My first time making homemade sauce I burned the garlic so bad my whole apartment smelled like a campfire for two days... but I tried again and now I can't go back to Prego. It's wild how a 99 cent can of crushed tomatoes plus a little patience beats that sugary jar stuff every time. I keep telling myself the jar is "faster" but really it's just me being lazy.

@miles_roberts nailed it, I found the same trick at a hostel in Buenos Aires behind a dusty bookshelf.

Maybe it's the whole business model that's changing, not just the tools themselves. Snap-on used to be a small company that actually cared about mechanics, but now they're owned by a big corporation that's all about profits. I bet the pressure to keep prices high and cut costs on manufacturing is where the real problem is. That would explain why the new stuff feels cheaper even though you're paying more.

Your local water chemistry might be the missing piece here. Hard water with high mineral content can actually react with the clay in bricks and make them turn into a crumbly mess when they soak too long. Soft water with low mineral content does the opposite it washes out the natural binders in the brick. Nobody else mentioned checking their water source but that could explain why some folks have no trouble soaking bricks and others end up with a pile of dust. Next time try using distilled water or just give them a light spray like you said. It saved me a lot of headache after I figured that out the hard way.

Haha yeah I might've skipped the obvious step and went straight to blaming the gremlins in the control box! Classic case of overthinking it.