Tommysmommy, Did I reply to you...or only intend to?! Yikes, a senior moment. First of all, this is my first year growing brugs so I'm flying by the seat of my pants & learning from folks as I go. 2 of my 8 plants have each formed a "Y" and a bud or two and I'm hoping they'll go ahead and bloom. Even here in the coolish PNW, sangs don't like summer sun. I found a happy place for them under overhanging fir boughs where they get morning sun, then filtered sun the rest of the day. By comparison, my other kinds of brugs grow well in full sun all day. If you have "Y's", you can hope for buds. But I gather the sangs are a little fussier about blooming, so who knows?! How much time do you have before you can expect frost? Cool weather, without frost, is probably your friend, where sangs are concerned. Good luck! Patrick

John, I had a pretty good year here. French Canadian is on her third flush with another to come if the temps hold. I think it is just that way some years, I had one like that a couple of years ago with no rhyme or reason. I figure they should be allowed the odd 'off' one. :) I say this for any and all zones.... improve your soil and plant them directly into the ground so you do not have to fertilize or water so much. A good root system will give you a good plant and good flowers. I fertilized mine for only the second( and last) time this year the last week in August. That is really my only 2 'secrets'.

I'm in Newnan, GA. I'm going to wait. I'm just so darn anxious to get them in the ground. All 3 that I purchased looked terrible to me. They look so much better now. I even had one get a single bloom on it. It was beautiful. I want more, more and more. *LOL* Just anxious is all. I can wait it out. Thanks.

Even (if) the porcelain was completely bad, it is impossible for it to be cleanly dissolved/vaporized. The missing portion looks pretty clean to me. I don't know where it went or if it went or if is this is somehow a reaction which makes the metal appear to be bare. The only thing I'm sure of is that it doesn't look normal and I am not going to cook in it. As a matter of fact, non-stick surface can take temperature higher than 450 F and even at much higher temperature you still cannot cleanly remove the coating. I don't think that it did reach a very high temperature. I just reconfirmed with hubby that the pizza wasn't hot yet. I am concerned that whatever the material inside the cookwell was, you did make one meal in it and there might be health issue to consider. I believe that the matter needs to be escalated higher with Nesco until you get a satisfactory answer, not just with the Service Department. Do not throw away the defective cookwell. I believe Nesco may have a serious product liability issue here. The thought crossed my mind on the "health" issue. The cookwell looked normal after the first use and washing. It was during the second use, when he lifted the lid that it was found like this. Hubby is an engineer, and he could not have been more surprised. You may want to check the heatwell operation. Typically a device like this uses bi-metal thermostat or some mechanical / capillary device to control temperature. None of them are highly accurate or reliable. Looking at your picture, it is possible that the thermostat had failed and the interior temperature had risen to much higher range. If that's the case, it can damage your replacement cookwell just the same. Because the pizza wasn't hot yet, I don't think it overheated. I'll be watching the new cookwell closely for the first several uses. I find it strange that Nesco didn't want it returned if they were truly puzzled. I'm sure puzzled! If the porcelain broke off the underlying metal, you'd find pieces of it. It certainly didn't vaporize. Either Nesco already knows what's going on, or they just have a low-level person instructed to replace without argument anything people are unhappy with. Maybe you should write a letter to someone higher up. 
Manufacturers often use different plants in China from one year to the next, and quality can change drastically. I don't know if Nesco was puzzled, they did want photos emailed, which is why I had one available to post here. The person I talked to had discussed it with a manager. They actually suggested that we try to clean the "stains" with Soft Scrub. We explained that what they were seeing is not "stains" but rather missing finish. We did try it though, with no change in the appearance at all. I suspect our cookwell isn't the only one, something happened somewhere in the manufacturing process. I did ask them whether the cookwells are produced in China, which they denied. The quality coming out of China is all over the place, even on the same product. That is one reason we cook for our dogs to begin with, which makes this whole issue somewhat ironic. athomesewing, what is the dark material in the pic above the bare metal? Is it the coating which covered the metal before the lower part disappeared? The dark area is the original finish. The best way to descibe it is that the cookwell "looks" to be the same color and material that the heatwell is made of. Do you have other porcelain coated cookware for comparison, or are you familiar with the appearance of it, from having seen it on enameled steel canners or spaghetti pots? In other words, how certain are you that the cookwell was actually porcelain on steel? Porcelain is a ceramic material and is very durable except for a propensity to chip. This "porcelain" is like the bottom half of a oven broiler pan, the type that is generally included with a range. I don't know if it's porcelain, however that is what Nesco calls it. Looks like the heatwell. Is it possible that someone switched with you? A joke maybe? LOL...No, however if someone had switched, I would still wonder what would have caused theirs to look like this?