Urgent please help! Have I messed this cooking pot up?

[KillerReels]

I am cooking for dinner and I had a brand new clay pot which had been collecting dust for liters years. Today I have decided to use it and on the box it said for the first time you use it, to place in cold water for 20 minutes which I did and this happened!

The top lid looks fine but the bottom bit was glazed just inside. Id it cracked. Is this normal?! Help!

Those are not clear photos at all. Are the underwater ? Wrapped in plastic? Which bit is the crack ?

Terracotta is porous and it has absorbed water into numerous fine hairline cracks (crazing) by the look of it. Whether the crazing is supposed to be there or not is another matter.

Is that a chicken brick?

It's a clay cooker.
So sorry, yes it's under water.

There's cracks like this, hopefully this is a better photo.

It was glazed inside so when I touch it I can't actually feel the cracks, if that makes any sense!

I would not use that.

Cracks in the glaze have let water in which will expand when heated and it could fall apart or worse if you cook in it!

@Scampuss oh bugger! What do you think went wrong? If I buy another one, I don't want to make the same mistake!

I dont use clay or pottery type dishes for the oven any more due to this sort of thing. I have a set of 3 lovely lasagne type dishes of different sizes and each time I cook with them they leach brown stuff on the outside, from the inside clay (or whaatever it is). So now for putting puddings together only, things that only need to go in the fridge. Actually they are in the garden at them moment as I was going to do some sort of mini gravel cactus thing with them if we drill holes in the bottom

Use yours for a planter OP if you put holes in the bottom, although you might not need to!

It's just old. Whether you use these types of pots or not the glaze ages on them.

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskCulinary/comments/11dmfo4/help_i_put_a_ceramic_dish_in_the_oven_and_it/?rdt=49957