time?


Was that with PYREX/pyrex or just a random casserole dish?


>Borosilicate glass also tends to be more dangerous when it breaks.

people say that, but from side by side comparisons of breaking both kinds, it really didn't seem to make a difference.

Its not like car window "glass" that just pebbles.


The pebbling in car window glass is safer, the pebbles aren't sharp. It's a deliberate feature that it pebbles.


The pebbles are sharp, they're just small and less likely to impale you

Source: bleeding fingers picking up the pieces after a car break-in


Yes there is! The lowercase one looses the writing/marking in about 6 months, rendering the measuring cups completely useless!


Wow, I had never even considered that the pre-heating phase could potentially get things hotter than the normal cycling, but yeah that makes sense. It’s just broiling from another direction.

I think my oven might cycle the bottom element even when pre-heating, possibly to prevent this.


i’ve never had a Pyrex baking dish fail in the oven, whether it was an old one or a newer one. Any breakage has always been my own damn fault.


Incorrect.




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