I just got a PM this morning from a gentleman that was having problems heating his plastic he proceeded to tell me that he is using a hot plate there is a little trick doing that you cannot put your pot directly on a burner you have to be awful careful if you do because you will burn the plastic quickly you have to put a barrier between the hot plate burner in your pot I suggest strongly that the beginners find a use microwave oven in a garage sale or go buy a brand-new one you can find them fairly cheap and you don't need a big one microwave oven is a safe us that I found just make sure that you do not run your time very long and you should stir every few seconds to get it to the right temperature or like it falls off a stirring rod pretty close to a drop of water I like to run mine about 325° you can get a meter to check this remember the meter is only hitting the top of your plastic so you should constantly stir because you will see some white settlement in the Pyrex cup that you should be using keep stirring until this disappears you shouldn't have any problems.