Beaker popping during the final stages of the nitric boils.

[Shark]

Many times when running a reaction I have had to keep the heat low to avoid this. If I had known that broken ceramics could have helped it would have been useful. Sometime higher heat is very useful.

Would pieces of broken ceramic processors work for this? I still have several that need processed.

 

[Alondro]

Using glass marbles seems like a decent idea, how many glass marbles did you use..?
I have a 1/2lt beaker I which I process about 50gms of fine gold.

Well, it all depends on the volume of solution. For my relatively small amounts in just a 1L beaker, I just need 2 at a time. Large amounts in large vessels will require more than that.